It Starts with Good Dirt
Built over 160 years ago from the dirt they stand on, the Ballard Adobes are a reminder of the lives of the earliest American settlers in the Santa Ynez Valley.
In 1860, William Nixon Ballard, who had been a superintendent with the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, constructed an adobe to serve as the first stagecoach station in the Santa Ynez Valley. A second adobe house was constructed in 1866 by a colleague Ballard recruited to assist him in running the station and an indigenous laborer of the Sanjo Cota tribe, who is said to have been named Jaredo.
The station, then known as “Ballard’s Station” or “Alamo Pintado Station,” operated from 1860 until at least 1880, providing the first passenger travel and mail delivery between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara along the Coast Line Stage Company route.
Stagecoaches stopped at Ballard’s for a change of horses and to provide passengers with a rest stop, meals, and refreshments. The station also functioned as a Wells Fargo Express office, providing settlers in the Santa Ynez Valley with a mail outpost. Ballard’s Station serviced daily stage stops until the line was rerouted through Lompoc and, subsequently, with the arrival of the railroad, was altered to stop at Mattei’s Tavern in Los Olivos.
In 1870, Ballard married Cynthia Lunceford. The two were only married for three months before Ballard passed away in the south adobe. After Ballard passed, Alamo Pintado Rancho landholder George Lewis returned from attending to business interests in Mexico and married Cynthia. The two resided in the north adobe and had a daughter Mildred. The Lewis family continued to live in the north adobe until 1880. That same year, Lewis platted land nearby to become a new town, which he named Ballard.
The influx of settlers in the 1880s resulted in the formation of several small farming communities: Ballard (1880), Santa Ynez (1882), and Los Olivos (1887).
The Ballard Adobes stand today as a reminder of the first reliable transportation route into the Santa Ynez Valley, and as an intact example of late nineteenth century adobe architecture, showcasing a blend of materials such as adobe walls, board and batten wood siding, and wood porches.
“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.”
Will Rogers
