Carpinteria Valley Museum

Located just a couple of blocks from Linden Road, the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History is a little-known secret, even in a city that’s barely 10 square miles.

The museum is surprisingly detailed inside and examines several periods of life in the Carpinteria Valley. Visitors are taken through the initial beginnings with the native Chumash people, then through the age of Spanish explorers who, when they saw the Chumash tomols (canoes), christened the area La Carpinteria (the Carpentry Shop). Lastly, the age of Mexican settlers and American pioneers is examined. 

Exhibits feature Chumash artifacts and recreations of a Victorian kitchen, saddle-strewn ranch, schoolroom, blacksmith shop, and an Adobe home. Each scene features a life-sized cutout of settlers performing their daily tasks. All of the scenes feature artifacts true to the period.

The Chumash and Gabrielino-Tongva peoples are the first known human inhabitants of the regions we now know as the Channel Islands and Santa Monica Mountains. Archaeologists have found artifacts from their tribes that date to as far as 15,000 years.

A large portion of the museum contains furniture, doors, clothes, toys, instruments, and more from the Higgins family mansion that was demolished during the 1960s. Volunteers saved much of the contents, storing them in home garages and storage units until the museum officially opened and they could be displayed. There is also a case on display dedicated to the city’s contributions during World War II inside the museum.