The Blue Wing Inn in Sonoma, California, was one of the first hotels built in the state north of San Francisco.
[2][3] What began as the first property transfer in the new Pueblo de Sonoma and a simple adobe residence transformed with time and the addition of more rooms into a storied landmark.
[4] Mariano Vallejo was named administrator (comisionado) to oversee the closing of Mission San Francisco Solano.
With the assistance of William A. Richardson he laid out, in accordance with the Spanish Laws of the Indies, the streets and lots of the new Pueblo de Sonoma.
Among the notables said to have stayed, gambled, or drank there are Joseph Hooker, Philip Kearny, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, John C. Fremont, Lotta Crabtree, and Joaquin Murrieta.
According to the San Francisco newspaper Daily Alta California, in stories published on September 8 and 13, the killing was determined to be in self-defense.
[12] Shortly before his death, Cooper sold the Blue Wing Inn to his attorney, State Senator Martin E. Cooke.
[13] Some histories record that the Blue Wing figured in Pinelli's famous use of the contents of his wine tank to help put out the Sonoma fire of September 23, 1911.
During this period the Sonoma Chamber of Commerce moved into the first floor where the ‘Blue Wing Museum’ began operating.
[2] By then, it was in part used as a museum that contained various memorabilia, including a music box that "still tinkles when fed coins" and a fire engine, Sonoma's first, whose painted decorations were described as "faded birds and flowers".
The building was sold in 1945 to Walter and Celeste Murphy and three years later to William Henry and Eleanora Bosworth Black.
[17] In 1968, the California Department of Parks and Recreation acquired it, intending to make it into a house museum, but funding problems prevented this.
The Blue Wing Adobe Trust was founded in 2010 and the following year formed a partnership with Parks and Recreation to fully restore it and find an appropriate reuse.