Native Americans

The Domenigoni Valley Maze Stone (CA-RIV-1103) consists of a single petroglyph pecked and abraded into the gently sloping upper surface of a granite boulder at the summit of a small hill on Domenigoni Ranch
(Ken Hedges and Diane Hamann)

The Domenigoni Valley is located within an area of Riverside county that borders the traditional and ethnographic boundaries of both the Cahuilla and Luiseño Native American populations.

The Cahuilla are known as desert Natives directly associated with Riverside and San Bernardino counties (Bean and Shipek 1978). The Luiseño are more directly associated with coastal and inland areas of present-day Orange and southern Riverside counties and their culture is quite similar to the Cahuilla. The Luiseño are described as hunters and gatherers who also lived in semi-sedentary villages, practiced a complex form of territoriality and exploitation, and are known throughout Southern California for their rock art (Shepard 1998).

Exchange between the Luiseño and Cahuilla has been documented. In context, the Domenigoni Valley is considered a Luiseño area, though evidence of a Cahuilla presence may be identified (Robinson and Risher 1996:102-103).

Pioneers of Winchester

by Elsa Domenigoni Barton
from The Friendliest Valley
compiled by Violet Tapper and Nellie Lolmaugh
1971
Photographs from A Pictorial History of Hemet and San Jacinto Valley
published by The Hemet News

Winchester settlers, the Angelo Domenigoni family came from Switzerland in 1880

I am in the third generation of the Domenigoni family.

My grandfather, Angelo Domenigoni, left Europe more than a century ago, so poor he was obliged to leave his family behind, and to borrow the money necessary for paying his expenses to the new world. Without friends or money, he landed in Southern California where he homesteaded a large tract of government land as yet unsurveyed. It lies south of Winchester, and has been known, ever since he settled there, as Domenigoni Valley.

In 1886 when our Winchester boom was beginning this part of what is Riverside County now, was in possession of homesteaders and purchasers of railroad lands who had recently rescued it from sheep men. These flocks of sheep had for many years cropped off every blade of grass and every shrub that had ventured to lift its head above the fertile soil. At that time there were no homes within hailing distance and no trading place within ten miles. Its focusing point was the district school house. Then under the inspiration and guidance of a few faithful laborers, the town of Winchester was started. Here were centered the future business interest of a section of country having a radius of many miles of hills and valleys, rich in productive capacity of grains and grasses, minerals and timber.

The birth of a new town and the speedy construction of a railroad were encouraging. The homesteaders were kept busy raising and shipping grain. They earned the reputation of being the largest shipping point on the line.

The first school district was formed by the recruiting of 15 children. Funds to build the small one-room shack to which these children would come—on foot, on horseback, or with horse and wagon—from homes as much as seven miles away, were raised by an admission fee to a dance in one of the homes. The first teacher was Miss Ella Bailey.

Quick growth of the town continued, with many people coming. William Haslam, Sr., and John Patterson burned brick in their kiln, providing material for a brick school house and also dwellings. A new Union Church was built, an Improvement Club was formed, and avenues of trees set out. Many groves of eucalyptus trees were planted. The first newspaper, PLOWSHARE AND PRUNINGHOOK, edited by Bynon & son, had offices in a two-story frame building which also accommodated a general merchandise store. A public hall was located on the second floor. Later, a second newspaper, THE RECORDER, editor Peter Milliken, came into being. One of the centers of activity was a good hotel run by James and Elizabeth Rice. Dr. C. S. Dickson was the first physician, practicing here for many years. He was later elected County Coroner. Mrs. Dickson taught in the Winchester school.

In 1899 my grandfather had embarked in the dairy business at Temecula with a herd of 50 cows. The dairy products were sold in the city markets. Later he came to the vicinity of Winchester, also known as Pleasant Valley where lies his large acreage with house and barns. He sent for his wife and the two children who came all the way from Switzerland to join him in his new home. Here they labored in the accumulation of property and the raising of their seven children. The family was identified with the Catholic faith, and aided generously in the building of the church of that denomination at San Jacinto.

The year following his arrival, he was appointed the first postmaster of Winchester, at that time known as the “Rock House Post office.” It was also the stage coach station, a relic of the Butterfield stage coach days. The post office was located on the Domenigoni ranch and was opened on May 24, 1880. For four years he filled the office of postmaster. Meanwhile his farming interests rapidly increased in importance, and from time to time he added to his property until his ranch embraced 3000 acres.

Harvesting of the grain was done with a large combine, using 36 horses. About 50 head of horses were needed in caring for the crops, and all of these were raised by the family. They frequently sold stock to others. On the many acres of pasture land they kept 500 head of cattle. Each year nearly 100 head were sold. The Helvetia Creamery, owned by the Domenigoni family was located on the ranch where 70 cows were milked. Several thousand pounds of butter each year found a ready sale in the Los Angeles markets.

Grandfather Angelo had also homesteaded considerable acreage in the Idyllwild area, part of which the family still owns. Some four to five hundred head of cattle were taken by cowboys every year to graze in the lush pastures. While the cattle were in the mountains, the family would operate a small dairy there. The girls did the milking and the boys delivered the milk to the customers in the Idyllwild area. It was an exciting sight for the scattered residents of the Hemet-San Jacinto valley when the cattle drives came through here back to the ranch. Uncle Pete often told of how, during a cattle drive, the old-timers would get all the children up in the wee hours of the morning to see the cattle. What he disliked most was having to go near the Catholic Church, when the priest would come out in his flowing robes and stampede the cattle. It is understandable why the cowboys were upset!

My father, Antonio Domenigoni, was one of the two children born in Switzerland. After his school years in Winchester, he journeyed to the old country for his bride, and brought her back to his California home. They were parents of five children—Angelo, Francis, Julia, Frederick and myself, Elsa. We all attended the one-room, one-teacher school on the same site of the present Winchester school. High school we attended in Perris. Mrs. Alta Rice was the “one-teacher” for many years. She makes her home in Lompoc today.

Like his parents before him, my father became a devoted farmer, acquiring several hundred acres of productive land which he operated most consistently. He was regarded as one of the leading and progressive ranchers of this section of the country.

By this time Winchester had lost most of its buildings and businesses of the “boom” days. Gone were the newspapers, the hotel and the excitement of growth. Some of the groves of eucalyptus trees west of Winchester still remain, but we miss hundreds of them that lined the streets.

My father’s brother, Uncle Pete, as he was known to everyone, related many happy stories from his memory of the early days. He told of the lumber mill which the family operated on its homestead at Idyllwild, how they used to bring lumber down the steep grade to Hemet by horses and wagons. By the late 1940s, the University of Southern California purchased the greater part of the homestead, where once stood the historic saw-mill and dairy, for the present popular Idyllwild Music and Arts Foundation.

My three brothers and sister, and their families, still live in Winchester carrying on their farming with the same high standards of the Domenigoni family. The fourth generation is “coming along.” I am the youngest daughter, living in Hemet with my husband, Harry Barton, and daughter DeeAnn.

Four generations of the family, from immigrant to modern Americans of the 1970s, with our ups and downs, our happy times and our tragedies, have contributed in a wholesome way, we hope, to the America we love, but especially to the Winchester area.

Angelo Domenigoni was postmaster at Rock House, the area's first post office in Pleasant Valley

The Angelo Domenigoni brand was one of the first registered cattle brands in California

First Pleasant Valley (Winchester) School, pre-1890

Winchester Hotel was moved to Domenigoni Ranch to be used as the family's home, built circa 1890; relocated circa 1900

Round-up at the Domenigoni Ranch

Winchester School, ca. 1890

Helvetia School in Domenigoni Valley near Winchester, 1908

Grain harvesting in the Domenigoni Valley. In 1910 Angelo farmed about 3,000 acres to grain. Also he was vice president of First National Bank of San Jacinto

Angelo's home in Winchester

Downtown Winchester 1890

A Winchester building of the 1890 era.
(Charles Van Fleet Collection)

1899 Map of California showing railway connecting Winchester

Pleasant Valley (Winchester) was a thriving village west of Hemet in the 1890s when the train stopped to unload goods and load the farmer's bounteous crops

Winchester United Methodist Church ca. 1900

Winchester Station 1908

San Diego Boulevard (Winchester Road) looking north ca 1920

Domenigone [sic] Valley, Flats, Camp
Named for Angelo Domenigoni, rancher, dairyman, grain-raiser, and public-spirited citizen, who was born in 1851 in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, emigrated to the United States in 1874 (Guinn 1907 p. 1487), and was naturalized on August 25, 1879, in San Diego (RC Great Register, 196). He was the first settler in the valley which bears his name and where he took up a large tract of unsurveyed government land in 1880. The necessity of an immediate survey led him to hire the work done at his own expense at a cost of $300.00 (Guinn 1907, p. 1497), a large sum at that time. By December, 1896, he had 2,500 acres planted in grain (RP&H Jan. 2, 1897) which he cut with a combined harvester of thirty-six horse power; about fifty head of horses, which he raised himself, were utilized in carting for the crops (Guinn 1907 p. 1497). He was the proprietor of the Helvetia creamery, located on his ranch and comprised of seventy cows, from which the out-put of several thousand pounds of butter each year found a ready market in Los Angeles (Guinn 1907 p. 1497). He filed on government land in the Idyllwild area, including part of the present Boy Scout Camp Emerson, and this became Domenigoni Camp where he pastured five-hundred head of cattle each summer. Filing on still more government land in the San Jacinto Mountains, he established a saw mill at what became known as Domenigoni Flats (Swift March 30, 1976). In 1880 he applied for a post office which he named Rockhouse and for which he served as postmaster for two years. He was a major force behind the organization of Helvetia school in 1896, serving as first president of the board of trustees, a position he held for nine years. Domenigone [sic] Valley has also been called New Helvetia Valley because of the many Swiss who settled there.

In 1879-1880, Angelo Domenigoni and Gaudenzio Garbani established their homesteads on public land near the project area, which marked the beginning of two prominent farming families in Domenigoni Valley (Barton 1989:251; Garbani 1989).

Since 1880, Angelo Domenigoni and his descendants have acquired and managed extensive land holdings in Domenigoni Valley and the surrounding areas. Some lands have been developed into prosperous dry-farming, cattle-raising, and dairy enterprises collectively known as the Domenigoni Ranch - playing a dominant role in the economic growth of the valley throughout the 20th century. While much of Southern California has been impacted by urban development, the Domenigoni Valley has remained predominantly rural.

"If you look back at Angelo and Gaudenzio, they came to this country looking for new opportunities and new ways of doing things," Andy said. "We're not any different today. We're still a family group with a legacy to uphold. We've been through some changes, and the loss of some elders, but we're diversifying and following our family heritage by trying to be an upstanding family in the community."
(Domenigoni family remembers its past, looks to the future, John Hunneman, 1998)

For information on current planning, please visit the Plans webpage.

www.homestead.com/winchesterCAhistory/