Reopened Gilman Ranch gives a glimpse of Inland life in the 1800s

Visitors can once again tour the Gilman Historic Ranch, including a reproduction of the original 1879 ranch house on the grounds. The original ranch house, rebuilt in 2005, was lost in a fire in 1977, three days after the property became part of the Riverside County Regional Park and Open Space District, said Steve Lech, assistant Riverside County park planner. The Wagon Museum at the ranch, which displays a collection of vintage stage coaches and wagons, remains closed for an upgrade. The replica of the ranch house was built with county funds and money raised by some former ranch hands, Lech said. Some furniture and other artifacts in it belonged to the Gilman family, which lived in the house until the 1950s. Virginia Sisk, of Hemet, a great-granddaughter of the Gilmans, often comes to the ranch on Saturdays to greet visitors, Bowden said. The Gilman Ranch site originally was occupied by Cahuilla Indians, and then became part of the San Gorgonio Rancho, the farthest outlying cattle ranch of Mission San Gabriel. An adobe house was built on the site in 1854 by foreman Jose Pope, a sheep rancher. In 1863, entrepreneur Newton Noble bought the adobe, converted it to a stage stop and opened the first post office in the San Gorgonio Pass in 1868. The adobe was next bought by James Marshall Gilman, who had come to California from New Hampshire. Gilman married Martha Benoist Smith in 1871 and they lived in the adobe until 1879, when they built a two-story ranch house...The Press-Enterprise