Reading Adobe in Cottonwood, California, was the first home built there in 1843 by pioneer Pierson Barton Reading after his arrival by wagon train. Though the house no longer survives, the site remains important for its association with the early years of non-Native settlement in the upper Sacramento Valley and with Reading’s wider role in California history. After receiving the Mexican land grant Rancho Buena Ventura in 1844, Reading became a major regional landholder. He later served in John C. Frémont’s California Battalion, signed the Treaty of Cahuenga in 1847, and found gold at Reading’s Bar in 1848 during the opening phase of the Gold Rush.