While many of their classmates slept in Saturday, about three dozen Santa Rosa High School students devoted the morning to dirty, hard labor on the grounds of the historic Carrillo Adobe off Montgomery Drive.
Clearing brush and thorny blackberry bushes may be mere yard work to some, but for these history buffs it was a chance to bring attention to the crumbling structure — Santa Rosa's first permanent, non-native residence — and perhaps launch a movement to do something about it.
"More people should come out and help us try to get this cleaned up and put back together, because it's really important," said high school junior, Tarah Parry, 16.
"Especially since this is the oldest building in Santa Rosa," Alex Rodriguez, also 16, said.
Both are members of the 2-year-old campus History Club, which has gone out twice to cut away at invasive plantlife obscuring public views of the fenced, 170-year-old adobe ruins said to mark the beginnings of their hometown.
The traditional mud-brick building was built in 1837-38 by Maria Ygnacia L?ez de Carrillo, the mother-in-law of General Mariano Vallejo and the first woman to be given a Mexican land grant.
Its potential historic significance became greater when a 2006 archaeological study turned up a stout, basalt foundation much larger than the ranchhouse ever was.
Archaeologist William Roop and Larry Carrillo, a Carrillo descendent, attended Saturday's club clean-up and said they believe the foundation was intended for what would have been the last and northernmost outpost in the chain of California's Spanish missions.
Devotees of the adobe still wish someone would step forward to preserve it and investigate its origins more thoroughly.
In other parts of the state, "places like this are being turned into showcases," Roop said.
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