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Seeley Stable Museum


Seeley Stable Museum




The following historical information is taken from the "Seeley Stable" brochure available at the museum.


Who was Albert Seeley?

Albert Lewis Seeley was born in Illinois in 1822. A stagecoach driver since 17, he had worked in Texas and Los Angeles. In 1867, Seeley came to San Diego with his English-born wife Emily and their six children. He soon began the United States Mail Stage line.

In 1868, the U.S. Government ordered mail service over the Tucson to Los Angeles route via San Diego. Seeley was awarded a contract for the San Diego to Los Angeles run. In addition to the two-day tri-weekly mail and passenger service to Los Angeles, Seeley's stage line also provided service between San Diego and Yuma.

In March of that year, to provide a depot for his line, Seeley purchased the former Bandini residence for $2,000 in gold coin. He added a wooden second story to the adobe structure and renamed it the Cosmopolitan Hotel.

The new hotel served as a local social center as well as a stage stop. The San Diego Union stated that it was "one of the roomiest and most comfortable hotel buildings in Southern California." Also at this time, Seeley constructed a stable barn adjacent to the Hotel. (You are in a reconstruction of that barn.) In 1869, he acquired a partner, Charles Wright.

Seeley's business prospered during the following decade. In 1871, he expanded his Los Angeles mail and passenger service to six days a week. Also, he purchased the Black Hawk Livery Stable. Three years later he contracted with Wells Fargo and Co. to run his coaches tri-weekly to local mountain mines and weekly from Julian to San Bernardino. Seeley was also awarded a four-year contract to deliver mail to Julian, leaving from the Cosmopolitan Hotel on Mondays and Fridays. To accommodate his expansions, it is said that he purchased the largest, most splendid stagecoach that San Diego had ever seen and gave everyone in town a free ride.

In January of 1876, Seeley was named Superintendent of the San Gorgonio and Prescott Division of the Wells California and Arizona Express Co. Seeley purchased additional horses and set up stations along a stage line that connected the Arizona towns of Prescott, Phoenix and Tucson.

Seeley's business declined steadily over the next decade as railroad lines spread throughout the state. By 1887, Seeley had ceased running stages except for a local line between San Diego and Ocean Beach. That same year, he sold the Cosmopolitan Hotel and stable for $15,000 in gold coin. Seeley moved from San Diego in 1895.

California Stagecoaching

During the 1800's, travel time in California was measured in days and weeks. Before the first railroads in the state were completed in the latter part of the century, the mainstay of commerce was the stage line. Usually a local enterprise consisted of a few horses and wagons. Drivers braved whatever came along to transport passengers, freight and mail.

Stagecoach travel was never entirely safe, even on the best of roads. Apart from holdups and bad weather, the newspapers of the day told frequently of disastrous accidents. Bad ruts, rock slides, and overflowing creek beds were common sources of trouble, often resulting in major detours or worse. Seeley lost one of his stages in 1876 when it was swept into the sea along San Onofre Creek.

Stages lines in California generally had their start during the gold rush boom. Using all sorts of wagons, independent lines began to connect San Francisco with San Jose; Sacramento with Stockton, Marysville and Virginia City; and Mother Lode towns with Portland, Oregon. The first stage line between Los Angeles and San Diego began in 1852.

Mail service between eastern cities and California began in 1850, but not until 1857 was a mail route approved between San Antonio and San Diego via Yuma. This stage line, officially called the San Antonio and San Diego Mail, was also derisively called the Jackass Mail because mules were used to pull the stage, and because part of the route was so rough, it had to be traversed by pack mule.

In 1858, John Butterfield received a contract to carry the mail from St. Louis to San Francisco via El Paso and Los Angeles, a distance of approximately 2800 miles. This was the first transcontinental mail and passenger service in the U.S.

In 1861, the same year the San Antonio and San Diego Mail Stage line ceased operation, Wells Fargo and Company began to acquire control of western stage lines, starting with the purchase of the Butterfield line. In little more than a decade, railroads would become the principal mode of transportation. However, communities like San Diego which were not immediately located on a railroad still had to depend on a local stage service a little longer.




Display of coaches, buggies and wagons

stagecoach
stagecoach
stagecoach

buggies
stagecoach
buggy

wagon
wagon




Stage Routes

stage routes

stage routes
stage routes




The Cattle Industry

cattle routes

The Creature That Started It All

The longhorn -- the creature that started it all -- traces back many decades into southwestern history. Hernando Cortes introduced the longhorn into Mexico in the 16th century. Over time, the Mexican-Spanish herds drifted northward into Texas, and there they became incredibly vast.

Cattle drives in both Texas and California, contrary to popular opinion, began many years before the Civil War. Texas supplied California with beef during the gold rush years. And as early as 1837, Ewing Young undertook a major cattle drive from California to Oregon. During the gold rush thousands of head of livestock were brought into California from the Middle West by way of overland trails, and early in the fifties the cattle trade between the Missouri frontier and California was developed.

Cattle Trails

The main trails for the long cattle drives ran north from the longhorns' home breeding grounds in Texas. During the four decades of the Western drives, cattle trudged to markets as far away as California and Oregon. The Shawnee, first major trail of the Old West, opened in the 1840's. It headed northeast from Texas to Missouri. After the Civil War, settlers and railroads moved west and the cattle trails swung with them. The most heavily traveled route was the Chisholm, handling half of all cows moved from Texas.

cattle barons

These Extraordinary Men

A handful of extraordinary men became the cattle barons of the West, and created the environment in which the cowboy lived and worked. The cowboy was there, not to win the West or create a legend, but because the rancher -- the baron -- decided to make money in cattle. Most of these barons started in Texas, but by 1885 beef cattle represented by far the biggest business in the entire western United States.

These cattle kings, particularly the foreign investor, created a life style unique in the West. They built luxurious mansions in the middle of nowhere, and filled these "castles on the prairie" with an unbelievable variety of furnishings, often of questionable taste.

cattle baron's furnishings display
cattle baron's furnishings display

cattle baron's furnishings display
cattle baron's furnishings display




Indian Crafts Display

indian crafts display
indian crafts display

indian crafts display
indian crafts display




Outside Displays

The true "covered wagon" of western fame was often little more than a sturdy farm wagon supplied with a heavy canvas top. A water barrel, an axle grease bucket and tools were lashed to the sides, while other essential supplies were carried inside. Covered wagons like this were used on trail drives as well as cross-country treks.

wagon display
wagon display



seeley stable museum






The Seeley Stable Museum is located at the Old Town San Diego State Historic Park, San Diego Avenue at Twiggs Street, San Diego. See map.





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