The Perils of Mining Gray Gold

Tim and Barbara Cooper built their dream house on the family farm just outside town. It’s a two-story, sky-blue beauty, with a swimming pool, stable, the works. The only hitch is that Charles Manson lives just across the street.

Manson and a few thousand other murderers, rapists, robbers and generally not nice people occupy what Tim Cooper refers to bitterly as “that thing,” but is more widely known as the Corcoran State Prison. The Coopers got there first, not that it matters.

“That thing,” Cooper said, staring at the beige compound from his family room, “is not going to go away. It’s stainless steel, state-of-the-art, and built to last. It will be there forever.”

The maximum security prison opened in 1988 and altered the landscape of this San Joaquin Valley farm town in ways large and small. The well-lighted facility has become the town beacon, visible at night for miles. Crews of orange-suited trustees perform various odd jobs around town. Fresh parolees gather daily at the depot, waiting for the next train out. Manson follower Sandra Good has been sighted, mysteriously pedaling her bicycle along country roads.

And there has been the inevitable, frightful image of inmates glowering, as they do in jail mug shots, off the front page of the Corcoran Journal--escapees. So far, the handful of breakouts has involved only Level 1 inmates, the least dangerous. With a Level 1, Cooper said, you simply warn the kids “someone’s loose” and go on about business. “With a Level 4,” he said, “you get in the car and get out.”

Corcoran sits on rich, alluvial soil that once was the bottom of a lake. As farm towns go, it was always a pretty good one. The valley’s biggest cotton operations made Corcoran their company town, insisting that top management live within its borders and that implement and chemical suppliers maintain sales offices here, and performing civic good works.

When cotton went south in the ‘80s, so did Corcoran. Things looked bleak. About the same time, though, Sacramento set aside millions for new prisons. This was taken as the knock of opportunity in places like Corcoran. Cities didn’t want anything to do with warehousing their criminals, and the hurting farm towns were eager to take the job.

A prison was the path to a more stable economy, a way to finally attract such glitzy, mainstream franchises as--why not dream?--McDonald’s. Avenal, Corcoran, Wasco, Madera, Delano--in rapid succession, they all sent delegations to Sacramento and got themselves a prison. “Gray gold,” the boosters called it.

Some places pushed the idea even further, announcing they also would welcome landfills, toxic dumps and any other unpopular urban necessities. Even today, Corcoran is trying to relocate a New Jersey coffin maker here. “Why not have a casket maker here?” one resident told the Fresno Bee, perfectly reflecting the movement’s logic. “Somebody has to make them. What’s wrong with having a state prison here? There are probably worse people than Charles Manson in other prisons.”

Not everyone wanted a prison. Bitter debates were held. Promises were made to counter every concern. Guards would live and shop on Corcoran’s streets. Local folks would find work behind the high walls. Security would be rock solid, and besides, the prison would not be housing the state’s toughest prisoners.

Well, these things have a way of not working out. Most guards chose to live in more citified places like Fresno and Visalia. Not many locals have been hired. And the state, after purchasing the property, pulled a switch and erected a maximum security prison.

While Chamber of Commerce types still maintain that the prison has been good neighbor, and might still come to be seen as an economic boon, a different appraisal can be heard around town. Many people believe the prison would not pass a popular vote today. There are all sorts of stories about guards failing to make car payments, driving like maniacs in the fog, impregnating teen-agers. There are suggestions of dirty politics, suspicions that Corcoran was sold a bill of goods.

“Before the prison was here,” Cooper said, “we had no theater, no bowling alley, no fast food, no shopping mall, no large discount drugstore, no nursery. . . . We still have no theater, no bowling alley, no fast food, none of those things.”

Bill of goods or not, the prison is here to stay, and Corcoran will have to live with it. What’s sad is that this won’t be the last California farm town that, seeking salvation, lets itself become a dumping ground for the cities. Farm towns do better when they stick to farming, but that simple option has become a luxury many just can’t afford.