1782		Map by Mascaro labels area "de los Robles"
1859		James Lynch settles at Tierra Redonda
1875		The Cambria-Paso Robles Wagon Road Company forms
1877		Adelaida Post Office begins at the Sunderland mine
1886		Train service begins at Paso Robles
1887		Paso Robles to Adelaida road opens
1909		Adelaida Rural Telephone Company forms
1914		Ignace Jan Paderewski purchases ranch in Adelaida
1936		The Adelaida Post Office closes
1981		Adelaida Cellars opens

Adelaida is an imprecisely defined area west of Paso Robles. It is a land of great beauty. The blend of mountains, foothills, valleys and streams -- the great oaks, the manzanitas, madrones and wild flowers -- the deer, the small wildlife, and in general, even the human intervention have all contributed to a picture of harmony. One has to believe that Adelaida, the woman after whom the area was named, was a person of great beauty.

Adelaida, the place, has a lot to offer along with the aesthetics. It is a land known for its abundant rain. Even the earliest settlers were elated by their successes in raising fruits, nuts, hay, grain and livestock.

Adelaida's first historic role was to provide a route for the Catalan escolte - the soldiers who guarded the Franciscan missions - between the Salinas Valley and the sea. Later it became a path for the illegal trade between English and Yankee sea captains of the coast and the missionaries of San Miguel, Arcangel.

During the 1870s the Adelaida district was a bustling place with six or seven hundred people served by three post offices, six schools, two stores, three churches and two dance halls.

Adelaida thrived because of a restricted transportation system. The middle Salinas Valley needed an outlet to the Pacific with its packet steamers. Once the Southern Pacific Railroad reached San Miguel and Paso Robles, that Pacific access was no longer required.

This bustling population declined, over the next several decades, to that of an isolated rural enclave. But unlike many other areas of rural California, the district retained its own special identity.

Excerpted with permission from History of Adelaida California, by J. Fraser MacGillivray and Imprimatur written by Dan Krieger of the San Luis Obispo County Historical Society.