Copperopolis: Two Sides To the Coin

smcmanis@sacbee.com
Published Thursday, Sep. 08, 2011
The Sacramento Bee   sacbee.com

Mile upon monochromatic mile passes, as you leave Stockton in your rear-view mirror and head east on Highway 4.

Little distracts the eye from the bleached brown foothills studded with too few oak trees. The mind, lulled and dulled by such sameness, seeks any landscape alteration, any sensory stimulation. Barring that, how about at least better radio reception?

Ahead, about 40 miles down this lonesome road, there it is.

Rising in the heat like a mirage, up sprouts what looks to be a self-contained, newly formed town so shiny, so fresh scrubbed and well manicured that you do a double take. The car, seemingly of its own accord, takes the turnoff at the handsome cut-granite sign that reads “Copperopolis.”

This simply cannot be Copperopolis, the old mining town named for the semiprecious mineral mined in the mid-1800s, with a brief reprise during World War II.

Where’s the history? Where’s the funky gold- country vibe – the rusting artifacts and colorful characters?

Where, for that matter, is the character?

What you see is a gorgeous retail shopping center with upscale restaurants housed in authentically reproduced late 19th century architecture, wrapped around a lush commons featuring a gazebo with Muzak piped in from hidden speakers.

This is Mayberry moved to Calaveras County.

Then, you at last surmise, this must be Copperopolis Town Square.

OK, technically, this development by builder Castle & Cooke is very much within Copperopolis’ town limits. But those seeking the other – old-timers are quick to correct you and say the real – Copperopolis need to stay on Highway 4 another eight-tenths of a mile until you reach a far humbler, warped, state-stamped green sign that leads you to Main Street.

What you see there is a mix of historic buildings in various states of repair, a general store dating to the late 1860s, the Old Corner Saloon, established in 1862, the shuttered brick armory from 1864 and the very much open Calaveras Olive Oil and Land Co.

There are newer buildings: Copperopolis Elementary School, for one. Some clapboard homes have been converted into mom-and-pop stores, such as the flower shop and take-out grill.

Further illustrating the bifurcation of Copperopolis future and past, modern and traditional, is the housing situation. The town’s population increased 35 percent to 3,671 in the past 10 years, according to the census, and the boom certainly isn’t coming from existing single-family dwellings or the trailer park along Main Street. Rather, it’s due to the baby boomers moving into gated communities, like the opulent Saddle Creek Resort, with a championship golf course, and the enclaves encircling Lake Tulloch a few miles down the road.

The boom has mostly come from empty-nesters from the Bay Area and Sacramento, or flush, second-home-seeking techies from Silicon Valley. The infusion of moneyed homeowners, with their concomitant expectation of sophisticated urban living, has riven the Copper Valley into competing – though, to be fair, sometimes complementary – factions.

Old-timers shop at McDillard’s Feed & Supply just off Main Street; newcomers can go to Chloe & Zoey’s Pet Boutique at Town Square, which features holistic dog food.

Newcomers can browse for elegant home décor at Copper Proper at Town Square; old-timers find their knickknacks at McCarty’s Copper Inn general store on Main.

Old-timers often choose to partake in libations, shoot pool and the breeze, at the Old Corner Saloon, where bandit Black Bart used to down a few snorts between stagecoach heists; newcomers can belly up to the handsome bar at Griff’s BBQ and Grill at Town Square, where burnished wood comes from old barns and old railroad ties in the county.

Newcomers can dine at Saddle Creek Resort’s culinary treasure, the Copper Grille, where the $24 macadamia nut-crusted halibut with bamboo rice, ginger beurre blanc and bok choy is a specialty of executive chef Elizabeth Castillo, who formerly cooked for the governor of Michigan; old-timers can get the $4.95 Angus burger at Matt’s Take Out on Main – a speciality of chef Ruben Teczon, who formally worked as “culinary supervisor” at a prison near Salinas.

And tourists?

They can spend the night at well-appointed bungalows at Saddle Creek for $125 to $165 a night ($185 to $240 for a suite), or they can rent a room at the erstwhile Benson Bordello above the Old Corner Saloon for $50 – communal toilet just down the hall.

Choices don’t have to be either/or, of course. Many old-timers embrace the changes and welcome the economic infusion from the transplants. A vocal few, however, take umbrage at how, in their view, the focal point of the town has tectonically shifted toward Town Square.

“I don’t like that new part,” said longtime resident Becki Woodruff. “They call it ‘historical Town Square.’ The only thing historical about it is the dirt they paved over.”

Bud “Ode” Odekirk, owner of the Old Corner Saloon, does not begrudge the growth. In fact, he says “some of the rich people are my customers.” But he said he was rankled when the Town Square’s developers, Castle & Cooke, were mulling “closing off and condemning part of Main Street and making (drivers) go on Reeds Turnpike to get to Main and bypass our businesses here.”

From the far end of the bar, local Danny Stone put down his burger and piped up.

“That would’ve killed the town,” he said. “My family goes back 150 years. My great-grandfather was a blacksmith here. Castle & Cooke – they own Dole Pineapple and who knows what all else – they tried to muscle their way through here. They wanted Town Square to turn into the whole of Copperopolis.”

Not so, says Dave Haley, vice president and division manager for Castle & Cooke’s Calaveras Inc. Growth will happen, and he says smart growth is what’s taking shape in the Copper Valley.

“It’s better to recognize it, plan it and do it right (because) if you don’t it’ll happen anyway,” he said. “We didn’t want (Town Square) to be a modern town. … It’s a country town with a country town square.”

To those who think Town Square is too Disneyfied, not gold-country gritty enough, Haley smiled. “We’re blending in, but we also recognize that (the town) will grow, and we’re making it happen (for) the good of the community.”

Linda Stefanick, Castle & Cooke’s vice president for events, marketing and its real estate manager, has lived in town since 1987 and takes the long view.

“There are still a few diehard people who’ve been here forever and don’t want to see change, but you see that in any community. We (at Town Square) have paid homage to the town’s history.”

Indeed, the streets of Town Square are named for pioneer families. Town Hall Arts, a gallery, is on Stone Street – named for Danny Stone’s ancestors. That fact does not alter Stone’s disgruntled stance.

“If the economy hadn’t taken a dump,” he said, “they’d built up the whole area by now and forced us out.”

The nonprofit Calaveras County Economic Development Co. has estimated Copperopolis will grow to 40,000 residents in the next 10 to 20 years, economic recovery permitting. Several large housing developments have been improved.

“It’s just waiting on the economy,” Haley said.

Perhaps the delay will allow longtime residents of Copper – old-timers and newcomers alike use that diminutive – time to adapt.

Town Square can, indeed, grow on you. Take it from Josie Ribiera, who has lived in town for 35 years and taught for years at the elementary school. She once thought gentrification was anathema. Now, she’s such a convert that she opened the Copperopolis Olive Oil Co. in Town Square.

“I didn’t like it at first, because I don’t like change,” she said. “I like things to stay as they should. But I’ve learned to love it. This is a beautiful place to come to and just kick back. I see kids out there playing with their parents. They have somewhere to go.”

Even before Town Square was merely a dream and a blueprint, Saddle Creek was a destination for well-off Bay Area types wanting a golf getaway at a course (designed by Carter Morrish) rated the 12th best in the state by Golf Week magazine. There also is horseback riding, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, tennis courts and the six-mile Quail Trail, a hiking trail available only to residents and overnight guests.

Today, Saddle Creek’s population is equally divided between full-time residents and those using it as a second home, said general manager Bob Higgins. There have been a few foreclosures at Saddle Creek, he conceded, but the country club remains bullish.

“Even when the economy (went down), we knew we’d be OK with golfers,” Higgins said. “They aren’t going to give up the game. Golf is like an addiction. They gotta play.”

Town Square, too, has felt ill effects of the prolonged economic slump. A half-dozen storefronts are empty, like missing teeth in a gleaming smile. But Stefanick is quick to note that several new tenants portend a strong bounce-back.

After all, the lure of shiny buildings off Highway 4 is hard to pass by. As Stefanick says, “So many people, when they first get here, they say, ‘Are you a movie lot? Is this the “Back to the Future” set?’ ”

No, Copperopolis seems clearly headed forever forward to the future.

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Next Exit is an occasional series about out-of-the-way Northern California towns that most folks miss while in a hurry to get somewhere else. If you have a town you’d like us to know about, please call (916)321-1145 or email smcmanis@sacbee.com.

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