HIDDEN CALIFORNIA : Life in the Valley
IN 1841, WILLIAM WORKMAN and John Rowland arrived in Southern California, the first Americans to successfully make the overland journey. The Workman family house standing today is the structure as it was remodeled in the 1870s. A visit to the 6-acre site, 20 miles east of downtown L.A., provides a glimpse of what life was like in an early-California home.
In 1923, Walter Temple, Workman’s grandson and founder of Temple City, bought back some of the land that his grandfather had lost to Lucky Baldwin and built a 24-room Spanish Colonial Revival mansion in the middle of a walnut grove that has been likened to a miniature San Simeon. Also of interest in this small oasis of rural history is El Campo Santo, the Workman family cemetery, believed to be among the oldest private cemeteries in California.
Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, 15415 E. Don Julian Road, City of Industry; (818) 968-8492. Robert Waddell
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