Julian Gold Rush Hotel
If today's San Diego is known for celebrating its multicultural strengths, maybe some of our good attitude adjustment goes back to the '60s — the 1860s. That's when Albert Robinson arrived in Julian and started his rise to become possibly the most popular hotelier in the county. Robinson was African American, a freed slave from Missouri. He reached San Diego in 1869, soon after gold was discovered in Julian. For a while he worked as a ranch hand, then married a fellow African American, Margaret, in Julian in the early 1880s. Soon after, the two started a restaurant and bakery, and then, as their popularity grew, they built a hotel, the Hotel Robinson, in 1897, backed by prominent townsfolk. It became the confirmed social center of Julian for decades. Albert died, beloved, in Julian, in 1915, and Margaret sold the hotel a few years later, but the atmosphere they created lives on in the renamed Julian Gold Rush Hotel. It is now the oldest continuously operating hotel in Southern California. And the cedar and locust trees that Albert planted during the hotel's construction surround the hotel today. — Bill Manson