Gorda (Spanish for "Fat") is a hamlet in Monterey County, California.[1] It is located 3 mi (4.8 km) south of Cape San Martin,[2] at an elevation of 148 ft (45 m).[1] It is one of the three small settlements of filling stations, restaurants, and motels located along State Route 1 on the Big Sur coast. The ZIP Code is 93920, but mail must be addressed to Big Sur,[3] and the community is inside area code 805.
History
View of Pacific Ocean at Gorda, California.
The fresh springs in Gorda were used by Native American tribes. By the time the first Europeans arrived in 1878, the Native Americans were no longer present. The settlement expanded with the gold rush in nearby Manchester during the 1880s.[4] A stagecoach stop was built and a post office operated at Gorda from 1893 to 1923, moving in 1910.[2] Government surveyor James M. Hill described the town in February, 1921 as "a small ranching settlement on the coast about midway between Monterey and San Luis Obispo."
Gorda was the location of a hippie commune from 1962 to 1968 on land owned by Amelia Newell.[5]
Services
Roland H. Chivers was a heavy equipment mechanic and operator. He graded the site for the restaurant and made numerous improvement to the coastal property.[6]
Road-side services include a small hotel and cottages, restaurant, gas station, deli, espresso bar, and convenience store.[7] In 1979, the town attracted national attention after most of the land was purchased by Kidco Limited Ventures, a corporation owned by four minor children from Ramona, California who were heirs of the family that owned the Cessna Aircraft company.[8] After funding the company, $500,000 was invested as a tax shelter to purchase the town's land. At the time, Dickie Cessna was 14 years old and the other three siblings were June (16), Bette (13) and Nene (11).[9][10] The Cessna children were paid for rights to a movie about these events and the comedy film Kidco was released by 20th Century Fox in 1984.[11]
Mud Creek slide
The May 22, 2017, mud slide at Mud Creek covered Highway 1 for more than a quarter-mile.
On May 20, 2017, the largest slide in the Big Sur Coast Highway's history at Mud Creek buried more than a quarter-mile of Highway 1 1 mile (1.6 km) southeast of Gorda. The highway was closed for more than a year. This had a considerable negative economic impact for tourism between Monterey and Morro Bay. A CalTrans study concluded that rerouting the highway around the slide was preferred over other alternatives.[12][13] The only route in and out of Gorda beginning in the south was via a lengthy detour over the narrow, winding Nacimiento-Fergusson Road. On August 2, 2017, CalTrans decided to rebuild the highway over the slide instead of clearing it.[14] It was reopened on July 18, 2018, at a cost of $54 million.[15][16][17]
Etymology
Gorda is derived from the Spanish word for "fat" or "well-fed".[18]
High fuel prices
Gorda is occasionally mentioned as having the highest gasoline prices in the United States. This is due in part to the cost of a diesel generator that provides electricity to the gas station and town. It's also due to the limited availability of fuel in the area and the distance from suppliers, who must deliver fuel to Gorda from as far as Santa Maria and Paso Robles, from 80 to 100 miles (130 to 160 km) away.[19][20] In 2008, the price was $6.70 per gallon.[19][21][22] In October 2021, the prices were $7.59 for unleaded and $8.49 for premium gas.[20] On March 10, 2022, the price of unleaded was reported to be $9.159 and the price of premium gas was $10.159.[23]
Geography
Under the Köppen climate classification, "dry-summer subtropical" climates are often referred to as "Mediterranean". This climate zone has an average temperature above 10 °C (50 °F) in their warmest months, and an average in the coldest between 18 and −3 °C (64 and 27 °F). Summers tend to be dry with less than one-third the rainfall of the wettest winter month, and with less than 30 mm (1 in) of precipitation in a summer month.[24]
^ abDurham, David L. (1998). California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State. Clovis, Calif.: Word Dancer Press. p. 901. ISBN1-884995-14-4.
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