Posted by: Kim_Hamilton on 01/05/2015 03:45 PM
Updated by: thepinetree on 01/06/2015 08:21 PM
Expires: 01/01/2020 12:00 AM
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Descendents of Gold Rush Pioneers Rally to Protect Town
Calaveritas, CA....This “bend in the road” that has captivated countless passersby over the decades is threatened by a modern “improvement”. The houses in town, 9 over 100 years old, are survivors of a rollicking Gold Rush community that featured Mexican and Italian miners, ranchers, farmers, and shop keepers. Surrounding the houses are adobe ...
ruins of Mexican fandango halls, stumps of early miners’ chimneys, and stone ovens that once made daily bread for the Italian families. Venerable barns and field-stone walls testify to the town’s agricultural past. On the north, an antique wooden trestle looms over the town, still strong enough to hold quarry trucks.
This tiny Mother Lode community is also notable for what isn’t there: cell phone coverage, two-lane roads, sidewalks, and modern construction. Residents and visitors like it that way. Italian families settled in after the lure of gold waned and maintained this hamlet now seemingly stuck in time. Several of the current residents are their descendants: the names Cuneo, Costa, Cadematori, Bacigalupi, De Martini, Trenque, and Silva will be familiar to many people in the area.
But change, it seems, is afoot: Calaveras County proposes to tear out the venerable 1930 single-lane truss bridge marking the southern entrance to town, replacing it with a wider, bigger, modern one. Caltrans had already signed off on the project before most Calaveritas-ites even got wind of the proposal. “We’re upset because we weren’t able to voice our concerns,” says Francesca Preston, granddaughter of Louise Cuneo Greenlaw. “The preliminary meeting had already passed before we saw the water-logged sign taped to the bridge. Now we have to fight to save our bridge, which is a gateway to a historic community.”
This New Year’s Eve the traditional celebration in Calaveritas, in which residents line the road with candle-lit luminarias, was joined by a rally to “Save the Bridge.” Neighbors, relatives, and fans of this enduring ghost town came out to pose for a photo on the bridge, before walking the lane to the beloved Costa Store, open only a few days of the year. Don Cuneo, 90, cooked an old favorite recipe on a deep-fryer, a few feet from where his Italian grandfather would have manned the bar in the late 1800s. He reminisced about growing up in the neighborhood: “I was a boy when the bridge was built.”
Anyone concerned with the proposal to replace the Calaveritas Bridge are encourage to attend a community “focus meeting” with the Public Works Department, scheduled for 6:00 p.m. on Jan 20th, the Board of Supervisors Chambers in San Andreas.
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