San Diego House

Location: 2767 San Diego Avenue
Old Town State Historic Park
Old Town San Diego, CA (map)
Phone: (619) 220-5422
More info: Website

New England sea trader Henry Fitch bought an adobe home on this site in 1841. Six years later, he sold it to Richard Freeman, town constable and possible runaway slave.

Freeman and his partner Allen Light, an otter hunter, were the first men of African descent to settle in San Diego, and were well received by the community. In fact, Light was appointed comisario general, a game warden, by the Mexican governor to stop offshore otter poaching by foreigners.

The two men opened a grogshop in 1847 in the two-room adobe calling it the San Diego House. It operated until 1851, when Freeman died and Light left town for the goldfields in northern California.

In the late 1860s, the American Hotel was built on the site of the Light-Freeman adobe. California State Parks reconstructed the adobe in 1985. It serves as a park concession.