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Citizen archivist, Jim Berry, leads a tour through Cazadero’s past, beginning with the Kashia who called the area, Kabebateli, or Big Rock Place.
Next, settle down inside the hundred-year-old McKinley Cabin and listen in on a conversation among a number of long-time Cazadero residents reminiscing about how the creeks and trains bound their lives together. Historian and newspaper columnist, Gaye LeBaron, recounts local lore about the infamous, but locally beloved, bandit, Black Bart. Musical Duo, Mike Campbell & John Norris of the band Puffinhorn, perform two ballads, “Cazadero Train Wreck” and “Black Bart.”
In these rural enclaves, The General Store still serves as a center of community life and for Cazadero and Duncans Mills, the same family with deep roots serves both towns. Founded in the late 1800s, when the Duncan Brothers floated their sawmill upstream to its current location, Duncans Mills thrived until the lumber ran out and what was left of it was completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. But in the 1970s “Swede” Wallen acquired the town and the family got busy with the restoration of this historic village. Third-generation, Paul Casini tells how his granddad’s dairy farm became a popular family campground all because of a single fishing hole. Wildfires are a constant concern all along the Russian River region. Pole Mountain Lookout remains the only active fire lookout in Sonoma County. Cameras now do the bulk of the work, but a partnership with Sonoma Land Trust has opened the area up to the hiking public and to the shared goal of restoring the fire tower Cazadero Music Camp is known around the globe for its summer programs, and there’s no better person to tell us about it than Casey Jones who has been a camper a staffer and a music teacher there.
This program is available for re-broadcast!
https://exchange.prx.org/series/38627-wonderland-radio-hour
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