The Move Into the Store
We had been running the campground for several years before the Rinconada
Store became available tor lease. The Campground was somewhat hidden behind the
store and many campers did not even know it was there so I was quite anxious to
take over the lease and put an entrance to the campground on Santa Margarita
Lake Road.This would give us much more exposure to those going up the lake road
Entrance to the Ghost Town
Inside the Ghost Town, there were lots of old relics and several
buildings including a School House, a Jail, the Silver Slipper Dance
Hall, and the Train House.
The Silver Slipper was a very popular Saturday Night place to go
as a live band would perform and the place was always filled to
capacity.
The Silver Slipper Dance Hall
The ATF would not allow us to sell beer or wine in the dance hall so
everyone would come into the store and buy what they wanted and then we
would close the store and open the dance hall.
There was usually a break about 9:30PM and we would once again close
the dance hall and open the store and go through the same procedure.
Also, when I took over the store, The Whiteford's (lease holders) put in
the lease that they could use the dance hall for Church on Sundays
There was an old fire truck parked between the jail and the train
house and I always wanted to see if I could get the engine to run.
It was in very bad shape and when I went under the hood to check it
out, I found that the starter was missing. It was not something that
you could go to the parts store and buy as the Fire Truck looked to
be a 1930's Vintage so I set the idea aside for a bit. Then one day
I was cleaning out a larger storage shed that sat behind the closed
cafe and as I was going through some boxes, there was the starter
all torn apart but complete. All it needed was some new brushes and
I was able to find those and get the starter working.
The Vintage Fire Truck
I put in new spark plugs and put some gas in the tank. It
was a 6 Volt system so I had to borrow one of the batteries from my
RV bank of 4 batteries. All was ready and I cranked it over. I
turned ok but did not fire. It had an updraft carburetor so I
decided to pull a couple of the plugs and put some gas directly in
the cylinders. On the second try, it kicked over and dust and debris
flew everywhere. I put it in gear and moved it about 6 feet forward
and then shut it down........my goal to get it running was
accoplished. It was never started or moved again for the duration of
my time there.
In order to enter the campground from Santa Margarita Lake Road,
We had to tear down a barricade and make a gentle slope out of an 8
foot drop. The picture below shows the very beginning of this
process. There was also a small creek that flowed down though this
gully so I had to put in a culvert for the road to go over the
creek.
Gordie, Helen's Dad and myself doing
road work
There were no water lines running to this area so I trenched a
new line from the water tank on down. We put in about 6 sites
right alongside Santa Margarita Lake Road
Trenching Water
Lines
Gordie had a can collection and we decided to line the
walls in the Red Barn with all of his cans and make a game room in
there. We bought a juke box, candy machine, pin ball machine and a dart
board.
The Red Barn Game Room
As time moved on, we added a pool table and this soon became one
of the busiest spots in the Campground.
Gordie and Helen setting up to play
a game of Pool
This is a picture of Helen making the rounds up on the 3rd level of
the campground. We had a golf cart and daily we would make a run through
the place to pick up any loose trash that may be blowing around.
Helen on the 3rd Level
After we had been at the Campground for a while, a fella came along
selling picnic tables. He was asking $20 each for them if I would do the
assembly so I bought 20 tables. It was the best investment I ever made.
A couple of new picnic tables
waiting to be painted
Right next door to the Campground was grazing land for cattle.
The big bull that you see in the picture below had more than once
crossed the fence line and made it's way to greener pastures on the
other side of the fence. I have two stories to tell about this bull. My
first experience with him was trying to chase him back to his own
stomping grounds. I had made an opening in the fence and was trying to
shoo him towards it but instead of going the way I wanted him to, he
went the other way, up the hilll towards the silver water tank.
When he got to the top, he put his horns down under the top row of
barbed wired and then lifted straight up. Well it pulled up 4
fence posts on each side of him and everything fell to the ground and he
just lazily walked on over.
The Big Bull's other incident involved an older guy that was a
permanent in the Campground. I can't remember his name but I do
recall that he had a green and white Cadillac. Anyway, he was going up
the road towards Santa Margarita Lake. He was still in sight of
the store when I heard all this honking and when I went out to see what
was going on, there were three or four cows on the road plus the big
grey and black bull. Well, apparently the big Bull did not like car
horns and he came right up alongside the Caddy and put his own horn
right through the windshield. About scared the old guy to death.
The Big Grey and Black Bull that
Lived Next Door
Below is a picture of Allyson's sons Billy and Jason. One thing
about them living in the campground, the never lacked for places to
play.
Billy and Jason
This next picture is one of Jason feeding the peacocks. At this point
and time, the Campground was full all the way out to site 20 on the main
street level, and we had campers coming in every week end during the
summer months.
Jason and the Peacocks
Down at the far end of the campground, we put in a playground for the
kids. We also put in the teepee which got moved to Huer-Huero Road and
now resides in Whtimore
Helen standing alongside the teepee
in the playground
This is a picture of the big fire that whipped through the area in
1985. It was the straw that broke the camels back as business
never did recover before we decided to close down.
The 1985 Las Pilitas Fire
Santa Margarita Lake
The fire started on Monday July 1 near Santa Margarita Lake, and was
naturally called the Santa Margarita Lake Fire. On 7/4 it was renamed
the Las Pilitas fire. It was competing for resources with a slew of
other fires in the central and south state, especially the Wheeler fire
in Ventura County which was burning from Ojai to Carpinteria, the
Lexington Fire near Los Gatos in Santa Cruz & Santa Clara Cos, a
63-home-burner in the Normal Heights area of San Diego, and an
arson-caused urban wildfire in Baldwin Hills in the City of LA which
destroyed 48 homes and killed three people.
On July 6, the weather had improved with higher humidities, and the Las
Pilitas fire was declared 40% contained, with full containment expected
on Sunday the 7th. However, early on the morning of July 8th, temps
increased and winds whipped up dramatically, and the fire was bearing
down on the eastern outskirts of the City of SLO, threatening the
University, and got within a half mile of the SLO General Hospital.
Resources were rushed in, including 80 companies from LAFD, and the fire
was stopped before getting into the city proper. It was declared
contained on July 11th, and under control on the 15th. It burned about
75,000 acres, and destroyed 24 buildings and 5 vehicles.
Santa Margarita Lake After the Fire
The big flood in 1980
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Allyson in front of the cafe in the
80's
The Cafe as it looked in March of
2011
Rinconada, California 1975 to 1989
In 1975, we moved from 911 Cunningham Drive, Whittier, California to Santa
Margarita, California. We bought the 30 years that were left on a 40 year lease
of the Rinconada
Campground. It was baren, dry and hot when we took over. There were no
trees and 10 sites with only one trailer there on a permanent basis. It took us
several years and lots of hard work just to get trees planted throughout the
park.
It was our original plan for Helen to go to work in San Luis Obispo
which was just up over Cuesta Grade to the south of us and for me to
work in the park in an attempt to make it more attractive to campers.
As it turned out, San Luis Obispo was a college town and Helen found it
impossible to get a job at a rate of pay that she was accustomed to.
We then discussed my going to work and her managing the Campground and I
would do the maintenance on the week ends. I found a job as Service
Manager in Santa Maria working for Ryan Equipment which was a Case
backhoe Dealer, 5 days a week with week ends off which is just what we
wanted. I stayed there a couple of years but it was a long drive to and
from work so I began looking for something closer. I saw an ad in the
San Luis Obispo paper for a mechanic at Cal Trans so I applied for and
got that job. The pay was a little less but it was right downtown San
Luis Obispo. I stayed with Cal Trans for 15 years and when we got
ready to think about retirement, I got a transfer from San Luis to
Redding, More about that on the Whitmore page.
Cal Trans Shop in San Luis Obispo,
California
This is me Dragging Hoses, Shovel and
What not from Place to Place Planting Trees
There was a
combination office and mobile home which was about 1/4 the size of our home in
Whittier so it was a tight squeeze for the four of us, my Mother, Helen, Gordie
and me. The Mobil only had 2 bedrooms and Gordie opted to sleep in the
newly nicknamed "Red Barn" This later went on to become a game room for
the Park.
Gophers were a real problem with regard to the tree planting and so
each tree had to have a wire mesh basket made for it. I learned this
very quickly on as the first ten trees that I planted were dead within a
week due to the gophers. I planted over 100 trees the first year and
they all had to be hand watered daily using a garden hose.
Ten New Electric Sites and Ten Fast
Growing Trees Went on the First Level
The campground was on 3 levels so I decided to plant trees on the
first level and work my way up.The thrid level was like a junk yard and
there was tons of metal, wood, boxes, cans and just plain junk that had
to be hauled off so I worked on removing the junk in between planting
trees.
I moved up to the second level next. There was only one good
campsite there because of a huge oak that was there so trees had to go
in on both sides of the large oak. There was only one picnic table in
the whole park so that and fire grills became a priority as well. I
found out that 18 wheeler truck tire rims made excellent containers for
camp fires so I used those throughout the park
This is the Lower 2nd Level and it was
Separated from the Upper Half by the Oak Tree
In the middle of all this, we got a call from Allyson telling us that
she was leaving her husband Bill White because he was cheating on her
and was it possible for her to move up to the campground with us. I had
no idea where we would put her but I rented a U-Haul trailer and headed to LA
to bring her and her things up to Rinconada. We ended up putting
her in a old wood sided travel trailer that someone left there and never
returned to pick it up. As I recall, it was an old man and a young boy
but something must have happened to them as they never came back.
In any event, Allyson painted this trailer and fixed it up and moved in.
This is the exact same spot where some old friends of mine moved in,
Dolly and Vincent Benzenhaufer. They stayed with us for a couple
years and then moved on. They now live in Zephyr Hills, Florida.
Allyson and Gordie working on the
Trailer That She Would Soon Move Into
We soon worked our way into winter and some of the trees that we had
planted began to take shape. There was a whole row of pine trees
that went in directly behind the Red Barn Game Room as well as other
places throughout the park. I was hoping by the following summer
that this row of trees would hide much of the equipment we had stored
behind the red barn.
A Row of Trees Leading up to the Top
Level of the Park
A New Awning out Front and Back, a
Rose Garden, and Trees Transformed the Look of the Office
As we moved into the new year, we set about making a game room
out of the Red Barn. We had lots of items stored in the Red
Barn and I got permission from the Whiteford's to move whatever I
wanted into an old building out behind the Ghost Town. I also moved
the large shed that was sitting just to the left of the Red Barn.
This was quite a chore as we had to use utility poles to roll the
shed to it's new location. It was a very solid shed
constructed of 2x4's and on the outside, there was some kind of
waterproof cement panels
Helen and Jason out in front of the
mobile home-office where she had spent many hours developing a rose
garden.
Moving the Shed and Away We Go
This is a couple of comparison pictures. The first one shows
the Trailer Park Entrance in the 1970's. As you can see it looked very barren before
the planting of trees along the entrance road.
The Rinconada Trailer Park in the 1970's
This picture was taken from Google Street View.
It looks like all of my hard work paid off as far as the tree planting
was concerned
The Rinconada Trailer Park Entrance as it looks
today
A fairly large group of campers
The Game Room Bear
Gordie and Helen on his Dirt Bike
Jason and myself cutting grass
This is how the 3rd Level looked in 1976. It was very barren and dry
and I had just started putting in trees there
Jason on a toy coming down the 3rd Level
That same spot on the 3rd Level with all the trees full grown. It was
absolutely beautiful there in March of 2011 but the park was closed to
camping.
The 3rd Level March 2011
This is a picture of Gordie with some friends in 1976 and you can see
how open it was around the water tank
This is the same view taken in 2011 and you can hardly see the water
tank without getting up as close as I did
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