Ramblings:  Recollections of the past quarter-century in Esparto

“Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.”  George Santayana, philosopher 

I drove from San Francisco to Esparto one rainy day in the winter of ’77-‘78 for what would turn out to be the first of an unforeseen eighteen years of times.  I had just finished my daily computer teaching duties at USF; years of professorial seniority made for an early quitting time.  This was the year President Jimmy Carter was to negotiate a Middle East peace accord, Karol Wojtyla of Poland was to become Pope John Paul II, Sony introduced the Walkman, and “Grease” and “Annie Hall” were to be smashes! 

On a more local level, Jerry Brown was Governor, 23-acre “Old Sacramento” had been recently resurrected from Skid Row, and Woodland still seemed sleepy.  Unemployment was over 6%, stamps were 13 cents and “You Light up My Life” was playing on the radio.  I don’t recall that day’s cost of gasoline.   However, in my teens it was 25 cents a gallon, less than in 1913 when the first service station in the U.S. charged 27 cents a gallon back in Pennsylvania.

The 90 miles from San Francisco, via the Golden Gate Bridge, toll-free on exit and $1.00 on return, and the quiet Black Point cutoff around the north end of the Bay to Vallejo, seemed lengthy albeit scenic in my “newish” 1976 Bicentennial VW bus, the air-cooled engine roaring along at 58 mph.  My family’s earlier ’68 microbus would only in 3^rd gear make it up the Waldo Grade in Marin County and the big hills separating Vallejo from Fairfield, at best, maybe 50 mph, so I felt I was now booming along.  Speed, Einstein says, is relative.  There are no absolute speeds. 

Remember when we had a national U.S. speed limit of 55 mph designed to save energy?  And earlier oil crises?  However, the latest sleek new late 70’s cars went zooming by me on highway 80 at say 60+ mph, chromed tail fins and all!  However, perhaps you agree that currently, the name of the game seems to be: “Let’s do 80 on 80!”   In any case, my ’77-’78 winter trip was capped by 30 minutes or so on an almost empty single 2-lane roadway, the predecessor of Interstate 505, north through fallow farmland, the green oak-studded Vaca Mountains to the left. 

Arriving at the turnoff and driving west from arson-to-come Madison’s big storage building, near where Highway 16 disappears underwater in some wet years such as in ’83 and ‘95, I saw on the left the lane leading to the historic 18^th-century Stephens Ranch where part of the original adobe walls are still preserved, incorporated into a newer home.  As I understand it, this ranch had originally included thousands of acres in the area when the Stephens brothers came from Missouri during the Gold Rush era to successfully buy land for cattle and grain, settled down and secured their brides from back home.  One even became President of the Woodland Bank. 

Next, as I reached Esparto I passed the very busy Spiva’s Barber-Rowland farm supply store complex on the left, with the Sagara Farm warehouse behind.  The late Hideo Sagara ably helped me with suggestions for a couple of my first farming projects.  Just west of B-R was a rare “Golden Nugget” walnut orchard.  Looking west, you could see the setting sun glinting on the tall “signal pole” fire ranger station on top of 3,000’ Mt. Berryessa.  This structure burned down in the huge forest fire of 2004. 

Seeing Esparto’s downtown would be next!  My acquaintance, Lonnie, told me that in her childhood, Esparto had so many empty lots between the homes that, as a shortcut, she would drive her horse and buggy on the diagonal through town to save time getting somewhere, and no one objected to the practice.  Lonnie used to sell bare root fruit and nut trees each spring from her porch in town.  The community also had other “porch entrepreneurs” here and there, whether it was welding or doll repairs or homemade candy or trucking or what. 

I arrived at the turn on the Highway 16 corner into Yolo Avenue at Eleanor Parker’s former home and almond orchard. Didn’t know then that she was one of the well-known Nurse sisters, often recognizable as the amiable group of four wives sporting various shades of pink and rose when attending some social or fundraising function.  Anyway, an instant before turning north, I could see the Esparto Supermarket and the solid-looking Bank of the West building just beyond it. 

On the surface, Esparto appeared to be most clean and prosperous.  The town’s newest ranch-style homes, a sort of mini-subdivision, were near the BOW bank and located on both Robin and Redwing streets.  They were not laid out like contemporary subdivisions with detention ponds, etc., but were the first blocks of new homes in the Esparto area in ages.  The 1978 water and sewer services, one was told, were at full capacity now, but improvements were soon to be underway which would take care of everything!  

Next, in just the three blocks of downtown Esparto, I passed on the left the metal-sheathed “Frosty,” built post-WWII in its continued life and remodeled as Dan & Gail Lopez’s Burger Barn.  Opposite was the longtime high school with the administrators housed next door in a prefab where the new library now stands, then on the left the peeling log Scout Cabin and open-door volunteer firehouse with its tall tower and its daily-activated warning siren and bumpy sidewalks, opposing the shady town park with its bumpy sidewalks due to mature tree roots, then a big Rexall drugstore, and a beauty parlor occupying the defunct Bank of Esparto structure, vault still intact but with impressively armored door open. 

There was also a gifts/notions/dry goods shop adjoining Wyatt’s hardware store on the corner (where I bought a canoe the next year from Shelford himself), later to be succeeded by Marvin’s grocery store, plus not one but two service stations, Roath’s just north of the park and Lopez at the Wyatt’s corner, also back behind the siren tower,  metal fabricator Ben Herbst was bouncing blue light off his walls with an arc-welder, Ramon Cadena was as always busy at the big Diamond lumber company, Don Warren Insurance and realtor Susan Lindberg were both open, and of course, Lindberg’s bar, busy as always, included within it’s front the U.S. post office across the street from its current location, and the Fullertons’s Auto Repair facility next door was soon to come. 

The tall extant IOOF building, Lindberg’s bar downstairs, has still on the second floor an amazing springy bouncy wooden floor just wondrous for the dances held now and then in the past blooming of Esparto.  It was great fun to visit Lindberg’s for some false courage and then trip upstairs to dance with more-or-less abandon and grace, closing out the evening with a final visit downstairs, and then get a ride home. 

The railroad tracks had long been torn up by this time, leaving in sections much of the raised gravel bed.  The unused line had become part of Southern Pacific which was selling sections of the right-of-way.  I passed on a purchase then as it seemed a walnut orchard a mile long and only five or so trees wide was not a viable concept!  The corner 3-story 1889 hotel, gas lights and all modern comforts, had been razed in 1935, well before the winter of ‘77-’78.  It had been replaced by the Paul Lopez Mobil station and its needed propane refueling facility.  We bought kerosene at Wyatt’s for lamps, heaters, and so forth, even though electricity was widely available.  Prudent farmers used less expensive fuels when suitable, helping to balance the year’s budget towards profit. 

This hotel and its lot, recently the site of the Java Junction coffee shop, the history of which I’m sure have been documented by our local historian, David Herbst, after an up and down lifetime, had ended up eventually in care of the Parker family. The hotel had been built to serve earlier railroad passengers as well as other business travelers, e.g., grain buyers, cattle dealers, and traveling salesmen.  There’s an amazing frontal photograph of this hotel in the aftermath of the 1892 earthquake, with numerous patrons up on an upper story dangling their feet out where part of the wall tumbled down, leaving an impressive hole.  The railroad finally came through from Solano County via Winters in the1870s, almost a generation after the ’49er Gold Rush.  You can still see the raised gravel railroad bed here and there alongside places in the area such as Road 89 from Winters and Highway 16 from Madison. 

We later used a quarter-mile of this same gravel bed line between Esparto and Capay to fill in an abandoned irrigation canal after the Jensen Brothers and I laid down in the original ditch for our farms a 15” water pipeline running from the Winters canal north under Highway 16.  The railroad in its time had shipped out produce, fruit and nuts, grain, even turkeys, and brought in, among other items, fresh meat.  What a pleasure it’s been to talk to Esparto residents on how they selected their welcome cuts of meat before the Depression on the day when the refrigerated (with ice) car was part of the train.       

As I understand it, this all was part of a land development, a major part of which was directed by the five principals of Capay Valley Land Company in 1887, which originally called our new depot “Esperanza,” a sign of hope indeed in the agricultural vastness of western Yolo County and its associated Rancho de Canada de Capay, originally deeded to the three Berryessa brothers, their sad destiny (some were murdered) part of California’s history of conflicts. 

Our 1880’s post office’s Esperanza name was later changed in 1890 to avoid confusion with another locality in Tulare County and in honor, you might say, of our native strong fibrous “Esparto Grass.”   This hardy creeping grass has reed-like blades which supposedly curl up when short of moisture.  It is native to Spain and Algeria and has been used there for making ropes, baskets, and even paper.  This corner hotel location is where you now turn left at Woodland Avenue for a 10-minute trip to Cache Creek Casino, not invented at that time, as the Wintun descendants only had a few of their homes built near there. 

In 1942 the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians had moved from their 1920’s Rancheria in Rumsey to the present one near Brooks, not far from the current Casino, which incidentally made possible donations by the tribe of $1.6 million for charities in 2005.  R.H. Phillip’s vineyards had not been planted yet by the Giguerre brothers.  Both the million-dollar Library and the Esparto Middle School were but gleams in the eyes of visionary citizens.  However, the regrettable fact that in ’77-’78 many of Esparto’s high school graduates had to leave to find work has been brightened by the thousands of jobs now made possible by these and other new businesses.

The old empty Southern Pacific depot was soon to become a produce/bare root fruit tree/gardening shop, guarded at night by a big snarling dog who lived under the depot.  In a few years, the day came when the pleasant couple who rented it decided to do other things, whereupon it has long continued for the most part to remain empty.  They used to store scion wood in their cold room for me until spring grafting time.  It was at that grafting time that I made the too close acquaintance of their dog when I attempted to remove the scions from the empty depot before opening time, numerous back doors being unlocked in those days.

  Most remarkably, the only entirely empty structure in all of downtown Esparto in the winter of ’77-78 was an empty derelict building, just south of the IOOF, which was subsequently demolished by another entrepreneurial couple.  They built a well-received new pizzeria, food & bar complex, and when the couple left for Idaho after some years, the enterprise became A-J’s which eventually became the current Rose’s Island, while Lindberg’s Bar has remained shuttered in recent times and the dance floor collects cobwebs. 

This trip of mine was no accidental visit.  My college friend David Scheuring had purchased the old Road 85b Wanshop almond ranch, pit toilet and old almond huller and water tower with resident barn owls and all, just east of the 19^th-century Phillip’s sheep ranch. It shared a barbed-wire fence with the sheep ranch which temporarily leaked a couple of sheep now and then which the Phillips obligingly relocated.  The property was also across from Doug Erickson’s dad’s almond orchard and located between Al Hayes corner place and the Craig 19^th-century property, where I watched Dudley and his brother in their homemade aircraft take off and land when no large areas were underwater or deep in mud alongside the Winters Canal.  Portions of this property served as a catch basin for runoff from the hills to the west.  This piece of land is where some in the school district would like to build a new high school at the edge of Esparto.  Speaking of the Wanshop place, I had been invited up simply for a weekend look around and some almond tree-removal exercise. 

Today, this walnut and Satsuma orchard is known as Gold Oak Ranch after an old tale of buried gold, largely discredited after much fruitless hard-adobe digging in earlier decades.  Land was indeed available in this area in the late 70’s as the very serious 1976-77 drought and ever-increasing pre-Proposition 13 property taxes had more-or-less stressed some farmers, especially part-time growers, and at least made their land holdings less desirable than before even if they were still in business.  I suppose back in the 30’s there was also land readily available here due to the Depression’s effects. 

The Wanshop and Doyle heirs had decided to sell their inherited almond ranch which had suffered in the drought.  After my friend bought it in ’78, we fixed up an old windowless electricity-free cabin and I lived in it on most weekends and parts of vacations and summers for the next 15 years.  The cabin was perched just on the north edge of Lamb Valley Slough and, by watching for when the winter rains filled it up to about 10’ deep, you knew you only had hours to leave before some roads went underwater.  David had to travel some away from Esparto whereupon I suppose that I functioned as a sort of part-time lookout, along with our friend Scotty who lived there fulltime with his daughter.  It was very easy to drive tractors pulling discs and equipment back and forth from Road 85b at non-stop speed along empty Grafton Street past St. Martin’s church into town’s main street, Yolo Avenue, and then turn north to where Claire and I had bought our land one mile out.  

Our own Haag walnut orchard was started the next January in ’79 when we purchased some weedy parcels on Road 87 north of Esparto, no extra charge for the scattered mule- and horseshoes and hawk’s nest with eggs in its exact center, indirectly from Esparto’s last president of the defunct Bank of Esparto, via his ailing purchaser Willard Walker who used to manage the concrete fabrication facility out next to Syar Gravel on Road 89.  The acreage was comprised of some of the 10- and 20-acre parcels from the 1895 Bonynge Tract, an earlier agricultural development scheme set up not long after the railroad arrived and designed to bring in small intensive fruit and nut and olive and grape growers to the area.  Our place had had multiple owners and we found four wells, none of which yielded any water by the end of the ’76-’77 drought.  Water is today’s gold in California! 

Our current grape growers are the perhaps the third round to the original ones in the 1860’s and then those from the early 20^th-century before Prohibition.  Names such as Gillig, Cadenasso and Orleans come to mind.  For our ranch, Warren Insurance, owner of haying equipment in those days, helped me to bale the weeds and our neighbors to the immediate west, the Jensen Brothers, helped in innumerable other ways.  Artis Jensen became the Postmaster later in this period after her promotion from Madison and played a role in the current location of the Post Office.  The Obermueller almond ranch, full of beautiful large trees, was to the south of our place and Dr. Fisher, the Woodland dentist who served many in Esparto, had a recently removed olive ranch to the north of our ranch.  An elderly Swiss couple occupied the next farm north (succeeded by the Wicks family and then the York’s family), located on the south bank of Cache Creek, which was narrower then and flowed on a higher more traditional riverbed in those times. 

To the north, Syar Industries was steadily working away out near the center of Cache Creek, scraping away for high-quality gravel until it reached the current bed, called the thalweg, and carefully avoiding undermining the new Road 87 bridge after the old one was mostly demolished, some concrete still remaining today to the east of the current alignment.  The old Road 89 bridge north of Madison had already been unfortunately forced out of service forever.  Note that bridges in this area expensively come and silently go if you take the long term eagle’s-eye view of the matter!  Finally, our Road 87 place had no structures for the first 14 years until a Hoosier-built mobile home 5^th-wheel trailer arrived in ’94 from my home state that I had left in the 50’s to come to California to study, so the Gold Oak cabin was a welcome godsend, especially when electricity arrived and a pot-bellied stove was installed for winter warmth. 

On the whole, when a banker sells land and also some inherited orchards are on the market, the appearance of prosperity is most misleading.  The signs were subtle, but a downturn in the long rich complex life of Esparto was on the not too distant horizon in 1978.   Nevertheless, there were to be exciting times ahead such as when Dudley Craig gave Glen Jensen a perfumed baby pig wearing a ribbon and hidden in a burlap bag for his birthday; such as when Giz Garrison was surprised by an outdoor stripper show birthday party for 100 at the Zentners; such as the Stephen’s big parachute-in event; such as Cowles Mast driving his roaring antique fire truck down Yolo Avenue for the annual Homecoming parade. 

Can’t forget either the many worthwhile hunting seasons, including the Cache Creek bankside fusillade each September 1 for the opening of dove season, the numerous beautiful Chamber-enhanced Almond Festivals, only sometimes rained on; a soccer championship, and, finally, the arrival in Esparto of Bob Hastings and his flurry of 24/7 activity to install a pair of welcome restaurants (later to be followed by a Debra Durst one and also by Nina’s) one below ground, plus a rehabbed hardware store as Shelford Wyatt had retired, all topped by a packaged liquor shop. 

Finally, of course, there was to be our community’s successful and exciting drive to raise the million dollars for our Library, sparked by the late Andy Smith’s $50,000 donation as well as the much more recent WYORCA start on the multi-million dollar needs for the Esparto Community swimming pool and recreation center.  Perhaps every quarter-century is an exciting and worthwhile one if you can somehow stretch up for the eagles-eye view!  …and weather the downs while keeping down the volume on the current pop music! 

        Recipe: 

                Mature yellow fuzzy-covered quince, membrillo in Spanish, from the citrus-growing Esparto area, especially if picked before Thanksgiving before they begin degrading, make an excellent chunky sauce.  This dish is akin to chunky applesauce and has a most appealing flavor, consistency, and distinctive aroma.  It is my understanding that the Franciscan priests and their Spanish escorts who had the California missions built introduced the quince in the 1700’s along with Black Mission figs, grapes, and pomegranates, called grenada in Spanish.  Note that quince preparations will set up just like preserves once cooling takes place as quince contains much natural pectin.  This recipe is given for three average-sized quince, but may be scaled up in multiples of three. 

        Chunky Quince Sauce:

Ingredients

        3 quince

        1 lemon or bottled lemon juice

        ¾ cup sugar (brown and/or white to taste) 

Procedure

        Peel or otherwise remove the quince skin; a difficult task.  My shortcut is to squarely cut off the top and bottom and remove six sides, forming a right hexagon with no skin attached.  Quarter this hexagon lengthwise and cut out the core portions.  Subdivide these remaining quarters, core-free, into thumbnail-size or larger pieces, according to taste.  Toss immediately with lemon juice and water to prevent browning and then drain, but do not rinse.

        Fill a lidded pan with an inch or so of water and add sugar (I prefer half brown and half white) and apply medium heat.  After the sugar is mostly dissolved, add quince pieces and heat to a boil and reduce heat to simmer for 30-45 minutes with lid on.  Simmer for another 30-45 minutes with lid off to reduce the amount of liquid to a couple of tablespoons or so.  Serve warm, my preference, or at room temperature.  As quince contains significant pectin, there is no need to add gelatin.  It will set up automatically to the consistency of fruit preserves once the sauce is cooled—a tasty treat! 

        Reflection: 

"That is as well said as if I had said it myself."  Jonathan Swift, author

Excerpted from “Ramblings, Recipes, & Reflections”  Copyright © James N. Haag 2005

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