The Oldest Building in Downtown San Diego Costs $8 to Walk Into

Overview

The Davis-Horton House was built in 1850, and it is the oldest building in downtown San Diego.

It sits at 410 Island Avenue, in the middle of a neighbourhood that has been demolished and rebuilt around it roughly five times over, and it's now the Gaslamp Museum and the headquarters of the Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation.

Admission is $8.

That's the thing worth sitting with. The Gaslamp Quarter is a place where people routinely spend $8 on a single drink, and the 176-year-old house in the middle of it — the one everything else was built around — costs the same to walk through.

And here's the better deal, which is buried on their ticket page.

For $12 you get a two-museum bundle: the Gaslamp Museum plus the Chinese Historical Museum. Four dollars more than the house alone, for a second museum. If you're making an afternoon of downtown history, that's the ticket to buy.

What It Costs

In the house (all bookable on the museum's house tours page):

• General Admission, self-guided pamphlet tour — $8
• Two-Museum Bundle — Gaslamp Museum + Chinese Historical Museum — $12
• Self-Guided Haunted Adventure, with an EMF meter — $12
• Pick-a-Topic: Historian-led Specialty Tours — $30

Walking tours of the neighbourhood — $25 each (on the neighborhood tours page):

• Thursday, 3 p.m. — Guided Gaslamp Quarter Tour
• Friday — Ghosts of the Gaslamp Guided Neighborhood Tour
• Saturday, 11 a.m. — Guided Gaslamp Quarter Tour

Pick-a-Topic specialty tours are also offered as neighbourhood tours at $30.

The three guided tours run on fixed days at fixed times, so the practical planning point is simple: Thursday afternoon, Friday evening or Saturday morning. There isn't a tour on a Sunday.

The Haunted One

The Self-Guided Haunted Adventure is $12 and comes with an EMF meter.

Whatever you believe about that, it's a genuinely unusual way to see an 1850 house — you're handed an instrument and sent through the building on your own, which is a more involved experience than a pamphlet. At four dollars above standard admission it's a cheap novelty, and the Ghosts of the Gaslamp walking tour on Fridays is the neighbourhood-scale version of the same idea.

What You Need to Know

• Address: 410 Island Ave, San Diego, CA 92101
• Phone: (619) 233-4692
• Museum hours: Thursday–Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. — last entry 3:30 p.m.
• Wednesday hours vary — the museum says to call for accurate information
• Administrative offices: Thursday–Friday, 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.
• Parking: metered parking throughout the Gaslamp District plus accessible pay lots. The museum invites you to call for parking recommendations, which is a nicer offer than most downtown attractions make
• Tickets are sold online through the museum's own store, as well as at the door

The three-day week is the thing to plan around. Thursday, Friday and Saturday only — this is not a drop-in-on-a-Sunday museum, and plenty of people discover that the hard way while already downtown.

Who Runs It

The Gaslamp Quarter Historical Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, in its own words "dedicated to preserving the architecture, culture, and history of San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter and tasked with safeguarding the heritage of this nationally designated historic district."

Alongside the museum they run exhibits, lectures, educational programmes, architectural tours and events — including the annual Fall Back Festival Children's Historical Street Fair.

Memberships are available, and the foundation also takes donations through its ticket store.

Good to Know

• Buy the $12 bundle unless you're certain you only want the house. Two museums for four dollars more is the best value on the page.
• Three days a week. Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Last entry 3:30 p.m.
• Pick your tour by day, not by preference — Thursday 3 p.m., Friday for ghosts, Saturday 11 a.m.
• It's a house from 1850. Anyone with mobility considerations should call ahead; the museum doesn't publish accessibility details and a building of that age rarely has straightforward access.
• Call about parking. They've offered.

Why It's Worth It

The Gaslamp Quarter sells itself as historic, and most of what visitors actually experience is a Victorian-revival façade with a restaurant behind it. The Davis-Horton House is the real thing — the building that was already here, from 1850, still standing on Island Avenue.

An hour inside it costs less than parking. And if you want the neighbourhood rather than the house, there's a historian waiting on Thursday afternoon, Friday night and Saturday morning for twenty-five dollars.

For more of what's on, browse our full event calendar.