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Bidwell Mansion: Where Chico Began

John Bidwell finished his three-story, 26-room mansion in Chico in 1868, the year he married Annie Kennedy. An arson fire on December 11, 2024 badly damaged it, and as of October 29, 2026 the mansion is still closed, while the visitor center next door is open Fridays and Saturdays.

Measured drawing of the northeast front of Bidwell Mansion in Chico, with its tower, porches and arched windows
Bidwell Mansion, northeast elevation. Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS CA-1317, Library of Congress (loc.gov/item/ca0059). No known restrictions on images made by the U.S. Government. Source

The Short Version

The mansion was home to John and Annie Bidwell from 1868, and Chico grew up around it. John laid out the town in 1860 and gave land for the school that became Chico State; Annie gave the land for Bidwell Park in 1905. The Mechoopda people, whose village stood nearby, worked the rancho and tell their own side of that story. Today the house is closed after the 2024 fire, the visitor center and exhibit hall are open, and State Parks is planning the park's future with the community.

Visiting Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park Now

These lines are copied from the California State Parks page for the park (read October 29, 2026). Where the page and a State Parks news release say different things, both are shown.

Item What State Parks prints Source
Mansion The Bidwell Mansion remains closed due to the December 11, 2024 Mansion Fire. State Parks park page
Visitor center The Bidwell Mansion SHP Visitor Center, which features an exhibit hall and gift shop, is open. Visitor Center hours are 10 AM to 3 PM on Fridays and Saturdays. State Parks park page
Cost to visit News release: “There is no fee to visit. Parking is available for $10 per vehicle.” The park page still lists Adult Entry Fee: $6.00 and Youth Entry Fee: $3.00. July 31, 2026 release; park page
Address 525 Esplanade, Chico CA, 95926 State Parks park page
Phone (530) 895-6144 State Parks park page
Dogs Are dogs allowed? No State Parks park page
From Highway 99 Take East First Avenue and go left onto The Esplanade, the Mansion is on your right (west). State Parks park page
Passes California State Library Parks Pass. The July 31, 2026 release adds that passport holders of the California State Parks Historian Passport are invited to stop by the reopened visitor center. park page; release
Accessibility The Visitor Center is completely accessible. It includes restrooms, water fountain, a lobby, a museum store, an exhibit hall and a theater. State Parks park page

Inside the visitor center, the State Parks release says the exhibit hall covers John and Annie Bidwell, early California farming, the founding of Chico and the start of Chico State, plus the Bidwells’ relationships with the communities around them. The Bidwell Mansion Association runs the gift shop. Not confirmed The park page also still carries an older line saying the visitor center is open Saturday through Monday 11am to 5pm with tours on the hour; it conflicts with the current notice above, and no mansion tours are offered while the house is closed. Call (530) 895-6144 before you go.

John and Annie Bidwell

State Parks’ park brochure says John Bidwell crossed the Sierra Nevada to California in 1841, at age 22, and worked as business manager for John Sutter. In the summer of 1848 he found gold of his own near the Middle Fork of the Feather River, and he used that money to buy land and build farms. By the 1850s he had bought more than 30,000 acres of Rancho del Arroyo Chico. From 1865 to 1866 he served in the U.S. Congress.

In Washington he met Annie Ellicott Kennedy, daughter of the U.S. Census superintendent Joseph C.G. Kennedy and 20 years his junior. They married in Washington, D.C. on April 16, 1868, with President Andrew Johnson and future President Ulysses S. Grant among the guests, according to the State Parks page. Both backed women’s voting rights and the prohibition movement; Annie was very active in both.

San Francisco architect Henry W. Cleaveland designed the house, finished in 1868 with running water, flush toilets, gas lights and an air cooling system. State Parks lists guests who came to the mansion: President Rutherford B. Hayes, General William T. Sherman, Susan B. Anthony, Frances Willard, Governor Stanford, John Muir and Asa Gray. The outside is in an Italian Villa style, finished in pink-tinted plaster.

How Chico Began

“In 1860, Bidwell helped lay out the town of Chico, which he named,” the State Parks brochure says. He had already built a general store, a hotel, a post office and a flour mill on the rancho. Railroad tracks reached the rancho and the town by 1870, after legislation he introduced in Congress. He grew wheat and milled flour on a large scale, and the brochure credits him with California’s first commercial raisin crop and work on the casaba melon.

Two of Chico’s best-known places came from the Bidwells. In the 1880s John gave eight acres of his cherry orchard for the Chico State Normal School, now California State University, Chico (read the Chico State story). After his death in 1900, Annie gave the land that became Bidwell Park in 1905.

After Annie died in 1918 the house went to her church, which could not fund the school she had planned. The Normal School bought the mansion in 1923 and used it as a dormitory, then offices and classrooms. California State Parks took it over in 1964.

The Mechoopda Story, in The Tribe’s Own Words

This section follows the history pages of the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria. Read them in full there.

The Tribe’s history page says Mechoopda was a village on Little Butte Creek, about 3 1/2 miles south of today’s downtown Chico, and its people spoke a language related to Maidu. Their oral tradition places the beginning of this world at Tadoiko, a few miles south of the village. By 1850, after Bidwell acquired Rancho Arroyo Chico, the village moved into what is now downtown Chico, then closer to Bidwell’s home, and in 1868 to its final site, which became the Chico Rancheria. The people called it Bahapki, “unsifted,” because families from several villages lived there as part of the rancho’s work force.

The Tribe writes that its relationship with John and Annie Bidwell “has been the subject of controversy, and opinions about the relationship vary.” The Bidwells prospered with Native labor, and to some the scene looked like a plantation; the rancho also gave people work, homes, some protection from vigilantes and a refuge from forced removals. In 1863, the Tribe’s page says, Bidwell brought soldiers from San Francisco to protect the village, and some who escaped the forced march to Round Valley that year found refuge on the ranch. Annie later had frame houses built and deeded the village land in trust; the United States took the land into federal trust in 1939.

The Mechoopda became a federally recognized tribe again in 1992 after a lawsuit filed in 1986, and in 2003 acquired 650 acres south of Chico. The Tribe says it has 560 Tribal Members today. State Parks’ October 2026 open house for the park’s future included “perspectives from the Mechoopda Indian Tribe of Chico Rancheria.”

The 2024 Fire and What Comes Next

Around 3 a.m. on December 11, 2024, fire broke out in the mansion and severely damaged it, State Parks reported that day. The 26-room house had been close to the end of a long renovation. The surrounding buildings, including the visitor center, were not damaged. State Parks has since called it an arson fire.

In September 2025 State Parks launched Reimagine Bidwell Mansion, a 15-month planning effort that will produce a Vision Plan covering what is left of the building, treatment options and new ways to tell the story. The visitor center reopened for regular hours on August 7, 2026, and a public open house on the plan was held at the visitor center on October 25, 2026. Not confirmed No date has been announced for the mansion itself to reopen, and the form it will take is still being planned.

What is actually true: State Parks' own park brochure says Bidwell “personally carried the first gold sample discovered in California to be assayed in San Francisco,” while he was working for John Sutter. That is State Parks' account; we have not seen the assay record itself, so treat the exact “first” as their claim.

Sources: California State Parks, Bidwell Mansion SHP park brochure (2009, PDF)

Questions People Ask

Is Bidwell Mansion Open?

The mansion itself is closed after the December 11, 2024 fire. The visitor center beside it is open 10 AM to 3 PM on Fridays and Saturdays, per the State Parks page.

How Much Does It Cost to Visit?

State Parks' July 31, 2026 release says there is no fee to visit the visitor center and parking is $10 per vehicle. The park page still lists $6 adult and $3 youth entry fees, which date from mansion tours.

Who Were John and Annie Bidwell?

John was a pioneer of 1841, rancher, congressman and the founder of Chico; Annie was a reformer active in the suffrage and prohibition movements. They married in 1868 and lived in the mansion until his death in 1900; she lived there until 1918 (State Parks brochure).

What Happened to The Mansion?

An arson fire on December 11, 2024 severely damaged it near the end of a renovation. State Parks is now running the Reimagine Bidwell Mansion plan with the community and the Mechoopda Tribe.

Where Can I Read The Mechoopda History?

On the Tribe's own site, mechoopda-nsn.gov/history, which covers contact, life on the rancho, the 1851 treaty, removal and the Tribe's rebirth.

Still Unconfirmed

  • Not confirmed When the mansion will reopen, and in what form (State Parks has not announced it).
  • Not confirmed Whether the $6 and $3 entry fees still printed on the park page apply to anything while the mansion is closed.
  • Not confirmed The older “Saturday through Monday 11am-5pm, tours on the hour” line still on the State Parks page.
  • Not confirmed Exactly which artifacts survived the fire; State Parks said in 2024 it would take a full inventory.

More Chico History

Sources

Cite this page: It's Chico, “Bidwell Mansion: Where Chico Began”, itschico.com/history/bidwell-mansion/ (updated ). By the It's Chico editorial team. Free to quote with attribution and a link to this page; data and tables are licensed CC BY 4.0.