West Side Chronology
But the fast-growing West Side, not overly burdened by a sense of superiority, periodically produces reasons to take notice. Some haven't been pretty: ax-rapist Larry Singleton, the Westley tire fire, party mom Anna Walker and a Gustine father who killed his four children and himself last Fourth of July.
Other West Side events invite pride: John F. Kennedy's August 1962 visit to inaugurate San Luis Dam, bloodless Portuguese bullfights near Gustine, tournaments at the world-class Diablo Grande golf courses, Patterson's Apricot Fiesta and the Newman Fall Festival.
Lonely Crows Landing has beenhogging the limelight lately thanks to dreams of turning a vacant air base populated by jack rabbits into a bustling business park larger than nearby Patterson. That city's movers and shakers are shaking mad at the plan, which earlier this year generated a high-stakes political battle on a level never seen in Stanislaus County.
Highway 33 continues to serve as the West Side's main street, ambling 45 miles through parts of three counties, from Tracy to Santa Nella. It connects the towns of Vernalis and Westley and the cities of Patterson, Newman and Gustine. Oblivious drivers on the heavily traveled parallel track known as Interstate 5 see few clues of the expanding West Side corridor, home to more than 75,000 residents and almost another world, just a few miles away.
West Siders are known to complain about their home being a dumping ground, thanks to the former tire pile, a garbage-burning plant and a giant landfill that briefly threatened to grow even larger to import toxic medical waste. Before Modesto's tallow works closed last year, some people enraged West Siders by suggesting that the foul plant and its stomach-churning stench be moved to — you guessed it — the West Side.
Yet people who live on the West Side are quick to attest they've got a good thing going.
"Truly, we are (the valley's) best-kept secret," said Doug Lucas, a native of Newman with many landholdings whose developments have altered his hometown's landscape.
"It's a beautiful country we have," said John V. Azevedo, a Patterson historian. Three decades ago, he was a councilman in the city known for three miles of stately palms leading to its huge downtown roundabout, reminiscent of Europe or Washington, D.C.
"We have a roaring river, trees, geese, ducks," Azevedo said. "This is home, a place where everyone knew everyone else. I love the West Side."
A place to escape the sprawl
Newcomers often tell Patterson schools Superintendent Patrick Sweeney that West Side towns remind them of where they came from — San Jose, Livermore, Los Angeles — before those places were overrun by sprawl. "They all say it," Sweeney remarked.
Census numbers clearly show the West Side is younger, poorer, less-educated and more Latino than elsewhere in the valley, California and the United States as a whole. Families here are larger and less likely to speak English, and workers generally drive farther to make a buck.
Another irrefutable indicator suggests this land of kit fox and festas is quietly becoming the most popular spot in the most popular region in California. Those votes are cast when people decide where to live.
After decades of stagnation, the rebounding West Side, fueled largely by Bay Area commuters, in the past six years grew at a rate three times faster than Modesto. The West Side's hot spot, Patterson, increased 63percent in that period — six times the rate of California overall.
Some of those newcomers are finding decent work in Patterson's Keystone Business Park, one of the finest large industrial tracts available in all of Stanislaus County, according to a recent work-force inventory.
More jobs, more people, more political intrigue.
They all suggest that Modesto and other points along the Highway 99 corridor won't — can't — ignore the West Side story.
Ghost towns resurrected
Old-timers are likely to say that the West Side is called that not because of its position in the county or valley.
It's called that because it's on the west side of the San Joaquin River, a natural barrier that helped shape settlements in the 19th century.
"Once you cross the San Joaquin, you are in the West Side," said Supervisor Jim DeMartini, who represents the area. "They don't consider themselves, in many ways, part of Stanislaus County. It's like a different county out there."
Paddle-wheel boats were a common sight in early boom years, when Simon Newman boasted the largest department store between Stockton and Fresno. For several decades, townsfolk had their pick of shoe and clothing stores and could catch the passenger "Owl Train" to the Bay Area.
Turtles and watercress were plentiful in Salado Creek, west of Patterson. Newman's city logo proclaimed it the "Cream Pitcher of the Pacific," and Gustine at one time was home to four large creameries. Families welcomed babies at local hospitals and enjoyed the latest films at a Crows Landing drive-in theater.
All have long since disappeared.
"When we were kids, we had all those things, everything," said Azevedo, 88. "Now we have none of it."
Ten years ago, a drive along Highway 33 might have delivered a ghost town sense, considering how far the West Side had dwindled since its bustling days.
"After World War II and the advent of easy transportation, these towns started dying off," said Sheldon "Pat" Crow, 75, a Newman native. His family arrived in 1865 and ran the ferry that gave Crows Landing its name.
Today, visitors will see McDonald's, Carl's Jr., Starbucks and more, and hundreds of new homes. Signs of a rebirth. Of sorts.
"For 30 years, we've been talking about bringing new housing and industry to the West Side," said Bill Mattos, a Newman resident. The president of the California Poultry Federation spends much of his time lobbying in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.
Mattos is a former publisher of the West Side Index and continues to write a column urging the region's resurgence.
"A lot of untapped opportunity," he said proudly, "is finally coming to fruition."
Bedroom communities
The renaissance hasn't restored the same vitality remembered by many old-timers.
"It's coming back, but in a different way," said Lorin McBride, who has lived on the West Side for most of his 79 years. "We are becoming a bedroom community for something happening somewhere else."
McBride and pal Al Romero occupy the same table every workday at The Grill in Newman, where they attempt to solve the world's problems over lunch. Their differences — McBride is a conservative dentist, Romero a liberal auto salvage business owner — make for lively dialogue.
They live in Gustine but work in the more populous Newman, whose historic-homes district seems better preserved than Modesto's.
"The reason Gustine hasn't grown is because we've been blessed with lousy government" that didn't plan for adequate sewer and water, McBride said.
The lunchmates agree that Gustine also is trying to avoid growing pains seen in Newman and Patterson.
"In spite of our dissatisfaction with the way things are run, it's a pretty good life here," Romero said.
On a recent afternoon, McBride and Romero were forced to sit at a different table when new faces — maybe recent arrivals, maybe travelers passing through — unknowingly took theirs before they arrived.
Change can be painful.
New towns just sprout up
"We've been putting up with a tremendous amount of changes," said Azevedo, born in 1919 in Patterson, the self-proclaimed "Apricot Capital of the World." "It's growing like crazy out here. We're going to be the capital of asphalt."
Sandy McDowell was Patterson's postmaster for 19 years before retiring seven years ago, when the city had 11,606 people. It's now approaching 20,000.
"They moved in here like gangbusters," McDowell said.
City leaders in late March won approval to annex nearly 700 acres for the Villages of Patterson, hoping to add 3,100 homes and 9,000 people. And officials recently started updating the city's general plan with the idea of adding even more growth.
To the west, developers 15 years ago began carving Diablo Grande into the rugged coastal range. The 33,000-acre resort community is one of a handful of California's independent new towns seemingly sprouting in the middle of nowhere.
To the south, Newman just adopted a new growth plan, and Gustine hopes to expand its sphere of influence, or the area it expects to fill someday.
Los Banos — the West Side's largest city with 35,211 residents after growing 32 percent in the past six years — in 2005 adopted an annual cap of 750 building permits. But city leaders again are revising their growth blueprint.
"The developers are happy," said Sydne Varni, 70, a widow who was born in Los Banos but lived much of her life in Watsonville before returning for retirement.
"There is good and bad wherever you go," Varni said. "You look for the good."
The good comes out, many say, when West Siders welcome people, all people.
Mexican chiles are as plentiful as Portuguese linguiça. Patterson's seven-member school board has three women, two Latinos, a Japanese-American and a white man.
"That's a sign that this is a welcoming community," said Sweeney, the superintendent. "I enjoy the mix of cultures."
Mattos agreed. "People are very accepting," he said.
Grace McCord said her family never felt slighted when they moved from Montana.
"We just got involved," said McCord, whose husband joined the Lions Club. After eight years, she said, "I feel like one of the older people here."
Luis Hurtado, 15, was psyched to find a BMX track in a sports complex when his family arrived recently from Hayward.
Brandy Schaa, a Patterson High student, loves to hang out with friends at Patterson's new community pool.
Eliseo Barajas, 17, said small-town life helps shield young people from big-city trouble.
"We have less shootings," he said.
Incredible shrinking town
The most obvious exceptions to the West Side's growth surge are Vernalis on the north end and Gustine in the middle.
Elsie Martin, 64, remembers when Vernalis had water slides, a post office, gas station and flea market. Residents of the south San Joaquin County community would gather at the east end of its parking lot fronting Highway 132 every Fourth of July. The driveway there dips into Stanislaus County, where fireworks are permitted.
"It kind of died on the vine out here," said Martin, whose crushed-velvet purple suit with macramé collar poked out from her white barber's smock as she clipped John E. Thompson's hair in May. He lives in nearby New Jerusalem; most of Martin's customers come from beyond Vernalis, which has all but dried up and blown away.
She named her shop Rolling In to reflect her clientele. "I do my truckers," she said, then reconsidered. "That don't sound right when I say it!"
But Martin rolled out before this article was published, closing her shop after 13 years of watching Vernalis shrink.
A place with sole
Thirty-three miles down Highway 33, Frank "Gary" Rico manages a modest insurance and real estate empire from Gustine. Technology allows him to stay in touch with satellite offices in Modesto, Santa Clara, Los Banos and Newman.
Rico blames Gustine's lack of growth on location. East Bay commuters go over the Altamont Pass from Patterson and Newman, he said, while Los Banos commuters take Pacheco Pass to the South Bay.
Cobbler Kenny Lopes isn't a bit dismayed that Gustine hasn't kept pace.
"I'm glad we haven't grown out of hand," Lopes said while hammering a metal plate into the tip of a woman's high-heeled pink leather dress shoe. "We don't have too many of the problems that other towns do."
Lopes, who wears old leather Harley-Davidson suspenders and is fond of quoting Fred Flintstone, has been resoling boots for two decades in his tiny shop.
His supplier says he needs a base of 60,000 people to stay afloat, but he's never considered moving to a larger city. He owns the only shoe repair shop on the West Side, and everyone comes to him.
"Can you stitch this?" a woman asked, holding a frayed visor from her son's off-road Jeep. Minutes later, a cowboy showed up for his boots. Then a man brought in white Reebok tennies, asking if Lopes could turn them into bowling shoes. The cobbler assured him he would, using leather meant for dancing shoes.
While many West Siders are used to long commutes each day, Lopes said he puts about 6,000 miles on his truck each year. Why leave a place you love?
"I go to Modesto maybe once a year," he said.
But buying new shoes that Lopes may someday work on usually requires a drive for West Siders, except for those who live in Los Banos.
Stores in their eyes
"Most everyone figures to buy any clothes, you have to go to Modesto or Turlock," said Claude Delphia, 69, a longtime West Side activist.
A developer hoping to bring stores such as Target or Home Depot is dangling a pledge of 30 acres for a Modesto Junior College satellite campus on the West Side.
A retail surge would add a new dimension to the West Side economy's historic reliance on agribusiness. Though most newcomers commute to jobs elsewhere, farms, dairy plants and companies such as Patterson Frozen Foods (being renamed Patterson Vegetable Co. when it changes hands) remain sizable employers.
Demand for field work helps explain the dramatic influx of Latino families in the past few decades. Latinos make up a majority of residents in West Side communities as measured by the U.S. Census Bureau, except for slow-growing Gustine.
Hundreds more jobs recently appeared in Patterson when Keystone Business Park lured distribution centers for Kohl's Department Stores and Longs Drug Stores.
And the park has room for lots more, room that has eluded envious officials in places such as Modesto despite years of talk and promises.
A Keystone official, however, on Wednesday said he's had trouble attracting big employers because the local work force is poorly educated. Only 56 percent of West Siders in 2000 were high school graduates, compared with 76.8 percent in California and more than 80 percent across the United States.
Even if workers were better trained, they would not find many jobs in Newman or Gustine. Newman's mayor just took a position in Turlock after working on the West Side his whole life.
John Fantazia, 48, was born in the now-defunct West Side Community Hospital. He milked cows and farmed on the West Side before going to work at a Turlock dairy refrigeration company.
"They made me an offer I couldn't refuse," the mayor said.
Landing a big one
If Gerry Kamilos has his way, thousands of people someday will be happily employed by dozens of companies at the former naval air base near Crows Landing. He wants to expand the 1,527-acre vacant base into a 4,560-acre industrial beehive.
Stanislaus County supervisors recently signaled that negotiations with Kamilos remain on track.
He would have to overcome strident objections from an organized group of Patterson critics. They object to Kamilos' plan to bring short-haul rail cars through Patterson.
Sympathetic Patterson council members, as well as Supervisor DeMartini, cynically say that Kamilos and PCCP West Park are using the promise of thousands of jobs as cover for thousands of new houses. DeMartini in February was outvoted by a majority of board members who turned a deaf ear to a near-unanimous West Side plea against Kamilos.
"They basically cast aside all the feelings of us West Siders," said McDowell, the former postmaster. "We really think that the majority of the Board of Supervisors really don't care what the effect on the West Side will be."
Though DeMartini has criticized the Kamilos plan from Day One, he wants to make a comprehensive health care facility part of the grand scheme. Hospitals near Newman and in Patterson closed during a spate of consolidations throughout the state, in 1994 and 1998, respectively.
A handful of clinics operate with limited hours on the West Side, but people with emergencies face ambulance rides of 30 minutes or must drive themselves to the nearest hospital in Turlock. That's what McCord, the Patterson mother, did when each of her four children broke an arm at different times.
"You call ahead, and you pack 'em in the car," McCord said.
That's entertainment
All of these people also must drive to Los Banos, Merced, Turlock or Modesto to see a first-run movie. But don't think West Siders don't know how to throw a party.
Gustine bills itself as the "Festival Hub of the Valley" and hosts an annual Olde Fashioned Christmas and Fourth of July parade. Patterson has its Apricot Fiesta, Newman has its Fall Festival and Los Banos has its May Day Fair and Wild on Wetlands celebration.
In May, Los Banos threw a communitywide free barbecue to celebrate its 100thanniversary, renewing a tradition started by founder Henry Miller. The land baron also established Gustine, which will gussy up for its centennial in July.
Gustine, home to a wooden bullfighting ring, each September hosts the United States' largest Portuguese festa.
Newman's West Side Theatre hosts hillbilly acts, classical concerts and much in between, and plays come alive at Patterson Repertory Theatre.
And then there's golf.
Grande vision
Diablo Grande's first course opened in 1996 with a flourish and visits from two golfing legends, Jack Nicklaus and Gene Sarazen. Hundreds of upscale homes now dot a canyon west of Patterson.
Warren Newsome moved his young family from Santa Clara to Diablo Grande about 18months ago because of the two acclaimed golf courses and "to be away from the hustle and bustle."
"It's quiet here," he said.
Newsome commutes to a South Bay real estate office. Sometimes, he works from home, gazing out a glass door to the sixth green on Diablo Grande's Ranch Course.
Jeff Beckler, a retired peace officer, was lured to Diablo Grande by his daughter, a real estate agent who had bought a home down the street. She and her family recently moved back to the South Bay, but her parents have gotten used to the thrill of hearing coyotes howl in the evening.
"I don't even mind the brown," Beckler said of the steep, oak-studded range surrounding his new home.
The resort never would have appeared without cooperation from 78-year-old Mimi Draper, whose father long ago paid $5for each of 6,400 majestic, hilly acres in the Diablo Range. Draper's family allowed the nicely paved road snaking eight miles from Interstate 5 to vineyards, large homes and golf.
Reagan Wilson, former Stanislaus County chief executive officer, and a partner recently offered $50,000 per acre, Draper said, but family members couldn't stand to see the hills changed even more, and declined.
"To me, it's just magical," she said, surveying caramel-colored hills rising dramatically in a rugged canyon, hawks soaring overhead. She fondly recalls youthful days with her sister, playing Indians in a rocky cave.
Go West
The truth about the West Side, Supervisor DeMartini said, is that the region occupies about 80 percent of his time these days. Yet it's a land apart, with a unique history and unique problems. He's considering developing two sets of campaign literature for a re-election bid next year, one specifically aimed at the West Side.
"It is an underserved area," DeMartini said, "but more things are happening on the West Side than probably anywhere else in the county."
Despite a recent flurry of attention, said Mattos, the longtime poultry industry advocate, the West Side remains the valley's "best-kept secret. But we don't want to be a total secret. The key is to discover us slowly.
"Now that we've been discovered," he added, "we've got to make sure we know where we want to go."
On the Net:
Bee staff writer Garth Stapley can be reached at gstapley@modbee.com or 578-2390.
