Named after Ventura Mayor (1969-1973) Albert R Albinger, the museum is built on the home site of saloonkeeper and early mayor Angel Escondon and displays artifacts spanning 3,500 years of Ventura history encompassing five different cultures (Chumash, Spanish, Mexican, Chinese and circa 1850 U.S.) from a single archaeological site next to San Buenaventura Mission Displays of stone bowls, a tomol (plank canoe reproduction), shell beads, arrowheads, bone whistles, crucifixes, bottles, buttons and pottery inside the exhibit building are complimented outside by excavations of the foundations of the lost mission church, Native American barracks, well and the oldest standing structure in Ventura County—the mission water filtration building.