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The feared outlaw, Tiburcio Vasquez, showed up from time During the 1930's a family friend, Dr. Taylor, stayed in the
to time, usually in time for dinner, leaving a "tip" under his small adobe house, adding a kitchen next to the present
plate which ranged from a silver dollar to a 5 dollar gold piece. fireplace. Curiously, there was no direct access, the doctor
The 1870 Tax Assessment Rolls show that the Mitchell's having to go outside to get from the house to the kitchen area.
owned 52 horses, 5 cows, 20 stock cattle, 4 hogs, 4 hives of By the 1960's, the adobe was being used as a storage shed,
bees, 1 jackass, 2 wagons, 160 acres and a house valued at then a honey house, and finally, a tack room at the time it was
$1,361. sold to the Shaffer family, about 1970. After the death of Mrs.
The growing family eventually included six children: Mary Shaffer, her son, Kenneth, formed Shaffer Land Co. He finally
Elizabeth, Thomas Jr., Frank, Frances Ann, John W. and ordered the demolition of the wooden ranch house and the
Minnie Ivy, who each needed an education. Banding together "Murphy Adobe" on August 14, 1986. The Historical Society
with neighboring Lang's and Stewart's, the Mitchells formed the managed to save three walls of the adobe, moving them to
Sulphur Springs School District in 1872, Martha Mitchell Heritage Junction, where additional new bricks were hand-made
teaching the first classes in the kitchen of her spacious home. to match the older parts.
Thus, this is the second oldest district in Los Angeles County. The building today reflects the whole story of Canyon
By 1879, the student population stood at 10, so the Country, with some wood dating back to the 1850's miner's
makeshift school moved to John Lang's hotel-spa-depot, Miss cabin, some bricks made by Colonel Mitchell in the '60's, work
Bowers being hired as teacher. Seventeen scholars showed up for done by Walter Murphy in 1919, and some 1980's adobe brick.
the class of '86, so Colonel Mitchell donated a site for a school
house, which was constructed by Lang and Sanford Lyon on the
spot where the present Sulphur Springs Elementary School is
located.

Sulphur Springs School (1915)
North of the Mitchell Ranch House, across the Santa Clara
River, rose a knoll, which, according to an elderly Indian
retainer, was the final resting place for several members of his
tribe. When he passed away in 1870, the Colonel buried him
there with his ancestors, then used it as a family graveyard. His
eldest son was interred on the hill in 1875, then a teenage
daughter and relatives such as the Manning's, Heitte's, Dyer's
and Helvey's.
A two story, redwood, "Midwestern style" ranch house was
built in 1888, the hacienda subsequently becoming a guest
house, honey house, tack room and residence for married Martha Catherine Taylor Mitchell
children, such as Frances Ann and Samuel Heitte, who moved
and
in and did some remodeling in 1893. By this time the ranch Colonel Thomas Finley Mitchell
totaled 1,000 acres.
Martha Mitchell died on August 10, 1905, followed by her
husband, the Colonel, on December 24, 1907. They still lie
side by side in the ancient Mitchell Cemetery on the hill.
Active management of the ranch was taken over by Walter
Murphy, who had married the Mitchell's youngest daughter,
Minnie. In 1919, Murphy salvaged what was left of the miner's
shack and the remaining adobe blocks from the hacienda, which
had pretty much melted into the earth from which it was created.
He built a residence for the ranch foreman, Henry Thomas. This
was of the same size as the present adobe. 10/91