In 1879, a large two-story, thirteen-room hotel known as The Cottonwoods was built on this site by the partnership of C.W. Crocker and J.B. Wallace of San Francisco and J.W.C. Pogue. The Pogue family came to this lime kiln area in 1865 and eventually owned over 10,000 acres here. Mr. Pogue planted citrus here in 1877, became sole owner of the hotel and partnership in 1881, and lived here until his death in 1907. The building remained in the Pogue family until 1936, when Nora Pogue Montgomery, the youngest of the nine Pogue children and born in this house, gave it to the Lemon Cove Women’s Club. It was remodeled into a clubhouse and community center. It was the first house in the Lemon Cove townsite laid out by Mr. Pogue in 1894.