Pescadero Memories

(Pescadero’s litigious Loren Coburn testifying in court.)

(Sarah Coburn, Loren’s second wife and the sister of his first wife. Sarah was murdered in Pescadero in 1919.)

[Note: I wrote this in 1992; the photo appeared with the article.]

[Photo: The Keeper of the Lighthouse and his family and an assistant resided in this comfortable home at Pigeon Point light station built before the turn of the century. The sum of $12,000 was appropriated for the structure.]

“Novice” was the pen name of a restless South Coastside woman who joked in 1873 that “she would rather spend a whole week driving and sightseeing than in the wash-tub.”

(By driving, she meant via horse and carriage.)

When heavy winter storms kept the San Gregorio writer housebound, she couldn’t wait to get back on the road. And the moment there was a break in the weather, “Novice” was ready for an adventure on the South Coast–an adventure that would end up as a story she would mail for publication in the San Mateo County newspaper.

I’m ready, she said, looking at the gloomy gray sky “to drink any amount of salt air and stray bits of scenery.”

She invited friends to accompany her on the bumpy carriage ride, and the party arrived in Pescadero at 9 a.m.–but they didn’t remain long in the popular seaside resort. After a “vote,” she and her friends decided “to do” the Pigeon Point Lighthouse. A month earlier the new lighthouse had celebrated its first anniversary.

Surely when Novice and her pals arrived at the new landmark, they knew the back story; they had heard the gossip about the nasty legal battle over the nearby busy wharf (the only wharf for miles.)
Here are the juicy details: For a decade, Loren Coburn, the controversial landowner and world-class litigant, had leased the wharf to several ex-San Mateo County officials. They then modernized the primitive facilities making it possible for small steamers to load and unload local produce and supplies in a few hours instead of the usual two days.

Well, the lease had expired and now that the former county officials had made the improvements, they didn’t want to give up the property. They refused to honor the contract and the legal dispute landed in the courts.

In the meantime, there had been unfriendly confrontations and threats of violence. (For more details, read my “Coburn Mystery.”

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I call this chapter “The Fifth Township”

In 1851–the year Loren Coburn arrived in San Francisco aboard the steamer Panama–the village of Pescadero was difficult to get to. The wall of mountains to the east and the often foggy stretch of coastline did not help to stimulate growth in Pescadero.

Rumors that a railroad was going to lay an iron road from San Francisco to Pescadero’s front door did attract energetic newcomers to the pretty valley and the village in the middle of nowhere. But the railroad did not materialize.

And although as early as 1853 what passed for a road linked San Francisco with Santa Cruz–that road was not reliable, especially during the wet and muddy winter months. For months at a time the coastal road was impassable, keeping folks at home. (Pescadero was then part of Santa Cruz county) and the best route to take was via San Mateo and Santa Cruz–no picnic, either, and also adding 90 more dusty, bumpy miles to an already difficult trip.

Winter storms often washed out roads and bridges all over the county and money had to be raised to make repairs. In 1862 heavy rains wrecked almost all of the bridges in San Mateo County–the flood damage repair sent the county into debt.

To reach the sandhill that San Francisco was then meant riding horseback all night long, climbing up and over and down treacherous mountainous barriers. One such barrier was later called “Devil’s Slide.”

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