The Authentic Stagecoach Inn--Where Time Stopped

A ghost named Pierre has his private room at Ventura County’s Stagecoach Inn Museum in Newbury Park, once a stopover for weary travelers riding the bouncing horse-drawn coaches between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. A pair of boots has been placed beside a bed in one of the second-floor rooms, and there is a saddle in the corner.

Don’t laugh.

Psychics take his presence seriously, and museum director Harriet Baker relates how one hopeful ghost-watcher spent the night sleeping in the Victorian-style parlor. Awakening, he heard the thumping sounds of footsteps on the floor above and went up the stairs to investigate. His dog refused to follow. True, the man found nothing, but sometimes that’s just the way of ghosts.

This is just one of the interesting stories docents from the Conejo Valley Historical Society will relate while guiding visitors through this fascinating inn, which has been re-created to represent a bygone era with detailed authenticity ranging from period furniture to the smallest of kitchen utensils.

No one is quite sure when the hapless Pierre, a Basque sheepherder, was murdered--perhaps during the 1880s, or even earlier. All agree that he was shot and then fell down the stairs--his assailant was never apprehended. Perhaps Pierre liked the lodgings so much that he posthumously decided never to leave.

An Eventful Year

The Stagecoach Inn, originally named the Grand Union Hotel, opened July 4, 1876, a momentous year in American history. On June 25, George Armstrong Custer and five troops of his 7th Cavalry rode off to a soldier’s Valhalla on the Little Big Horn of Dakota Territory. It was not until July 5 that his wife, Elizabeth, and 25 other women waiting at Ft. Lincoln learned of the cavalry’s massacre by the Indians.

Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President that year, succeeding Ulysses S. Grant, a Civil War hero who had served two terms. The new First Lady was Lucy Webb Hayes, “Lemonade Lucy,” who outlawed liquor and low-cut gowns from the White House.

Californians were reading about the great World’s Fair that had opened in Philadelphia for the nation’s centennial celebration. One of the exhibitors was Alexander Graham Bell, who demonstrated his new invention--the telephone. The reaction of many visitors was less than enthusiastic, because they couldn’t visualize how such a device would ever become useful.

Coaching East, West

That year a group of wealthy sportsmen organized the Coaching Club in New York City. Each member owned an English coach pulled by four horses. Driving one was called four-in-hand. For these dandies who trotted up Fifth Avenue and through Central Park, top hats, green coats and white waistcoats were de rigueur. Easterners relied on buckboard surreys, phaetons and runabouts for transportation, but with roads little more than wagon tracks (some of them along the beach) between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, the coach on this run was appropriately called a California mudwagon. There is a model of the mudwagon in the Stagecoach Inn Museum’s barn.

More comfortable coaches were used by Wells Fargo throughout the Mother Lode country during the California Gold Rush. Only the finest woods were used, and while they had no springs, the coaches were suspended on layers of steer hide. Each door was painted by an artist, who never duplicated the scrollwork decorations.

The Butterfield Line

One of the most ambitious stage lines ever operated was founded by John Butterfield. It stretched 2,700 miles across the wilderness from St. Louis to Los Angeles and on to San Francisco. Waterman L. Ormsby Jr., correspondent for the New York Herald, rode this overland stage west on the inaugural 20-day cross-country run that left St. Louis Sept. 16, 1858.

Reaching Los Angeles, the stage stopped at a livery station at what is now 2nd and Spring streets. Ormsby noted in his article that Los Angeles had about 6,000 inhabitants, and on the outskirts of the city were extensive vineyards producing “the most luscious grapes, from which the wines are made which have a world-wide celebrity.”

On Oct. 4, they changed coaches and left for San Francisco via the Ridge Route, past Ft. Tejon and up through the San Joaquin Valley.

The Civil War brought an end to the line and by 1869 the nation was joined by a transcontinental railroad. The horse-and-buggy era passed into history around 1910. A new conveyance called the horseless carriage had made its appearance. Later they would be advertised as motorcars: Stanley Steamers, Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Packards. It was Henry Ford’s Model T, first introduced in 1908, that was to become one of the most popular cars in the United States.

Tri-Village Complex

Members of the Conejo Valley Historical Society have added a tri-village complex to the inn that depicts three important historical eras in the history of the valley.

There is a typical pioneer home that might have been occupied during the 1870s, a Spanish/Mexican adobe from the early 1800s and two Chumash thatched huts used by the first inhabitants encountered by the early Spanish explorers. Furnishings in the inn reflect a period between the 1880s and 1910. Many items are valuable, such as a mirror given by the Marquis de Lafayette to a friend during the American Revolution, a bed in which Abraham Lincoln’s son once slept, and an organ that was shipped around Cape Horn during the age of sail.

The decor has been changed in only one of the inn’s 17 rooms. The bar where thirsty travelers could dissolve trail dust with a draft or two is now a gift shop.

Sunday is the best day to visit this museum because all buildings are open and staffed by docents who explain their history. There’s a park adjacent to the inn with a playground for children, an ideal setting for a picnic. The museum is open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Admission is free. Information: (805) 498-9441.

To reach the museum from Los Angeles, take the Ventura Freeway, exit at Ventu Park Road (after crossing the Ventura County line). Cross over the freeway and drive a short distance to the entrance.