“Mr. Gillespie and family occupy the 20 mile house, serving meals for the stage line. They are highly respected and quite an addition to the valley.”

So ran a short piece in the Poway Progress newspaper on May 16, 1896

It was called “20 Mile House” because it was at the halfway point on the stagecoach route between San Diego and Escondido. It stood along the old Poway Grade, the twisting and turning mountain road which was then the sole connection between the city of San Diego and the Poway Valley.

In the early 1900s the grade was rerouted further east. The area where 20 Mile House stood today fronts on Old Pomerado Road. But from at least the days of the Gillespies up through around 1910 or so it was the place where stagecoaches stopped to change horses and passengers and crew got a meal.

The building, which no longer exists, often gets confused with another structure built nearby in the late 1920s, the Big Stone Lodge.

Sources for this post included historic San Diego County newspapers, the archives of the Escondido History Center and the Poway Historical and Memorial Society, and the book Historic Stage Routes of San Diego County by Ellen L. Sweet and Lynne Newell.

Get Updates Automatically-Become A Follower of the San Diego History Seeker

You can get updates of San Diego History Seeker automatically in your email by clicking on the “Follow” button in the lower right corner of the blog page. You’ll then get an email asking you to confirm. Once you confirm you’ll be an active follower.