Rother's Corner

The corner property was originally called Patrick’s Corner after George Washington Patrick, an early settler of Sonora and one of its first mayors. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Patrick left Sonora to volunteer his services to the Confederate Army, but although he was refused a commission and did not serve in the army, he remained in the south until his death in 1886. William Rother, Sr., born in Germany in 1809, later came to the United States, settled in Louisiana, and came to Sonora in 1857. He acquired the property in 1870 at a sheriff’s sale. He and his wife, Sophia Wilde, had seven children, five born in Sonora. After the deaths of the senior Rothers, their sons John and William continued to live in the home, with William and his family upstairs and John and his family downstairs. John later moved from Rother’s Corner, but William remained there until his death in 1928. William Rother, Jr. was very active in the Eureka Engine Company, one of Sonora’s volunteer fire companies located across the street from his home, and he served as fire chief during most of the years from 1894 to 1911. The property remained a home to the Rother family after William’s death until the Union Oil Company acquired it in 1954, when the buildings were torn down and Washington and Elkin Streets were reconfigured. For more than 80 years, the corner property was known as Rother’s Corner.

Sonora, California · United States