Dying Town, or something to that effect.
It shook me up a bit, and I thought that that was an over the top description. I mean, I doubt many people are booking their vacations there right now... or planning to move there... or want to raise their kids there... or...
Then I thought about Hinkley, CA. And it is weird sometimes how life and Karma work.
Earlier this month I drove from Albuquerque, NM to Bakersfield, CA to visit friends in California. I took I-40 to State Route 58 to Bakersfield, and from there I-5 to Northern California. And near Barstow, CA along Highway 58 lays the town of Hinkley, of P,G,& E/Erin Brockovich fame. I saw the sign and thought, "Man, that's where it happened." The town is not near the highway, but you can see it off in the distance. There are no signs pointing to it as a place where you can eat, sleep, or get gas. Just a lonely highway sign that says, "Hinkley".
It was sort of eerie, and I thought maybe I'd make a little visit there on my return trip back to NM. Did not get the chance (time of day) and I'm sort of glad I didn't visit Hinkley... this time.
I left the movie 'Erin Brockovich' feeling good: the good guys won, the bad guys lost, and justice was served. Not so much...
So this morning I did a little digging, and I present this to you.
From 2013:
Hinkley: A town that’s fading away - The Sun
Link:
https://www.sbsun.com/2013/07/09/hinkley-a-town-thats-fading-away/
From 2019:
Erin Brockovich: the real story of the town three decades later - ABCNews
Link:
https://abcnews.go.com/US/erin-brockovich-real-story-town-decades/story?id=78180219
From 2015:
The Town Erin Brockovich Rescued Is Basically a Ghost Town Now - Vice
Link:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/xd7qvn/the-town-erin-brockovich-rescued-is-now-almost-a-ghost-town-992
From that last article:
Brenda, the bartender from Riley's, once owned a house, but she didn't get one of those sweet PG&E deals. She also never qualified for a payout, and she's now semi-retired. But for the time being, she hangs around until the evening shift when a guy named Dan relieves her. Every evening the pace picks up a little, and a night of boffo business can put as much as $245 in the till, she told me. It may not sound like much, but it looks like it keeps the lights on, even if things are leaner than they were in the best of times.
The town was once "full of such nice people," she said, having seen them all come through her bar over the years. "But I don't think Hinkley will ever be like it used to be."
But it's not completely deserted. Granted, there are few jobs outside of PG&E, but Brenda makes do. There's no post office, but she pointed out that PG&E is trying to arrange for a temporary post office to be set up at their work site (Something Smith confirmed was in the works). Sure, Hinkley has no school, but there are two churches, and a handful of small farms. Kids learn a lot on farms.
It even has a graffiti artist named Hobo. Hobo paints the abandoned buildings in town, and sometimes spells out the word "Hinkley" in big, defiant block letters. As I passed one of Hobo's prouder-looking murals on the way out of town, I stopped to get a closer look. It didn't seem so proud when I got closer, because someone, maybe Hobo or maybe someone else, had written "RIP Hinkley."
4 replies
Some Resident Being Interviewed On The News In East Palestine Last Night Called It A (Original post)
