Pierson Barton Reading, born in 1816 and dead in 1868, was a California pioneer of 1843, a major in Fremont's California Battalion during the Mexican War of 1846, a signer of the Capitulation of Cahuenga, and the discoverer of the second major gold strike in 1848. An adobe built here in 1847 became the seat of Shasta County government in 1850-51, then served as the kitchen wing of the Reading mansion from 1854 to 1881. In 1862 the property was regarded as the best stock farm in California. The adobe was destroyed by vandals in 1942, and Major Reading was buried nearby.