Budget Ax Hits Historic Gilman Ranch

Budget cuts will severely limit the hours that Gilman Historic Ranch and Wagon Museum is open to the public and have forced the layoff of the lone park interpreter, officials said Wednesday.

The , which recently celebrated its grand opening, also will see its public hours cut to two Saturdays a month, according to officials from the Riverside County Regional Park & Open Space District. The district operates both Pass historic sites.

This Saturday will be the last that the historic Gilman Ranch, , is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The volunteer Gilman Ranch Hands group’s annual bring-your-own-potluck gathering, open to the public and free, is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m.

Starting July 1, the ranch will be open to the public only on those weekdays when the ranch is hosting school tours, and only in the afternoons after those school programs are completed, according to Keith Herron, county parks historic preservation officer.

Herron said he will later announce up to three days per week during which Gilman school tours will be scheduled regularly, so the public won’t be kept guessing whether there might be a school tour on any given day. The county parks district has a third- and fourth-grade history curriculum program at Gilman Ranch and charges up to $8 per student for each program component. Last year, the tours increased over the previous year.

The county parks district operates separately from Riverside County government but relies on some money from the county general fund to make ends meet. District general manager Scott Bangle said Wednesday that the park district is facing a $114,000 cut in the fiscal year that starts July 1. 

“We took a 25 percent cut last year, and we were asked to take another 25 percent cut this year,” Bangle said. Other sources of income, such as property taxes, have been declining in the rocky economy since 2008, he said. The parks district laid off other employees in January, Bangle said.

The Gilman Ranch is steeped with Southern California history. The region initially was home to Native Americans. In 1854 the ranch property became the site of the Jose Pope adobe, one of the first non-Indian homes in the Pass, according to historian Jane Davies Gunther. The adobe ruins are one of the attractions seen by ranch visitors.

The ranch also features a remnant of a famous stagecoach road. It was a stage stop on the Bradshaw Trail as shown on an 1863 map, according to Gunther. Later, the Gilman family acquired the property for ranching, including the olive groves that now host sets of picnic tables.

The ranch is also known as the location of the killing that spurred the famed Willie Boy manhunt in 1909. 

The county acquired the ranch in the 1970s for a historic park that showcases ranching life in the 1800s. The Victorian ranch house was rebuilt after the original was destroyed in a 1970s fire. The Wagon Museum houses an array of wagons and coaches, including several used in the Pass.

In the current budget cuts, Gilman interpreter Jim Bowden and an interpreter at the historic Jensen-Alvarado Ranch in Rubidoux will be laid off, and hours shifted to the focus on school tours. The schoolhouse in San Timoteo Canyon will be open two Saturdays a month instead of every Saturday. 

Gilman Ranch will retain three part-time aide positions at the ranch, which also oversees the historic San Timoteo Canyon Schoolhouse. The district’s Idyllwild Nature Center interpreter will add Gilman Ranch and San Timoteo Schoolhouse to her current duties, Herron said.

However, Bangle said, if there is a way to reopen Gilman on Saturdays, he’s open. “If there’s a demand, we’ll take another look.”