On Feb. 6, the California State Historical Resources Commission in Sacramento approved the nomination of Shinn House, its gardens and its outbuildings for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Next, the nomination will be sent to the National Park Service for final approval and listing, which will hopefully happen later in 2026.
This year also happens to be the 150th anniversary of the construction of the “Big House”—what better way to mark such a significant year than with formal recognition of the importance of the Shinn family’s history and the contributions of the ranch’s many immigrant laborers to the development of Fremont as we know it today?
With the Shinn property, Fremont will have six sites listed on the National Register: Mission San José, Vallejo Adobe at the California Nursery Historical Park, Washington Union High School, Patterson Ranch/Ardenwood and the Niles Canyon Transcontinental Railroad Historic District.
The National Register of Historic Places, established in 1966, is the federal government’s official list of sites, buildings, structures, districts and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or artistic value. This listing recognizes the property’s unique and important contributions to the development of Fremont and its neighboring communities, as well as California as a whole.
Michael Corbett—the architectural historian who wrote the application for the site—had this to say at the meeting in Sacramento:
“I’ve written many National Register nominations since 1974, including large historic district nominations for the Civic Center, the Tenderloin and the Port in San Francisco. The Shinn Ranch Farmstead is the most complicated and historically rich of anything I’ve worked on. If this same place was simply a fruit ranch run by an ordinary family, it would be eligible for the National Register. But it far exceeds any basic threshold of eligibility.”
He went on to describe the role the ranch played in importing plants from Japan, the mix of structures at the property and the contributions from Ohlone and Chinese workers.
If you would like to learn more, come take a docent-led tour on our monthly open houses, the first Wednesday and third Sunday of every month.
For more information, to arrange special tours or to hear about volunteer opportunities, please email mp************@***il.com,visit HistoricShinnHouse.org or our Facebook @ShinnHistoricPark.
