Introduction & History
Placed on the National Register of Historic Places
This museum is located next to Mission San Buenaventura and was once the home to 5 different cultures spanning 3,500 years of history. Learn about the Chumash Indians, Chinese immigrants and others who resided on the site by viewing displays, and archaeological digs uncovered in 1974.
Named after Ventura Mayor (1969-1973) Albert R Albinger, the museum is built on the home site of saloon keeper and early mayor Angel Escondon, and displays artifacts spanning 3,500 years of Ventura history encompassing 5 different cultures (Chumash, Spanish, Mexican, Chinese and circa 1850 U.S.) from a single archaeological site next to San Buenaventura Mission.
Displays of stone bowls, shell beads, arrowheads, bone whistles, crucifixes, bottles, buttons and pottery inside the exhibit building are complimented outside by excavations of the foundations of the lost mission church, Native American barracks, a tomol (plank canoe reproduction), a well and the oldest standing structure in Ventura County - the mission water filtration building.