Boronda Adobe History Center

06/07/2026

Though hobbled by a torn tendon in my right forearm, I continue to advance the cause of museum development here in the Albert & Pearl Jensen Heritage Museum & Research Center of the Monterey County Historical Society. To date, the men and women of the Work Alternative Program of the Monterey County Sheriff's Department, MCHS volunteers, and long-time friend, associate, and current volunteer Miguel Rivera have advanced several historical vignettes, including our latest, the commemoration of the Juan Bautista de Anza expedition that camped not far from my home in the Natividad Creek area of Salinas, California. Drawing on an historically correct image by a longtime friend and associate, historian and artist extraordinaire, David W. Rickman, we have prepared an 8' x 10' printed photo backdrop to highlight the expedition that brought 240 Sonoran pioneers and soldiers into Alta California to see through the founding of the city by the sea, San Francisco, California, in 1776. Accompanying the exhibition are items donated by trailblazing archaeologist, architectural historian, and long-time friend Mardith Schuetz-Miller, to whom this exhibition is dedicated. Special thanks to both David Rickman for permission to reproduce the Azna image and Mardith for offering her prized collection of Spanish colonial art and ironwork, including a spur attributed to the Coronado expedition of 1542.

05/24/2026

05/24/2026

Just received my copy of "Great American Treasures: Women Preserving History Since 1891" (The Artist Book Foundation, 2026), featuring the José Eusebio Boronda Adobe of Salinas, California... and a few of my photographs and content used to generate the four-page spread. We here at the Boronda Adobe History Center of the Monterey County Historical Society, Inc., are most proud of this stellar acknowledgment by the Colonial Dames of America, Monterey Chapter. We very much look forward to coordinating our efforts to restore the William Weeks House here at the Boronda Adobe History Center with the Colonial Dames, whose recent efforts have funded some five didactic panels, and the 1990s restorations of the Boronda Adobe proper. We otherwise seek community support for our ongoing efforts to create a state-of-the-art historic house museum venue, featuring a light-and-sound showcase of our historic heritage treasures. This latter initiative is being spearheaded by time and technology contributions by our light and sound technician and MCHS Advisory Council Member, Jesus Morales.

04/27/2026

On April 10, 2026, I had the distinct pleasure of providing a docent tour to Mark Hall-Patton of Mark and Ted's History Adventures, also known as the "Beard of Knowledge" on the History Channel's Pawn Stars series. I knew something was up when Mark proved quite knowledgeable about many of the more esoteric artifacts and furnishings in the Boronda Adobe History Center's collections. We had a great discussion after the tour, and he shared his longstanding contributions to museum collection curation. I've had such a crazy couple of months, not the least of which was meeting the Spanish Ambassador to Washington, DC, just last week... and the Consul General of the Philippines in San Francisco just yesterday. Many exciting new developments and media production opportunities TBA.

03/25/2026

Over the past five weeks, I worked to produce the Spring 2026 edition of the Monterey County Historical Society Newsletter. Although I had two students volunteer to assist with the production, they were unable to see it through to completion in the short time available. One of the Service Learning students produced InDesign templates, but as I have only limited experience with InDesign, I defaulted to Publisher. In the throes of opting for Publisher, I learned that Microsoft no longer supports the program. Though I enjoyed the process, the thousands of photographs I've produced documenting the many projects and events undertaken by our Board of Directors, Volunteers, Work Alternative Program participants, and contractors kept me quite busy. So, I edited nearly 100 photographs in multiple resolutions and formats that ultimately made their way into the latest newsletter...released in print just today. Fortunately, my colleague Professor Jennifer Lucido stepped up to assist with the technicalities of managing Publisher templates...and for that I'm most grateful.

03/25/2026

As I've noted here repeatedly, in my capacity as President of the Board of Directors of the Monterey County Historical Society, I have been rewarded with a host of opportunities to interrogate the history and heritage of early California. This past Friday, March 20th, I had the pleasure and honor of meeting with Professor Thomas Rogers of CSU Monterey Bay and, in so doing, was rewarded with the opportunity to view an extraordinary body of documents central to 19th-century Mexican history and political economy. Thomas, as it happens, was perusing materials in his grandmother's trunk and, in so doing, found a large volume of historical documents. He contacted the Society to inquire as to the importance of the collection. Upon opening the portfolio, I immediately recognized that virtually every document was identified with Señor Licenciado Don Manuel Piña y Cuevas, who served in a host of capacities ranging from Fiscal, Minister of Hacienda, and/or Finance Minister of Mexico...and negotiated the monumental and often revolutionary transitions from the Spanish Empire to that of the Mexican Republic under Santa Ana, then was called upon to intervene and rebuild the Mexican economy in the wake of the US-Mexican War. During the early Mexican Republic, he mediated the Secularization process and the expropriation of Church lands, and in some cases, the return of such properties. To rebuild the Mexican economy after the US-Mexican War, he instituted new taxes and co-opted the to***co industry so as to generate revenue streams to sustain the flailing Mexican government. Then, as if he'd not already saved the Republic, France invaded Mexico and installed Maximilian von Habsburg as Emperor of the Mexican Republic. Given his apparent ability to pull a rabbit out of a financial quagmire, he was then installed by "Maximiliano Emperador de Mexico" to serve in the capacity of Minister of the Court Accounts of the Empire. Needless to say, when I opened the document regarding his last major appointment, which bore the Emperador's signature, I was reminded of why I took to studying my history, heritage, and culture in all their glory.

01/02/2026

Today, yet another classically trained musician, Andrés Benito Yanez, visited the Monterey County Historical Society and its Boronda Adobe History Center to play the grand piano in the Jensen museum. I think we may have started a trend with musicians coming to test their skills on some of the oldest such instruments in the region. We have three such grand pianos, one of which we only recently set up in the main museum. Given that we have two other circa 1850s Grand pianos languishing in storage…I see a day when our museum will feature music played by some of our most talented area musicians…on pianos and organs that have been tuned for such. In fact, today I was in the middle of conducting a group tour, and walked away to videotape Andres’ at the keyboards. Tonight, and Tomorrow, Andres will be playing for an art museum in Monterey. We wish him all the best!

12/29/2025

While toying with AI's ability to convert academic articles into comic strips and other media, I prompted ChatGPT to turn a publication about the Boronda Adobe in Salinas, California, into a comic strip. Note that this test version still has a couple of details that could use correction. By the way, the article used for the prompt was one co-authored by colleague Jennifer Lucido and me, titled "JOSÉ EUSEBIO BORONDA ADOBE: The Changing Face of an Early Californio Rancho at Rincón del Sanjón, 1840-2021.

12/28/2025

This past Friday, December 26, 2025, while conducting post-Christmas tours of the Boronda Adobe History Center, one visitor, Cesar Leyva of Salinas, entreated his family and I to an impromptu concert on one of our untuned grand pianos. After several such efforts, Cesar convinced me that we very much need to raise funds to see through the tuning of two such pianos, and two other 19th century pump organs in our collection.