February 8, 1966
Every Saturday for two years 15-25 workers, 75 percent volunteers, built new San Luis Obispo Church of Nazarene facility on Johnson Ave. Rev. George O. Cargill set to deliver the first sermon February 13, 1966. The crew included several professional builders as well as 82-year-old Thorwald Hatlin. The church had outgrown the former location at 652 Santa Rosa. The estimated value of the new facility was $300,000 and it took over two years to build. The building featured laminated arch construction, wall-to-wall red carpeting, fixtures of marbleized stone and air conditioning. The last sermon delivered in the old facility was titled “Hitherto Hath the Lord Helped Us.”

A posting on the Tribune’s website says the church will celebrate its 80th Anniversary Sunday April 19, 2009.

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November 24, 1973

Time gets measured in different scales. Geologic time runs in cycles with spans of hundreds, thousands or millions of years, hard to put in a human context because the Earth’s pace is not a human pace.
A few signposts of 1973: Richard Nixon was president, and the jaws of the Watergate scandal were closing on him. Telegram-Tribune cost 15 cents and did not have a Sunday edition. Graphics were drawn by hand then photographed, not created on a computer. Thrifty was the name of a drug store. The nuclear power industry answered to the Atomic Energy Commission.
Almost exactly 35 years ago the discovery of what would be called the Hosgri fault was reported in the then Telegram-Tribune.
The United States Geological Survey and the AEC had commissioned a study of the seabed off of Diablo Canyon after scientist Gary Greene had discovered an active fault offshore from Davenport in Santa Cruz. PG&E dropped plans to build a nuclear power there in the wake of that report.
Staff writer Jim Hayes quoted Greene:
“Of course, PG&E had other problems there. There was the fault at Ano Nuevo and then they had a landslide.”
Later in the article the scientist spoke about the newly discovered Hosgri,
“Length, becomes a critical factor, generally the longer the fault the more recent and active we think it is.”
A PG&E spokesman Frederick R Draeger downplayed the discovery saying Diablo Canyon had been designed “to handle the greatest earthquake that could occur.”
In 1973 both units of the plant were expected to open within two years and the price tag stood at $650 million dollars. Both numbers would balloon as the plant was retrofitted in the wake of the discovery.

Today David Sneed has an article on a new fault discovered closer to the plant.

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This has to be on any top ten list of big things to hit San Luis Obispo County.
The Tribune was almost 25 years old by the time Southern Pacific opened service by pulling into town May 5, 1895.
I can’t say it was a shining moment in The Tribune’s career.

Back then the custom was to load the front page with advertising and national news. Page 2, more advertising, church notices, fashion news from New York and a whiny article about the Pacific Coast Railway having trouble synchronizing their schedule with Southern Pacific. The narrow gauge railway connected San Luis Obispo and the South County with Port Harford.

If you wanted to read about the biggest news of the era you had to turn to page 3.

Bet you can’t read the story’s second sentence aloud without taking a breath.

Under a tiny headline,

THE GREAT JUBILEE
Grandly Successful—Three Thousand Visitors Come to Make Merry With Us.

In the history of San Luis Obispo when its next chapter shall be written, the page which will sand out in letters of gold will be that devoted to the Fifth of May, 1894. It is the culmination of efforts in which most of its citizens, past and present, shared with all ernestness and the only shadow on the occasion of yesterday’s rejoicing was that so many who had toiled through the wilderness for lo, these forty years, could not even, like Moses of old, look over into the promised land before their departure for a bourne where, as we are credibly informed, railroads will be a slow and inadequate means of transportation.
…
It was the biggest crowd ever gathered in our little town and it was a multitude that required very little amusing.

The lower part of San Luis Obispo turned into a ghost town, bunting flapping in the breeze, as 5,000 people walked up to the Ramona Hotel and party at the tracks. (Today that would be less than half of a Cal Poly v. UCSB soccer crowd.) The day was celebrated with a band, barbecue and canon fire as the train pulled in. The evening finished with fireworks and a grand ball.

After speeches the steam engine chuffed south, loaded with businessmen and Southern Pacific executives but it would be years before the line was completed to the small dusty towns of Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

Beside the railroad story was another front page, uh, page three story. A home that had been built by historian Myron Angel burned down at the corner of Garden and Buchon Streets. The sleepy renter was responding to a crying infant and tripped with a kerosene lamp setting the bed ablaze. She was able to get her baby out but the fire department, called away from the railroad party at the Ramona Hotel, could do little. The nearest hydrant was four blocks away and had no water.

I am a little baffled about the story placement. I confess I have never had to hand set type for a page. It is obvious that selling from news racks was not the top design priority for the front page.

So here’s my top ten list of monster trends to hit the area, in no particular order.

1. Missions founded – The central coast is on the European map, literally
2. Oil boom – Unocal, Chevron, et al and their predecessors bring international industry here
3. Trains – The iron horse flattens the earth, brings the first tourists
4. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant – Any time you pour a few billion dollars into a county things change.
5. Cal Poly established – No longer an uneducated cow county
6. World War II – Thousands of trainees introduced to Central Coast, many settle or retire here after the war.
7. Freeways built – Guadalupe got the railroad, Santa Maria got the freeway. Which town’s bigger?
8. Internet - You’re using it now aren’t you? I rest my case
9. Hearst Castle – One of the world’s most opulent homes becomes major tourist attraction

O.K. so I’m out of ideas. Tell me what’s on your top 10 list & if you feel like it put it in order.

I have to tune up the time machine and head back to buy one of those $75 lots for sale next to the railroad tracks.

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Visiting Cayucos area site of test drilling by state engineers are three members of the Morro Bay-Cayucos Joint Atomic-Seawater Reclamation Committee (left to right) Joe Giannini, Jack Lindemann and chairman Duval Williams.

January 9, 1966

The Atomic Age was on the march. Three years earlier Cal Poly had installed a micro wattage demonstration reactor. In nine months PG&E would announce their choice of Diablo Canyon as the location for their multi-unit nuclear plant.

Why not a nuclear fired electric plant in Cayucos?

Governor Pat Brown was in the midst of an ambitious construction cycle to bring water to southern California. President Lyndon Johnson was spending money on his Great Society programs. In a year one would be out of office and the other would be sinking in the mire of the Vietnam War but for a brief time there was a nuclear-fueled gleam in north coast booster’s eyes.

Quoting from the uncredited article:

CAYUCOS — Test drilling began this week near here to determine if this area is a suitable site for an atomic power facility.

Under direction of a state geologist, Cliff Farrell, corings were being taken to see how earthquake-proof and stable a site north of Cayucos is.

Cayucos is one of five California sites under consideration for a $100 million joint California-federal nuclear powered electrical station.

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September 20, 1972

These photos are from a set of aerial photos made for development stories throughout the county. The early 1970’s brought a wave of development to the area as Cal Poly expanded and workers flooded in to build a power plant.

Construction was underway at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. At least 6 cranes are busy as PG&E

worked to bring the plant online. One containment dome is taking shape and the turbine building is about half covered.

It’s the most expensive building in the county, sorry Hearst Castle. The county and San Luis Coastal School district both got budget boosts from the increased property tax.

The view of Los Osos shows Baywood in the foreground and new construction in the heights above town. There is no sewer being constructed however.

The view of Pismo Beach shows new empty mobile home parks and grazing land east of Highway 101.

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July 31, 1968

America has this tradition where we head to the beach on July 4 and play with dangerous stuff that goes boom.

I’m not advising people to do this, it is just an observation. Please, lets all have the same number of fingers next week as we do today.

In the interest of keeping people safe you can let the blog go boom this year for you.
(Have someone pop a paper bag behind you while reading for full effect.)

Under a headline Sea goes boom at Avila Beach the story reads:

Rocky pinnacles on the floor of the ocean at Port San Luis are being blasted away this week to make the harbor area safer for boats approaching or leaving the launching area.

Charles Beckham, diver for Ocean Systems, Inc., brought along 600 pounds of TNT for the job, and expects to complete the operation today.

Water in the blasting area was 11-14 feet deep but judging from the photo it is deeper now. Barry Minett made the photo.

Another front page story tells of Gov. Ronald Reagan signing a bill that would fund a third Superior Court judgeship. Front runner for the job was Wickson Woolpert, the job would pay $30,000 a year.

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TIGHT SQUEEZE FOR NEWSMAN ON LOPEZ PROJECT ROAD

Jack Magee stands between two cars on narrow curve

August 10, 1968

Upper Lopez Canyon Road was built along a ridge to replace the old and even narrower original road soon to be beneath the waters of the new Lopez Lake.

In the era of super highway building it was a shock to see a new road only 16 feet wide, four feet less than standard.

The road provides access to church and Boy Scout camps as well as Big and Little Falls.

Here are the first paragraphs of a story by staff writer Jack Magee.

Remember those old country roads so narrow you had to wait for the other guy to pass—and honk your horn going around the bends?
Well, there’s one a lot like it on the eastern fringe of the Lopez Water Project area northeast of Arroyo Grande.
Only this one is brand, spanking new.

As the story says, Lopez project engineers specified the road at 16 feet. It would be up to the county to widen it.

Quoting Magee again,

So it looks like traffic over the road will certainly increase—if it can. Those who drive it may find their insurance boosted if their agents find out.
For, this skinny, spaghetti-string of a road seems made to order for sideswiping, with its curves, switchbacks, foot-deep drainage ditch in sections and blind corners.
Sometimes, going around on of the tight curves carved through hills or chiseled out of cliffsides, you half expect to meet yourself coming the other way.

The reporter also talked to the project construction superintendent Parker Van Neman.

There’s always the outside chance you won’t meet any oncoming rig on the curves. And anyway, Van Neman observed reassuringly, those extra-long outside mirrors on campers fold on impact.

The photo was by Barry Minett

**
Another story on the front page tells of Richard Nixon’s pick for vice-president, Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew. Mitt Romney’s father, George, was in the running as well as Gerald Ford but Nixon wanted an aggressive campaigner.
Agnew.

“You can look him in the eye and you know he’s got it. This guy has got it,” said Nixon.
…
“People say he’s not known. That’s nonsense in this day and age. He’s known now and as the campaign goes on he’ll become better known.”
Agnew, Nixon said, is “one of the most underrated men in America.”

Both would be elected and later resign in disgrace.

This year the Olympics will be held in China, unimaginable in 1968 before Nixon opened relations with the communists.

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Archaeologist “Bobbie” Greenwood displays bone dagger. More than 1,000 Indian artifacts have been recovered at Diablo Canyon.

June 10, 1968

Major construction at Diablo Canyon was about a year away. Before it began a crew of archeologists worked to document the site.

Financed by PG&E, 15 to 18 people worked at various sites in the construction zone.

Roberta “Bobbie” Greenwood, research archaeologist for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History talked to the media about the project.

Veteran reporter Elliot Curry’s lede:

“Significant evidence of Indian life along Diablo Canyon far into the pre-historic past is being uncovered in an archaeological project now nearing completion.”

If you have ever toured the area you know that it is a spectacular stretch of coastline and a logical place for a Chumash settlement.

Today there would be Native American representatives present but that was not the case in 1968.

A related story said that construction of the access road to the plant site was about to begin.

Estimates at the time had the plant opening by 1972 and the cost was pegged at $184 million. Both estimates proved to be wildly optimistic.

Unit One nuclear reactor went online in 1984, and Unit Two nuclear reactor in 1985.

Future blog posts will cover the construction phase.

Nuclear power is a part of the national conversation this election year as oil prices rise to record levels.

You can calculate your carbon footprint at this PG&E link.

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