I may be drifting a bit from my editor’s intent for this piece this week, but with all the doom and gloom around, let’s take a walk on the upside of our little city for a change.
First, a shameless promotion for D’Vine. Ricardo and Linda Rivera are to be complimented for the risk they took in putting an enterprise of this magnitude together. I’ve been there a few times since the soft opening and next Friday is the real thing. Given the fact that D’Vine was thronged last Friday with just the word-of-mouth crowd, this is sure to be an overflow event. They’re having jazz and catered food to augment the still somewhat limited in-house nibbles menu. Be there or be square.
Then there’s the fact that we are a two high school town, which makes for some great sports. My stepdaughter’s team, the Sobrato Bulldogs, lost its varsity volleyball away game to Live Oak and they are chomping at the bit for revenge this Thursday. And it’s homecoming week!
If it’s swimming you’re about, there’s hardly a better town in the Bay Area. The high schools have their pools and we have both the superb outdoor aquatics center and the indoor pool at the recreation center.
Morgan Hill has a spacious community center with banquet facilities, pottery and dance teaching, and an array of conference rooms where anyone can conduct a class in any subject of interest to the people. I’ve used this to put on a couple of creative writing classes. On the same block there is the Morgan Hill Playhouse, still underutilized but sure to be the basis of a summer theatre festival in the years ahead. And we do have two street fairs (be they what may) and the Morgan Hill Museum, a great endeavor of the local history society.
What history, you ask? True, there are no Civil War battlefields, no icons of the Dust Bowl era, no national historic landmarks. Monterey Road is no Route 66, although it was the arterial route between Los Angeles and San Francisco and there is an urban legend that the town lived off the speeding tickets it issued to the traffic passing through it. (Perhaps that motorbike cop is the ghost of cops past?) But maybe we’re on to something here. Monterey Road is the heart of Morgan Hill. And this is the old Camino Real from the time of the Spanish. It joined up the missions of Old California.
Then along came the gringos, and before they built the railroads, they introduced the stage coach. And the stage coach that traveled from San Jose to Monterey stopped here in Morgan Hill at what is now a strip mall called Tennant Station. But then it really was a way station, where the horses were fed and watered. This was a route of the Butterfield Stage Lines which was eventually absorbed by Wells Fargo.
So we do have a unique historical footprint! Did you know that you can buy a replica Concord stage for about $50,000.00? What about that for a way to make our town stand out? Anyone like to add to this one, for or against? Is it worthy of a grant from the Redevelopment Agency? Ask your candidates where they stand on the stage coach as the emblem of Morgan Hill’s heritage. And please share the answers with us on the blog below.
Sean Kenny is the author of four novels and numerous essays. Born and raised in Ireland, he pursued a career in high tech which eventually led him to Silicon Valley. His most recent novel, The Memory Trap, was inspired by a stint at Apple. He is currently one of the founders and CEO of Fresco Solar, a renewable energy company that has installed the first wind turbine in Morgan Hill.
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