PATCHEN
One cloudy day in the early Spring of 1969 we pulled up to the stop sign on Mt. Charlie Road, at the corner where it dead-ends into the Old Santa Cruz Hwy. , just as Dick Knowles was pounding a House For Sale sign into the ground. We stopped to talk to him briefly and by April we had moved into our new home with one toddler and one infant. My daughter asked me not long ago if I wanted to stay at Patchen forever. I responded, “no, only till I die”.
Patchen, California is one of five “Ghost Towns of the Santa Cruz Mountains”, which grew and flourished during the last half of the nineteenth century. You can read more about the history or browse through these anecdotes that reflect my experiences here over the past half-Century.
