Finding A Site For Pacific Union College

By 1908 the college at Healdsburg found itself needing room to breathe and grow. The attendance was dropping, and financial losses were heavy. The school building was now closely surrounded by the town, and the “boardinghouse” three blocks up the street was being choked by nearby residential housing. When built, the boardinghouse, on a five-acre (two-hectare) tract of land, was in the country, and it had been planned that as funds were available more land surrounding it would be purchased. But money was scarce, so part of the original acreage was sold. Houses soon sprang up.WV 500.5

Ellen White, who with W. C. White had led out in founding the college in 1882, was deeply interested in its welfare. At the California Conference session held in February a comprehensive resolution was passed calling for the disposal of the school properties in Healdsburg and establishing “an industrial college” in the country that would provide work for students and “furnish at least the agricultural and dairy products necessary for the college home” (Pacific Union Recorder, February 27, 1908). The Educational Society, which carried legal control, took official action to this effect three weeks later on March 19.WV 500.6

It was hoped that a property could be located rather quickly so that the school could open in the fall on the new site. Conference officials and Ellen White and her staff were on the constant lookout for a suitable place, perhaps with a building on it that could be put to immediate use.WV 501.1

At the well-attended Oakland camp meeting in early June, a special session of the California Conference was called. Here on June 9, after considerable discussion and a divided vote, plans to close Healdsburg College were approved and a committee of seven appointed to search for a new site. W. C. White, as well as conference officers, was on this committee. From time to time various sites were examined.WV 501.2

In August a property near Sonoma came to the attention of conference officers. This property, two or three miles (three or five kilometers) north of the town of Sonoma, consisted of 2,900 acres (1,174 hectares) of land, hills, mountains, valleys, and flatlands. On it was a spacious three-story, 38-room mansion called “The Castle” (36 WCW, p. 725; S. N. Haskell to EGW, August 13, 1908). Since the property was less than a mile (two kilometers) from a tiny Western Pacific Railway station called Buena Vista, that was the name used in designating it for inspections and negotiations.WV 501.3