Putting Piru Back on the Map

A century ago, this was a fine little railroad town, built on farming and oil, with its own depot and general stores, a butcher, barber, blacksmiths, stables, dressmaker, telegraph office, hotel and restaurant.

Today, after decades of decay and the demise of the local railroad and oil industries, Piru’s downtown has dwindled to two downtrodden blocks on Center Street, home to four shops: two convenience stores, a laundermat and the Blue Bird bar.

Unemployment in the town many people recognize from its frequent use as settings for movies and television shows is 10%, double the Ventura countywide rate. Much of the work to be had is seasonal. This unincorporated village of 1,800 residents, in a core of about 1.5 square miles in northeastern Ventura County, has been on the decline.

Its death knell seemed to be the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which left 10 of Piru’s 12 downtown commercial structures either uninhabitable or in precarious shape. The only bank in town, housed in a pretty brick building that was the cornerstone of Center Street, pulled out and sold the damaged structure to the county for $1 rather than invest in repairs.

But ultimately, county officials say, the Northridge quake may have been Piru’s salvation.

Using hundreds of thousands of Federal Emergency Management Agency dollars as seed money, leaders have amassed about $11 million, mostly through state and federal grants, and hatched a plan to restore Piru to a condition far better than the one of the town leveled by the earthquake.

In a town where it seems there’s nothing to do, their vision is no easy sell: Piru as a tourist destination.

A redevelopment effort is already underway and could be largely complete sometime next year. It relies on two things:

* Reconnecting a railroad track on the Santa Paula branch line to bring in passengers on the Fillmore & Western Railway.

* Cashing in on outdoor enthusiasts’ visiting nearby Lake Piru.

The track through Piru is being laid to run from the west through town, east to Rancho Camulos, which earlier this month was designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The ranch inspired the fictional site where the heroine and her lover met in the 19th century Helen Hunt Jackson novel “Ramona.” Eventually, the track is expected to be extended to Santa Clarita in Los Angeles County and hook up with Metrolink.

In the early 1900s, the Ramona story spurred a cottage tourism industry, and, with several film adaptations, put Piru on the map as a popular filming area for Hollywood crews.

A bicycle and walking path is planned that will run next to the train track. There are plans for a public museum on the grounds of Camulos, ranched today by a local family.

An old-fashioned train depot with a gazebo will serve as Piru’s anchor in a town square area that would bisect Center Street, the road traveled by thousands each year on their way to Lake Piru.

Electrical lines will be buried. Quaint lampposts will replace steel poles.

And beginning this month, for $300 a month, the county will lease Piru’s former bank building to a local family that hopes to open it as an ice cream shop by Memorial Day weekend.

If backers’ predictions are realized, tourists would pour enough money into the local economy to sustain other start-up boutiques and perhaps some light industry. Piru residents could work and shop in town year-round. And the enclave, rich in history from the county’s pioneer days, would enjoy a renaissance.

But residents are not without hesitation. Because Piru has some relatively cheap land zoned for development in an otherwise expensive county with strict slow-growth laws, residents do not want tourism to invite too much expansion.

Many already have mixed feelings about a 113-unit development with a large proportion of low-income homes that sprang up during the last decade, increasing Piru’s housing stock by nearly 50%. They do not want Piru to lose its old-fashioned, small-town feel or to be overrun by traffic.

And there also is skepticism about the redevelopment plans.

At Elva’s Center Market--one of the two convenience stores in town--customer Vince Alverdi said he is one of those who distrust the county’s motives.

“I don’t think it’ll help Piru’s economy. It’ll help Fillmore and the railroad company,” said Alverdi, who believes the depot and town square are just gestures to appease Piru residents who might otherwise object to trains roaring through town on their way east.

Still, most residents who were interviewed said they do want more stores within walking distance, some beautification and new jobs. And they are willing to invite thousands of people in to accomplish this goal, as long as those newcomers are only passing through.

“There’s nowhere in town, a family setting, where people can have dessert or a soda and just talk,” said Patricia True, the owner of the ice cream store being built in the bank building.

“I don’t see any drawbacks” to redevelopment, said Steve Alcocer, a horticulture instructor at Ventura Community College and vice president of the Piru Neighborhood Council, a five-member board that serves as an unofficial town council. “What I do see is the chance for Piru to take advantage of cultural tourism.”

Jeffrey Finkle, president of the Washington-based Council for Urban Economic Development, said a tourism economy could work in Piru if plans are modest and well thought out.

Piru’s demographics are a factor: a population that is 75% Latino, with many residents seasonal citrus workers, and a median household income of $25,000 a year compared with $46,000 countywide. The Fillmore-Piru Citrus Assn., a cooperative packing house for regional Sunkist growers, is Piru’s main private employer, with about 100 employees.

Marketing is crucial, Finkle said. Primarily, two types of tourists would stop in Piru: campers and boaters en route to Lake Piru, and train passengers.

Somehow, county leaders would like to integrate native Harry Lechler’s expansive collection of local junk, treasures, artifacts and historical records into the tourism experience.

Lechler’s museum is now housed several blocks from Center Street, on the lot next to his home. But as he and his wife approach the age of 90, county leaders are working with them to have the collection appraised.

Then, of course, there is the film industry.

Starting with “Ramona” star Mary Pickford’s stay in 1911 at the Mountain View Hotel, later renamed the Round Rock Hotel and now vacant, the movie and television industries have enjoyed filming in Piru.

It has a lot to offer: bridges, green open space and orange groves, old-style buildings, generally friendly people and virtually no traffic.

Filmmakers also have been drawn to the four-story, 12,000-square-foot Piru Mansion, in walking distance from Center Street, considered one of the county’s most important works of architecture.

The mansion has its own Web site, which lists it for sale at $3.25 million. Although the mansion lies just beyond the redevelopment district boundaries, county officials are hopeful an eventual buyer would convert the mansion to a bed and breakfast, or some other format accessible to tourists.

Built in the late 1800s by Piru’s founder, religious publisher David Caleb Cook, it later became home to newspaper baron Scott Newhall, former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. A fire in 1981 burned the mansion to the ground, but the Newhall family rebuilt it.

In recent years, crews have filmed throughout Piru, and at the mansion and lake, for “Devil in a Blue Dress,” “Chaplin,” “Of Mice and Men,” “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” and television series such as “Murder, She Wrote” and “Melrose Place.”