A California town called Freedom has a wild past as 'Whiskey Hill'

A plaque noting the history of Freedom, formerly known as Whiskey Hill, hangs on the side of a bar

June 3, 2025 6:30 AM PT

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FREEDOM, Calif. — I was driving home from a reporting trip to Santa Cruz County on Friday when I spotted the plain green and white highway sign, just off Highway 1. It had an arrow pointing north alongside the word FREEDOM.

Jackpot! I slowed my aging Jeep, to the annoyance of the pickup driver behind me, just enough to take a not-great cellphone photo out my window before making my way home to the South Bay.

As I wrote last week in this newsletter, I am willing to travel out of my way to report from a town with an interesting name. I had stopped in Freedom — a census-designated place with some 3,000 residents in southern Santa Cruz County — to do just that.

It wasn’t just about Freedom, but redemption

The morning the newsletter on datelines landed, I awoke to a text from my colleague, friend and fellow California history nerd Gustavo Arellano: “Whither Weed???”

Meaning Weed, population 2,500, in Siskiyou County.

I’ve been to Weed several times. I’ve even bought a few “I [Heart] Weed” stoner-humor knickknacks for friends. Alas, I have never reported a story from there, I confessed to Gustavo.

“REVEAL YOUR SHAME!” he texted back.

Challenge accepted. Here are a few colorfully named California places I have visited but from which I have not (yet!) earned a dateline: Rough and Ready in Nevada County; Likely in Modoc County; Butt Valley in Plumas County; Hayfork in Trinity County. And, yes, Weed.

Though, I have earned datelines from Blackwell’s Corner, Cool, Peanut, Weedpatch and Volcano.

Here’s the lowdown on Freedom (previously Whiskey Hill)

The unincorporated community blends right in with the adjacent, incorporated city of Watsonville. Looking for proof of Freedom, I found: Freedom Elementary School and the Freedom Branch Library.

I also found an easy-to-miss metal plaque on an exterior wall of the Wooden Nickel Bar & Grill (which is on Freedom Boulevard but not technically in Freedom). The plaque recognizes the town’s wild past as a place called Whiskey Hill, “a tiny village where violence, hangings, drinking, and bull and bear fights were a part of daily life.”

The Freedom Branch Library in Freedom, Calif.

“As the town became more civilized, the name was changed to freedom,” reads the sign, hung in 1982 by members of the Order of E Clampus Vitus, a fraternal organization that celebrates obscure local history.

Georg Romero, a historian for the Watsonville-based Pajaro Valley Historical Assn. and a retired library director for Cabrillo College, was kind enough to dig into the archives and send me a few old newspaper articles describing how Whiskey Hill, then Freedom, came to be.

In the 1860s, the hamlet of Whiskey Hill consisted of “a dozen shacks, each of which contained a bar and dispensed firewater,” according to a July 1937 article in the Watsonville Leader newspaper. At one rowdy gathering, the newspaper claimed, “a man was shot through the head, the bullet going in one temple and out the other. A serape was thrown over him and he was left to expire in a corner while the dance and merry-making went on.”

The town also was known for its vicious bear and bull fights hosted for spectators who paid $1 for a seat in the shade and 50 cents for a spot in the sun. According to a 2007 column in the Register-Pajaronian newspaper by the late local historian Betty Lewis, a bear would be “chained to a post in the middle of the arena, and an angry bull was let loose.” As the animals fought, brass bands played and clowns entertained.

Ultimately, Whiskey Hill sobered up. In the summer of 1877, Lewis wrote, a small group of residents met at a local schoolhouse and decided upon a more respectable town name: Freedom.

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For your downtime

A plate of roast duck from Roast Duck by Pa Ord.

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Staying in

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And finally ... your photo of the day

A man sitting under a tree holds an avocado

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Robert Gauthier at ACA Groves farm, where a farmer is fighting to save the iconic California avocado.