Enchilada Dinner and Celebration

A plate at Stag Hall

On the first Saturday in March the Hornitos Patrons Club serves dinner at Stag Hall, rain or shine. Tickets are sold at the door, for eating in the hall or for take-out. A ticket buys two enchiladas, or chicken pot pie instead, with beans, salsa, garlic bread, coleslaw, a sherbet cup, coffee and punch.

The hall stands at 2884 Bear Valley Road and belongs to Mariposa County. The county lists it as Hornitos Stagg Hall, with a full kitchen and a park, and seating for 105 or room for 240 standing. The club spells it Stag Hall. The Mariposa Gazette has called it the Golden Stag Hall (2014) and the Golden Stagg Hall (2024).

The 2026 dinner, the 77th, was held March 7. The club’s website gave the hours as 3:00 to 7:30 p.m., and its Facebook page gave them as 3 to 7. From 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., radio station KUBB 96.3 FM broadcast live from the event, local vendors sold their goods, and the club offered new merchandise of its own.

Two earlier editions ran later into the evening. The 65th dinner, on March 1, 2014, ran from 3:30 to 8 p.m. The 75th, in 2024, ran from 3 to 8 p.m., with tickets at $20 for adults and $9 for children.

Butter, garlic, sherbet

In the week before the 2026 dinner, the club posted a running checklist on Facebook. The first post checked off butter and garlic. Later posts added salsa makings and sherbet, then cheese and onions, then tortillas and olives. On the morning of March 7 the club posted: “They’re here !!!! Hornitos Patrons Club Enchilada Dinner today. Serving starts at 3pm.”

The next day the club thanked everyone who came and offered the leftovers at $8 a tray, with pickup arranged by message. It also thanked History on the Way for a video of the dinner.

The club says the dinner has supported its work for 77 years. That work has included the restoration and upkeep of local buildings, help for local organizations and events, support for Mariposa County students, and disaster relief. Its calendar also lists a flea market on the first Sunday in October and All Souls Day on November 2.

Minutes of February 2, 1949

The club is older than the dinner. In 1939 the Hornitos PTA became the Hornitos School Patrons Club, because members wanted to spend their few funds on local projects, chiefly the school. Its bylaws ran to seven articles, with the stated object to “promote the interest of school and schoolchildren” in the Hornitos District. Membership was open to “Anyone interested in promoting objects of the club.”

The charter members were:

• Evelyn McGregor
• Louise Binns
• Edith Turner
• Amelia Williams
• Eugenia Gagliardo
• Isabel Mulligan
• Louisa Gilvere
• Dorothy Erickson
• Mary Biggam, the teacher

The club first raised money with card parties and with plays put on by local people.

The minutes of February 2, 1949, as quoted in the Gazette, read: “Plans for an enchilada dinner and sale of tickets discussed. Decided to serve enchiladas, chicken and noodles, apple pie, cole slaw and coffee. Each member agreed to donate one of the above-mentioned dishes.”

That first dinner made a profit of $132.00. Zeora (Butterfield) Wommack and Amelia Williams made the enchiladas. A 2014 Gazette piece spells her name Womach and names her and Dorothy Bauer as two of the club’s original members.

The second dinner, on February 7, 1950, made $151.85. On March 8, 1951, after what the minutes call “a very spirited discussion,” members raised the price to $1.50 for adults and 50 cents for children. That year’s profit was $201.94.

From home freezers to the hall kitchen

The 1952 dinner, on March 31, made $202.23. That year Bernice (Bauer) Chase took over the enchiladas, working with helpers in her own home. They made them ahead of time and stored them in members’ freezers.

Soon afterward the members began gathering at the hall to cook the dinner there. The chicken pie, the alternate choice, had been made for many years by Selma Adams, and from then on it too was made in the hall. In the early 1980s Joyce (Chase) Barrett co-chaired the dinner with her mother, Bernice Chase.

The school closes, the club stays

The club changed around the dinner over the following decades:

• 1957: The Hornitos School Patrons Club incorporated as No. 336578. Jennie Bell and Dorothy Erickson signed the papers.
• 1977: The club dropped the word “school” from its name.
• 1981: The new school closed, giving way, in the Gazette’s words, to “newer demands and fewer students.”

In March 1982 Dorothy Erickson wrote a review of the club for the Gazette. She closed it this way: “While the school’s slumber, the Hornitos Patrons Club survives, still interested in education, children and community well-being.”

For the 75th dinner, in 2024, the club thanked four generations of families and friends who had kept the dinner going, “using all the original recipes of our founding members!”