Happy Trails on Track

Imagine a train trip back to the Southern California of bygone days.

The eastbound locomotive chugs past the Santa Clara River Valley’s pristine orange groves and rolling hills under smogless blue skies. Visitors periodically disembark to sample the charms of 1940s Santa Paula, 1930s Fillmore and 1910 Piru before finally reaching Rancho Camulos, a historic adobe built in the 1850s.

Right now, imagining such an excursion is the only option for potential time travelers.

But a group of redevelopment officials wants to change that. Beginning Monday, they will bring their vision of what is dubbed the Heritage Trail to the residents of Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru in a series of public meetings.

“It’s just a concept--there is nothing called the Heritage Trail out there,” said Jim Becker, a county official coordinating economic recovery efforts in the small community of Piru. “It’s really just a vision or an idea of what the Santa Clara Valley could be by working together instead of as individual communities.”

The concept--dubbed the Santa Clara River Valley Heritage Trail--is an attempt to inject economic vitality into a rural valley that was struggling even before the 1994 Northridge earthquake inflicted its considerable physical and psychological damage.

Perhaps just as importantly, Heritage Trail proponents see the idea as a way for the valley to resist the urbanization that is slowly encircling the region and threatening a way of life most residents want to maintain.

“The challenge is, how do you take a town like Fillmore, or a town like Santa Paula, or even a teeny-tiny town like Piru, and make people want to come and visit,” said Nicholas Deitch, owner of Mainstreet Architects & Planners.

“These little towns had a reason for being with the citrus and railroad, and when that faded away, their reason for being faded with it. . . . My hope is that this concept gives these communities a reason for being what they are.”

The idea for the Heritage Trail came together late last year when municipal officials sat down to compare notes for the first time. The Northridge temblor had provided a catalyst for all three communities to reshape themselves, and all are in various stages of implementing ambitious downtown redevelopment plans.

And each had a common objective: attracting tourists.

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Officials recognized that pooling their efforts would be more effective than working independently. Marketing the Santa Clara River Valley as a destination would be easier than trying to lure tourists to only Fillmore, for example.

“By promoting the three communities together, we would have a lot more to offer folks,” said Fillmore City Manager Roy Payne.

The key was the Fillmore & Western Railway Co., which moved to the valley in 1991. Last year, with regular weekend excursions in place for the first time, the rail line attracted 20,000 riders, a 50% increase over 1994, said general manager Larry Jensen. Similar growth is anticipated this year.

Despite their differences and distinctive architectural styles, the three communities grew as railroad towns. Indeed, the development plans of each revolved around former railroad land in the respective downtowns, Payne said.

Jensen hopes the rail plan will appeal to those who yearn for simpler times.

“This is really the last remnant of what Southern California used to be 50 years ago,” he said. “There is nowhere else [like it] that is literally in a three-hour proximity of 5% of the population of the U.S.”

Indeed, eventually Jensen and county officials see the railroad spanning the county from Ventura’s beaches to the Santa Clarita Valley’s population centers.

Still, despite the potential, no one really thinks that hordes of affluent tourists will appear the minute the welcome mat is rolled out. And that may be just as well.

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Tourist amenities are sparse. For instance, Fillmore has no upscale restaurants, no bed and breakfast inns and just one motel. Indeed, city officials have urged the railroad not to grow too quickly, fearful that tourists will arrive only to wonder what else there is apart from the train.

But slowly, the communities are evolving.

Next week, Fillmore’s Redevelopment Agency will consider whether to loan money to a businessman who wants to open a winery. A Hollywood couple plan to move to Piru and open its first bed and breakfast later this year. And during the last year, Santa Paula has attracted visitors by marketing itself at a variety of trade shows.

Whether the Heritage Trail makes the transformation from paper to reality largely depends on the outcome of meetings scheduled during the next month. In an attempt to generate some enthusiasm, there will be no stodgy bureaucratic reports. Instead, officials will adopt the personae of tour guides to get the idea across.

Still, some have already embraced the Heritage Trail.

“If this comes through . . . it will help generate some business downtown and get us back on our feet,” said Al Gaitan, 53, who was born and raised in Piru and is sometimes known as Mr. Piru. “People need to wake up.”

Refining an idea such as the Heritage Trail is expected to take several years at least.

Yet, the idea is already seen as something of a savior by the people who coined the term.

“Tourism is a good target business for our communities,” Payne said. “It allows us to retain all the small-town attributes we like about our communities and also provides us the revenue source to sustain those small-town values.”

FYI

Meetings will be held in each community during the next month to present the Heritage Trail concept to residents and receive feedback. Here is the schedule: 7 p.m. Monday, Fillmore Veterans Memorial Building, 511 2nd St.; 7 p.m. March 25, Santa Paula Depot, 963 Santa Barbara St.; and 7 p.m. April 10, Piru Community Center, 802 Orchard St.