The legend of rural California's ancient buttonwillow tree

Los Angeles Times

6 days ago

BUTTONWILLOW, Calif. — Honestly, I stopped for the dateline. In newspaper and wire service parlance, a dateline is the name of a place, typically written in capital letters and followed by an em dash, at the beginning of an article. It signifies a journalist's physical location while reporting or writing a story.
As a state reporter who often writes about rural communities, I pride myself on getting obscure datelines from far-flung towns and census-designated places here in the Golden State.
Until this week, I had never been to Buttonwillow, an unincorporated farm town of about 1,200 people in Kern County.
While plotting a drive north on the 5 Freeway for another story — I can't give that one away just yet — I was drawn to a location marker on Google Maps that read: 'Buttonwillow Tree-Kern CHL #492.' It stands for California Historical Landmark 492: An ancient buttonwillow tree for which the town is named.
I pulled off the freeway early Tuesday morning and onto a small, dusty clearing in front of the bushlike tree, which is surrounded by a short concrete wall. The buttonwillow grows next to a drainage ditch. In front of it is an unadorned rock bench, a utility pole, and, on this morning, a discarded plastic jug on the ground.
It might not look like much. But the tree has a fascinating history.
According to the bronze historical marker placed in front of the tree by the Kern County Historical Society in February 1952, the tree was an 'ancient Yokuts Indian meeting place' along a trail that cut across the Central Valley.
'The tree stood all alone and clearly visible for many miles almost in the center of a vast plain,' the Reedley Exponent newspaper reported in October 1952, noting that Indigenous people in the region met at the buttonwillow for 'every social or tribal event of importance,' including dances.
Later, the newspaper reported, white cattle drivers turned the tree into a makeshift post office, affixing letters to it for those who followed. They also held rodeos at the site. It was hard to believe this tree — currently boasting ball-shaped white flowers that look like little pincushions — has survived so much: drought, extensive groundwater pumping, the transformation of the arid plain around it into farmland. I was glad I made the stop.
Here are a few of my other favorite datelines from across this endlessly fascinating state.
— Volcano: A town of about 100 people in Amador County that sits in a bowl-shaped valley Gold Rush miners thought might be the crater of a dormant volcano. It is home to a thriving, all-volunteer theater company.
— Weedpatch: In Kern County, this was home to the former Weedpatch Camp, the federally run camp for migrant laborers — many of them Okies — immortalized in John Steinbeck's 'The Grapes of Wrath.'
— Blackwell's Corner: James Dean made his last stop at this gas station — and census-designated place, hence the dateline — in rural Kern County. The convenience store has become a roadside shrine to the 'Rebel Without a Cause' actor, who died in a car crash 26 miles west of there.
— Cool: In early 2020, I reported from this tiny town in El Dorado County where residents tried to fight a planned Dollar General store, fearing it would gentrify the place. That was just before pandemic lockdowns began. The store eventually was built.
— Peanut: This speck on a map in Trinity County is said to have been named by a postmaster who was snacking on a bag of goobers when he proposed the moniker for the Peanut post office, which became the town name.
Cynthia says: 'Pismo Beach.'Terri says: 'Morro Bay.'
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On May 29, 1973, Tom Bradley became the first Black mayor of Los Angeles as well as the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city. He went on to serve an unprecedented five terms from 1973 to 1993.
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