Readers Digest has declared Coulterville, in California's Sierra-Nevada, the "nicest" place in the nation. It's a hokey designation, of course, and it plays on the stereotype of rural folks as community-minded. Coulterville, population 115, is in Mariposa County, population 17,131. The story suggests that the threat of wildfires is a big reason people look out for each other:
Fires and floods have always been a part of life for Coulterville.... Whenever there’s a blaze, “you’ll see the community running toward the fire, not away from it,” says Dawn Huston, co-owner of Main Street’s Coulter Cafe.
Here's an excerpt from the story by Bill Hangley, Jr, talking about the lived realities of two women in the community:
Huston grew up nearby and returned in 2010 after years in San Francisco. She and her partner opened their cafe on Main Street and bought a 35-acre ranch. Huston knows it could all disappear.
“You have to come to terms with the fact that you can lose your property, your animals, everything,” she says. So what keeps Huston in Coulterville? It’s the people. “In San Francisco, there’s 50 plumbers within a mile of your house, but I wasn’t close with all my neighbors. Here I know all of them. You rely on them in a different way.”
The tradition goes way back, says one of those neighbors, Sue Garrett. “Any time I go to town, I call around and see who needs anything,” she says. Garrett is a fifth-generation rancher, raising cattle on 1,000 acres first staked out by her great-great-great-grandfather. The building itself has never burned, but the property is crisscrossed with firebreaks from past battles.
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