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Places, faces and voices of Crowley Lake |
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Wednesday, 02 December 2009 |
Pros and cons of life in an unincorporated part of Mono County
By Catherine Billey
Mammoth Times Staff Writer
 Mammoth Times Photos/Catherine Billey. Green Thread owner Leslie Willoughby enjoys keeping a rooster and six hens in Crowley.
That’s what some people have asked Paul Burdeno, who retired with his wife Penny to Crowley Lake from northern Santa Barbara County in 1997.
“The answer is simple in my case – no fences,” he says today.
“We love the outdoors, and here we’re free to roam. There are a lot of developers in Southern California that would disagree with me, but our area is so vast that there is plenty of room for those that want to create wilderness and those that want to enjoy it in other ways.”
The Burdenos enjoy exploring in their ATV, and having 4,000 square miles as their personal playground. Burdeno was for many years President of Crowley Lake Friends of the Library.
One of the few problems of living in an unincorporated area – and Burdeno stressed the word “few” – is place names.
“Caltrans knows the community as Hilton Creek, but the United States Postal Service knows it as Crowley,” he said. “It has led to no shortage of confusion over the years.”
Gerry LeFrancois, principal planner for Mono County, provided some clarification. He said about 1,108 people live in the Long Valley (generally known as “Crowley”), a 10-mile thread of communities from Long Valley and McGee Creek in the north through Crowley Lake/Hilton Creek in the center, to Aspen Springs and Sunny Slopes (Tom’s Place) in the south.
Many people interviewed for this story cited lighter snow load as their primary reason for living in Crowley rather than Mammoth Lakes, even if it’s actually colder because of an inversion system. Others said it’s more affordable.
The bedroom communities of Crowley are nestled against some of the Eastern Sierra’s most spectacular scenery overlooking miles of open range and the White Mountains, which afford spectacular pink sunsets.
Crowley Lake was dedicated on Oct. 19, 1941, after the long-awaited Long Valley dam was constructed. It was named in honor of Father John J. Crowley, who arrived in the Eastern Sierra as a young Catholic priest in 1919, transferred elsewhere for years, and returned 15 years later to reinvigorate community spirit that had flagged after Owens River water diversions to Los Angeles decimated agricultural interests.
Legendary editor of the Inyo Register, Willie Chalfant, was on hand to dedicate the lake that day, as Father Crowley had died in a tragic automobile accident the prior year.
“We cannot but regret that this enterprise was not constructed long ago,” he said, a likely allusion to Fred Eaton, an early Long Valley landowner and speculator who controlled the critical reservoir site and failed to offer a reasonable price that would have allowed Los Angeles to pull enough water without decimating the Owens Valley.
Today, as in so many parts of the American West, water remains the one issue that can create division in an otherwise tranquil community – the most recent being the placement of an enormous water tank in the center of town, across from the Crowley Lake General Store.
Dan and Cleo Haakana have owned the store, which dates to the 1950s, for the last 10 years. Now the site of the only service station in town, it is a primary community gathering space, but Haakana, while hearing everything, remains carefully neutral on local politics.
“I just don’t have the time to engage in lengthy conversations over issues that I basically can’t do anything about,” he explained. “My focus is on serving customers.”
He doesn’t believe the community was divided over the water tank issue, despite some warring factions.
“Everybody that lives here appreciates many of the same things – the small town, the safe streets,” he said. “The fact that kids can walk the streets after dark without fear, the times that I know neighbors are helping neighbors. That kind of small town activity, that is not real prevalent anymore in a lot of communities, is still happening in Crowley.”
He did concede that the placement of the water tank was aesthetically unfortunate.
“As you enter the community, especially in the fall, your gaze automatically goes up to the colors that go up the mountains. So for a visitor coming into the community, now they have that water tank as part of that initial impact.”
Burdeno was initially opposed to the siting of the water tank in the middle of town, but now thinks the county is doing a good job of making it disappear with landscaping.
“A good number of us have our own wells,” he explained. “Frankly the water issues here are no different than they are anywhere else in the West. The old deeds came with water rights. You had no water company. You had to drill your own well. People have a very large investment in their well. Without water you can’t live here, so naturally it’s a hot button issue. But I think what’s been happening is reasonable and working out to the benefit of everybody.”
Liz Fleming, who has lived in Crowley for 26 years, was less sanguine about the water tank, which she vociferously fought because of the visual impact.
“It would have been preferable to place the water tank up the street at the end of the road,” she said. “It looks like a UFO landed.”
She believes differences in opinion over the water tank have divided the community, although it was never cohesive to begin with in her view.
“We kind of have the old and the new here,” she described. “I would love to be a united community.”
Paul and Joyce Rowan, the longest-standing residents interviewed for this story, settled in Crowley in 1968. They remember when the freeway was just being built and the old road went through town, and a rare 100-year storm that dumped so much snow, there were still 3 or 4 feet of it left in June. They raised four sons here, one of whom – Troy – now runs the successful electrical business they established in Mammoth.
Paul, also a former Mono County supervisor, doesn’t see Crowley as a divided community – notwithstanding division over occasional issues such as the water tank. “It’s a bedroom community,” he said. “What I like about it is the tranquility. We have creeks that run through various areas, which is very enjoyable.”
The Rowans both admit it’s changed a lot since they arrived more than 40 years ago. “When we were first here, we knew everybody and we did things. But now, I probably know less than half of the people here.”
The Rowans established what is yet another gathering place for some in the community: the Church on the Mountain, which began in their home in 1971. “Our pastor was Albie Pearson, who was a retired professional baseball player. We just met as praying together,” Paul described. “We went that route until 1973 when Ken and Cathy Hensler gave us an acre of property at the store, and we built the first part of the Church.”
One Crowley source criticized the Christian church for opposing yoga classes at the Crowley Lake Community Center – something that gathers people together in a different tradition.
Rowan said that isn’t so. “We’re not so self-righteous that we control what other people are doing at the community center,” he clarified.
Another retailer in Crowley, Leslie Willoughby, owner of the Green Thread – a yarn and local art store, also overhears a lot from locals who gather on her cozy couches before a fire or sit on the porch where hummingbirds dart about. She has been encouraged by constructive conversations between those with opposing views.
“Something about yarn is civilizing,” she says. “The community aspects of the store have been more rewarding than I anticipated.”
She said all citizens give up something in a small community for the common good, as in the case of the water tank. Most of the community’s electricity passes over her property and sirens from the adjacent fire department sound loudly from next door.
“All citizens of this tiny community give up something in terms of their views or their silence for the good of the entire community,” she says with measured practicality.
She is one of the transplants who loves Crowley’s 97 percent of open space. In addition, she has a unique reason for preferring the community: “I can have chickens here. Roosters are not typically allowed in incorporated areas because of noise,” she says. “I started by having hens, but then I thought it would be nice to have a rooster, so I put out word on the chicken circuit.”
A fabulous rooster wanders the grounds of the Green Thread and crows loudly when all six of his hens are not within sight. Willoughby doesn’t think that would be acceptable in a more densely populated area. To be a good neighbor in a smaller community means taking the temperature of her neighbors, however, whom she asked after she had added the rooster to her flock. “They said they either hadn’t noticed, or the ones who did notice said they loved it.”
She is mindful of the marauding denizens of Crowley – raccoons, bobcats, bears, foxes, deer, and the occasional black Angus cow that escapes from rangeland fences – so she keeps her flock in a coop overnight.
For younger people starting their families in Crowley, the more pressing challenge is economic survival. One young family, according to Willoughby, was hard hit when their young son faced unexpected medical costs. “Having to go outside the community for advanced health care is expensive,” she noted.
Another family, Amanda and Vincent Maniaci, who relocated to Long Valley from the San Fernando Valley in 2001, have been particularly impacted by the dearth of work in the construction industry. Vincent is an architect who volunteers as a training officer for the Long Valley Fire Department.
“He absolutely loves it and is so committed,” Amanda explains. “Because of that, we just can’t fathom ever moving from the community. We want to grow old here.”
So the couple has brainstormed an idea they hope will allow them to remain in Long Valley: the establishment of a small, cage-free, dog care boarding facility.
As with Willoughby’s sensitivity about the rooster, Maniaci is mindful of neighbors. “That was in the forefront of my mind, to be compassionate,” she said.
As the couple works on a business plan, they have also submitted letters to all their neighbors and will personally speak with each to give them the facts of the business plan. “Versus it being a crazy blown-up thing in their heads, like a hundred dogs in a cinder block facility.”
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Last Updated ( Friday, 04 December 2009 )
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