Hollister
– Pacheco State Park will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary on
Saturday with guided nature walks, crafts and other events for the
whole family.
Hollister – Pacheco State Park will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary on Saturday with guided nature walks, crafts and other events for the whole family.
The event will give those who have not visited the park an opportunity to become acquainted and those who frequent the trails a chance to celebrate its first decade.
The park is relatively young and has yet to gain the following of the much larger Henry W. Coe State Park. But the land has a rich history and is full of trails and numerous forms of wildlife for the nature buff or amateur hiker.
The 6,890-acre state park has 2,600 acres open to the general public, less than a tenth the acreage of Coe State Park, which is 87,000 acres. Despite its size, the park has trails available for hiking, horseback riding and mountain biking throughout. The park is also well known for its impressive array of wildflowers, which are much less abundant this year because of the dry winter.
“They call us the baby Coe,” said Jennifer Morgan, a naturalist for the California State Parks. “We have the same wilderness and the same ecosystem, but most of the people have never been there. They just whiz by there at 60 (miles per hour) and don’t realize there’s a beautiful park there.”
Many people are oblivious to the presence of the park because it is so new.
The park was donated by Paula Fatjo in 1992, who left the land to the state parks system in her will. Five years later, the park opened on April 19, 1997.
Fatjo was the fifth generation of her family to live on the land, which is the last remaining portion of the Mexican land grant, El Rancho San Luis Gonzaga. Fatjo’s ancestor Francisco Pacheco was granted the land in 1843 and was able to keep it even after the land became a part of the United States.
Because Fatjo had no children of her own, she left the acreage as a state park.
“She just loved the land. She dreamed that she could share that with visitors to the park,” said Mary Stokes, who worked for the state parks 10 years ago when Pacheco State Park was formed. “I feel we really honored her family and their history.”
Despite the park’s history, it has yet to see a significant number of visitors. Morgan said it can take significant lengths of time before a park becomes well-established and well-known. The majority of visitors to Pacheco State Park come during spring to see the wildflowers, she said.
“It’s got a wonderful history and great resources,” said Stokes. “I think it’s just underutilized. But one day it will be.”
Alice Joy covers education for the Free Lance. She can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 336 or at
aj**@fr***********.com
.
