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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, December 26, 2002

Cyberspace may be end of line for town

By Michelle Locke
Associated Press

The old Bridgeville bridge in Bridgeville, Calif., is closed to traffic but provides a perfect place for resting or contemplating. The town is up for bid on eBay: 80-plus acres, 1 1/2 miles or so of riverbank, four cabins, nine houses, one cemetery and a backhoe. A new bridge can be seen in the background, but Highway 36 no longer passes through town.

Associated Press photos


The town of Bridgeville, about 260 miles north of San Francisco, behind California's Redwood Curtain, includes this row of red-tagged houses. The town is up for sale for a bottom-line price of $775,000.

A sign on Highway 36 marks the entrance to Bridgeville, Calif. At right is the town's old bridge above the Van Duzen River. "Own the entire rustic town of Bridgeville," invites an eBay listing, describing the property as a potential private retreat, money maker or tax shelter.
BRIDGEVILLE, Calif. — In the still of approaching winter, what used to be the town center of Bridgeville is wrapped in a silence broken only by the sibilant rush of the rain-swollen Van Duzen river.

And yet, amid the bucolic calm, something is stirring as modern as a mouse: point and click, point and click.

A big chunk of Bridgeville is on the electronic chopping block, up for bid on the Internet swap shop of eBay: 80-plus acres, a mile and a half or so of riverbank, four cabins, nine houses, one cemetery and a backhoe.

"Own the entire rustic town of Bridgeville," invites the eBay listing, describing the property as a potential private retreat, money maker or tax shelter.

The auction ends tomorrow.

Strictly speaking, the area up for sale is more like several large land parcels than a whole town.

The property went up on eBay in November and may be a first, said eBay spokesman Chris Donlay. "We've seen lots of houses and buildings and we've seen land and we've seen bridges, but not a town."

There's not a whole lot of town left in Bridgeville, and what there is is a bit of a fixer-upper. Opinion varies on whether the successful bidder would be getting a money pit or a gold mine.

Behind Northern California's Redwood Curtain and about 260 miles north of San Francisco, the area is rich in scenery. There's a particularly nice spot on the old bridge, now closed to traffic, that's perfect for elbow-resting and nature-contemplating.

On the other hand, the backhoe — there's a tractor, too — is not just for show. There's work to be done on the plumbing, and the county has deemed some of the houses inhabitable.

Still, at a bottom-line price of $775,000 — about the cost of a modest three-bedroom in San Francisco — plenty of people have a dream of what Bridgeville could be.

Postmaster Rose Clarke thinks Bridgeville, a tree-shaded bend in the Van Duzen river, would make a great location for a bed and breakfast. "It's beautiful. It's gorgeous out here, the river and the bridge and it's so quiet."

Rancher Mel Shuman thinks the best plan is to "tear it down, probably."

Ceci Lemieux, who lives in the hills above Bridgeville, isn't crazy about the idea of major development, but she is wistful for the days 20 years or so back when Bridgeville boasted a general store, a cafe and a few other businesses.

"People drive through here in the summer and want to stop — 'Is there any place to get a cold drink and a piece of pie?' — and it's like, 'There always used to be,' " Lemieux laments.

Clarke, Shuman and Lemieux don't live in the area that's up for sale. Few people do — only a handful of the property's houses are rented out.

Among the tenants is Carrie Erickson, who shares a small house with her boyfriend, baby girl, a gentle, blind pit bull and a smallish dog with a penchant for lying in the middle of the road. Erickson knows the place is up for sale and is "just waiting till someone buys it and hope we still get to live here."

Bridgeville was founded some years after the Gold Rush, according to a history put together by the Lapple family, the current owners. The town was part of an overland stage route to the seaport of Eureka, now an hour's drive away.

Bridgeville has been on the market a few times before.

School principal Mike Mullan, who now has about 60 pupils from the surrounding area, remembers playing poker with friends one night some years ago and dreaming up a plan to buy the town. His idea for a name, inspired by the signs that proliferate in country towns everywhere: Beer, Bait, Ice, Calif.

Portions exempt from the sale include the main roads, which are owned and maintained by the state, including the old bridge, built in 1925 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The bridge was decommissioned when a new one opened nearby in 1997. Until then, traffic on Highway 36 came right through the center of town, driving past the post office, the store and a small cafe.

These days, only the post office is still going, a homey spot that features a display of blue-ribbon winning ceramics by the local schoolchildren and a couple of bookcases filled with an eclectic selection that serves as an informal lending library.

Logging jobs dried up here decades ago and many area residents are poor. The area is home to ranchers, artistic types drawn by the region's rugged beauty and, according to locals, a thriving marijuana horticulture.

Denise Stuart, the real-estate agent who placed the listing, says she has gotten a lot of interest in the property over the years, but no one meeting the asking price, now at $775,000. After three weeks on the Net, more than 100 anonymous bids had been placed, topping out at just over $357,000.

The listing was put on eBay in the hopes that it would get more attention than has been generated by ads in more conventional venues.

Stuart sees possibilities in Bridgeville. There's fishing in the river and recreation opportunities along its banks.

Lemieux calls $775,000 "outrageous" for the property as is, although "for the potential of what it could be, it's not a lot of money."

She would hate to see things change a lot, yet she yearns for a glimmer of the old days.

"The summers," she said, "are just wonderful here."