Historical Highlights in San Benito County

BY RICHARD VON BUSACK PUBLISHED SEP 14, 2021 12:00 A.M.

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The Plaza Hotel, first constructed out of adobe in 1792, is one of the buildings on the San Juan Bautista Historical District Walking Tour. Zack Frank Shutterstock.com

In 1772, the colonizing Father Juan Crespi named this area’s biggest river after the organizer and codifier of the monastic orders, Saint Benedict. The Spanish called him San Benito. It’s a thinly populated county—62,808 at last count—but more are pouring in, turning this area into a bedroom community for the Santa Clara Valley. In Hollister, the county seat, homes average at $765,000. San Benito County is changing from a place where people ride horses for work to a place for people who can afford horse property.

Despite these changes, pieces of the past remain in this land located East of the Gabilans (the title of Marjorie Pierce’s 1976 nonfiction history of the region). At the San Benito County Historical and Recreational Park, located on Highway 25 in Tres Pinos, visitors will find a collection of historical homes, buildings, vehicles, and farm implements from the county’s early days.

Farther down the highway is Pinnacles National Park, a stretch of lonely vistas, razor sharp rocks, caves, and 30 miles of hiking trails. Peering up in the skies above, one might see the biggest land bird in North America, the critically endangered California condor—the last remnant of Gymnogyps, a genus that cruised the skies during the Pleistocene era. The white patches on their underwings distinguish them from the similar-looking turkey vulture. Their pterodactyl size is another tell—turkey vultures don’t have a nine-foot wingspan.

San Benito County contains an actual ghost town: the since-closed mercury mines at Idria, named after a city in Slovenia. It's now fenced off as a Superfund site. (Read more in this two-part series in Sunset magazine.)

Seekers of figments are further directed to the well-preserved mission of San Juan Bautista, to seek the ghost of Madeleine Elster, played by Kim Novak in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1957). But the tower from which the haunted lady met her doom was a Hollywood matte. Probably a good thing it wasn’t real, given how seismic the area is; San Benito County is sort of the buckle on the earthquake belt. The San Andreas Fault is only a short walk from the old mission … as is the mass grave of some 4,000 natives killed by European poxes and fevers.

1. San Benito Historical Society

This organization studies the rich history of San Benito County, from the Ohlones and the vaqueros to the 1947 Fourth of July weekend motorcycle pack invasion of Hollister. That national news story was the basis for the Marlon Brando film The Wild One.

SBCHistoricalsociety.org

2. San Juan Bautista Historical Society

Headquartered in the Luck Museum (1919), open by appointment, are the archives of this small but historic town. Apart from the weekends, when visitors turn up, San Juan Bautista is a place unaffected by time. Some buildings date to the beginning of the 1800s.

Find out more on SanJuanBautistaCA.com or on the group’s Facebook page.

3. San Juan Bautista Historic Walking Trail

There’s more to see in SJB than just the mission. The State Historic Park and Downtown National Historic District walking tour passes by 48 structures of note, including the Plaza Hotel, the Castro-Breen Adobe, and Casa Rosa.

HistoricWalkingTrail.com

4. CatholicHollister.org

The website CatholicHollister.org focuses less on the iniquities and cruelty of the Mission system than on its gentler aftermath—such as the problems of being an unarmed peacekeeping priest in a place where disputes were settled with guns.

5. El Teatro Campesino

Based in San Juan Bautista since 1971, El Teatro Campesino was founded by Luis Valdez, the son of campesinos (farm workers), back in 1965, during the labor struggles in the Central Valley led by Cesar Chavez. Before moving to San Benito County, the troupe performed street theater during the most hazardous days of the 1960s, playing Chicago one day before the start of the 1968 riots. The world-famous commedia dell’arte troupe is best known for Valdez’s 1979 play Zoot Suit and the alternating Christmas plays La Pastorela and La Virgen del Tepeyac. ETC switched to virtual shows during the pandemic, with a radio-play version of La Pastorela coming this December.

ElTeatroCampesino.com

6. Fremont Peak State Park

Prime stargazing and 360-degree views await campers here. John Steinbeck, who visited often when he was young, said that this was the place he wanted to be buried. The 3,100-foot peak is named after John C. Fremont, who passed through in 1845. The man had a serious life. He was a semi-finalist to become president (he lost to the celebrated mediocrity James Buchanan). He was an explorer, a senator, a Union general, a wanton mass-murderer of Indians, and an eventual bankrupt who died broke in New York. One of Fremont’s lesser exploits was the time he tried to start the Bear Flag revolt early. Fremont took this peak, planted the U.S. flag and garrisoned himself with 60 soldiers. The wind blew over his flagpole. Both the American consul in Monterey and the Mexican governor advised him to get out, and he did.

Find out more on StateParks.com.

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