Town remains blissfully unchanged

Oakland Tribune, Jul 3, 2006 by Julia Scott, STAFF WRITER

PESCADERO -- Clifford Moore says not much has changed in the 73 years he's lived on North Street, on a 100-acre ranch his family has owned for five generations.

"A few buildings popping up here and there. That's about it," said Moore.

Pescadero residents take pride in their town's old-fashioned, rural charm. And as the town celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding this weekend, many said they hoped it would stay that way.

Unlike other parts of the Coastside, Pescadero's beaches, hillsides and farmlands still remain largely untouched by development. Tourists visit on weekends to meander through the downtown art galleries, browse around the country store, and enjoy a famous bowl of artichoke soup from Duarte's Tavern, the oldest restaurant in town.

The one-stoplight town is so small that residents only need to remember the last four digits in each others' telephone numbers, and still refer to their homes by the names of their previous occupants.

The town is, in fact, much smaller now than it was at its economic peak in the early 1900s, whendairy and agriculture brought jobs to town and tourists spent weekends in town on their way to Pebble Beach.

At the time, over 1,000 residents transformed Pescadero into the third largest town in the county. Today, only about 300 people live in the downtown area.The town's two hotels were lost to a fire in 1926, along with much of the historic downtown area.

The area was first inhabited by Eli Moore, Clifford Moore's great- great-grandfather, when he and his family arrived by stagecoach from Missouri in 1853 and bought 800 acres of land in the area from Spanish soldier Juan Jose Gonzales for $6,000.

Pescadero was officially founded in 1856, the year it began to take shape along Stage Road. Portuguese, Italian, Chinese and Japanese immigrants all settled in town over the next 20 years, although the two latter groups have long since moved on.

In 1856, Brandon Weeks and his family arrived in town from Maine and settled several hundred acres of their own. His great-great- grandson, Ed Weeks, now tends the cemetery that bears his family plot. Five generations of Weeks' family are laid to rest there, including his grandmother, Annie Weeks, and his first wife.

"This is where I'm going," he said, pointing to a blank gravestone on the circular plot.

As a 10 year-old boy, Weeks remembers taking cows to pasture near the cemetery, land his family used to own that doubled as a stagecoach turnaround.

Stagecoaches were in use until 1920 in Pescadero, according to Weeks. "A Model T couldn't get over these hills," he said.

In a way, Pescadero was fated to be small. The Ocean Shore Railroad went bankrupt before it reached Pescadero, cutting off the town from an important regional market.

"There was going to be everything -- lumber, grain, produce -- going by train. It just went kaput," said Moore.

Weeks puts it more directly: "Since 1910, the damage the railroad did saved us from development."

Moore's children left town long ago for lack of jobs. Pescadero farmers have always raised what they could -- dairy, flax, dried flowers, artichokes, peas, Brussels sprouts -- but foreign competition and lack of available farmland have meant tough times.

The town has coped by transforming downtown Stage Road into a row of charming galleries, a bakery and a country store.

Pescadero's country charm has begun to attract a new generation of wealthy retirees who use Pescadero as a summer home. Their presence has driven home prices up to $700,000 or more, and made it hard for local workers to be able to afford to live in town.

Moore built his house for

$27,000 in 1967 on his family's land. He still bales hay in the fields late into the night, and raises cows to sell. Over the living room mantel he constructed hangs a rifle his ancestors brought across the country with them in 1853.

"It's ridiculous," said Moore. "Only the rich are going to live here now."

Pescadero has gone through other changes recently. Hundreds of Mexican migrant laborers now work most of the year at local flower nurseries and vegetable farms, swelling the town's resident population past 1,000 at harvest season. They are a large, yet largely invisible, group that rarely interacts with Pescadero's English-speaking core.

Last month, residents gathered for a "town photo" shoot in front of Duarte's for posterity. The photo was open to all Pescadero residents, yet a group of local Mexicans hung back, watching the action but unwilling to join in. The people posing in the photo did not seem to notice.

Local resident Darla Donovan said she was appalled when she heard of the incident.

"To me, that says there's not a lot of acceptance in town," said Donovan, who volunteers for Puente de la Costa Sur, a resource center for migrant workers in town.

"Communities aren't all just one language or one color. We're made up of all kinds of folks," she said.

Staff writer Julia Scott covers the coast and the environment. She can be reached at 348-4340 or at jscott@sanmateocountytimes.com