Hastings Adobe

The Hastings Adobe stands northeast of Collinsville along California Highway 68, on land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta region of Solano County. The building is associated with the Hastings family, who settled the area in the mid-19th century during the period of rapid American settlement that followed the Mexican-American War and the discovery of gold. The adobe house was constructed in the 1850s or 1860s, drawing on the regional Hispanic building tradition rather than the milled-lumber construction that more typically characterized American settlement of the delta.

The building is a one-story vernacular adobe of rectangular plan, with thick lime-plastered walls on a low stone footing, a low-pitched wood-framed roof, and a sheltered verandah along the principal elevation. The construction relies on hand-hewn timbers and locally made earth bricks, and the interior follows the linear, room-after-room arrangement characteristic of small adobes of the period. The use of adobe by an American settler family in the delta region reflects the continued practical advantages of earthen construction in the late Mexican and early American periods, when milled lumber remained scarce and adobe construction techniques were widely known in California.

The Hastings Adobe was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 under reference 72000260 in recognition of its survival as an intact 19th-century adobe residence in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and its association with the early American settlement of the region. The property has remained in private ownership and is not regularly open to the public.

Within California's broader adobe tradition, the Hastings Adobe is unusual for its delta location, far from the principal Hispanic settlement corridors of the coast and the Salinas Valley. It documents the diffusion of adobe construction practice into the early American agricultural settlement of the Central Valley and provides a counterpoint to the better-known rancho residences of the southern and central coast.