Seeley Stable Museum

Lots of real cool real old wagons. The story of the wagons and their uses is told very will with signs and stories of the past. Out of all the museums (aka adobe buildings) in old town this wagon exhibit is my favorite. Check it out!

Hey it’s free! Great place for family even or just a family get away there is food every where music. It’s called old down for a reason, cause the locals keep up with the roots of how it all got started. Wouldn’t mind livening around this town. An it take a lot for me to even think about moving or any change.

Although originally constructed by Albert L. Seeley in 1869, the Seeley Stable was later rebuilt in 1974 and now houses a wonderful collection of old stagecoaches, carriages, and wagons. This museum is another fun stop when touring Old Town.
When you first walk in, you notice all the interesting stable items like bridles and tools. The displays are unique here, and the museum stores some of the most beautifully restored stagecoaches and wagons. The first is a lovely Wells Fargo concord stagecoach, and then there’s a cool mud wagon. The mud wagon was probably the more capable of the two in handling some of Julian’s and San Diego’s most difficult terrain.
This floor also has a huge freight wagon that takes up a most of the museum’s main area. There’s also a farm wagon and a smaller delivery wagon here as well. It’s fun to see how people traveled and delivered items during this period. I imagine that the drivers of these vehicles experienced some extremely hard work. They must have endured some ugly roads and bad weather during many of their journeys.
The upper floor of the museum has some great western memorabilia. There is a beautiful Native American headdress and some unique bowls and plates that would would have been used during this time. They also have Californian Vaquero displays showing a small selection of tools and cool old photos. Branding irons and saddles are seen here, giving us a unique look at history of the hard working cattle rancher.
There’s also a working blacksmith workshop and stables in the back. When this is open, it’s fun to watch a blacksmith making and repairing the iron tools and pans. There is also a stable that is home to a couple of mules to the side of the museum here. The carriages stored in the adjacent two buildings are quite beautiful. This yard is definitely worth a look.
This a fun look at the transportation system before the railroad took over as the main means of transportation. These carefully restored wagons and stagecoaches are beautiful, and the museum provides a unique look at the town’s history during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

A great historic look at how stables used to run and the importance that they played in everyday lives. It’s a free museum and has two floors of wagons, pictures, antiques, and informative signs throughout. The downstairs is mainly an array of types of wagons over various decades. The upstairs is mainly displays of typical things that would be found in the stables, on cowboys of the time, and native american historical pieces.
It’s a fun side stop off while venturing around old town and it’s a great lesson in how different things are today by comparison!
Overall: A
A free historical learning experience? Yes, please!

From the outside it looks like a really big barn. Inside it’s a barn. A barn that is well worth visiting (for FREE) if you are in Old Town.
Indeed, it’s a reconstruction of an 1867 stable/​barn filled with stagecoaches, wagons, accompanying displays, and a theater. Upstairs are exhibits showing the furnishings that cattle barons such as Seeley would have had in their homes. These exhibits highlight how people with money don’t always have good taste.

Don’t forget to go out back to climb on the farm wagon (you can’t climb on anything in the barn) and view the windmill. A working blacksmith is out back as well.

Some of these carriages are so well preserved. I always seen these on television and movies and yes, I see that people are in them — sometimes five to eight people, but I never really understood how big they really were. The carriage driver or stage coach man is also a truly skilled person! Six horses? Two hands and that much coordination?!? Donkeys are fun to see too, but when we went, they were just in the cage sadly circling. I bet they get out sometimes!

Seeley Stable is actually the best thing that I saw in Old Town. This reconstructed barn houses over a dozen original Old West conveyances, from stagecoaches to farm wagons to simple carretas. Many of the vehicles have been preserved rather than restored, so we get to see them pretty much as they would have come down to us naturally. Some of them are in pretty darn good shape! See photos for more details.
Upstairs they have some other western memorabilia, none of it terribly exciting but interesting to see some slice-​of-​life items from the same era as the wagons below.
I learned a lot about Old West transportation and daily life in this museum. It’s free, but give a couple of bucks to the donation box, because this is an attraction worth keeping up.