SeeCalifornia.com

Photos of Bidwell Mansion interior bedroom and exterior were taken by Paula Beehner.

A three-story brick, 1868 Victorian Mansion with an overall style of an Italian Villa, is one of the most unique California State Parks properties open to the public. You can tour the grounds of the Bidwell Mansion State Historic Park where the man who fostered the development of the casaba melon and produced California’s first commercial raisin crop planted many trees that are still standing. A cockspur coral, a tulip tree, a Ginkgo biloba, Italian cypresses, a South American monkey puzzle tree and a huge Southern magnolia grace the property as they did a century ago. The grounds are ideal for weddings, parties and picnics, but few can resist seeing the pink tinted plastered mansion without taking tours inside. On tours you learn about John and Annie Bidwell who had no children, but loved humanity and promoted women’s suffrage, though Annie had strict rules. The ballroom upstairs never felt the step of waltzing feet, as  Annie was a prohibitionist who did not believe in drinking liquor or dancing. The irony that “the craziest campus in the nation” according to Playboy magazine, is located on the former Bidwell cherry orchard makes this property even more fascinating.  Read more…>