Published in the January 4-17, 2017 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Marty Cheek

Marty Cheek

Towns are a lot like people. They have a story to tell. When you learn their story, you understand them a whole lot better. You can then appreciate them for their triumphs and tragedies.

Like the stories of many people, the history of a community is, unfortunately, often lost over time. That’s why I’m glad to see two projects come together grandly in the downtowns of Gilroy and Morgan Hill.

South Valley entrepreneur Frank Léal has plenty of passion for the various hospitality enterprises he’s created. His most recent involves the re-opening of the Granada Theater Dec. 17 at a special celebration.

The movie theater originally opened June 22, 1951 with 650 seats and offered a full stage area that often served as a live theater and was also used for church meetings. It closed its doors in 2003 and stood empty for many years. One July 3 night, I went into the Granada to store water and sodas from the annual Freedom Fest street dance. I found myself alone in the building and walked about in the dim light. Cobwebs and dust covered everything, making me think it would be a perfect set for a horror movie.

In the summer of 2012, local resident Bob Snow had the idea to clean the Granada up and prepare it to show movies again — this time as the main venue of the Poppy Jasper Film Festival. A team of volunteers spent hours taking out old trash, repairing the roof, and other refurbishments.

That effort paid off and many residents were impressed with the potential of the old theater. A group of volunteers formed a nonprofit called the Granada Preservation Society to turn the theater into a downtown cinematic arts and live performance venue. They knew the fate of the Granada rested on the decision of a developer purchasing the history-filled building from the city. They bravely took control of the theater Dec. 1, 2013 with a one-year lease with the city and began working with construction and plumbing crews to bring the restrooms up to code.

“We’re trying to make it an attractive place for an investor or a group of investors to come in and help revitalize the Granada Theater,” said David Pyke, a member of the preservation society. “The people who have lived here for a long time have fond memories of the Granada. And every time they come in they share their memories. There’s a lot of nostalgia here.”

Léal took a tour of the Granada and immediately saw the potential of turning it into an elegant dinner theater reminiscent of the Rat Pack Era. He purchased the building from the city’s Morgan Hill Redevelopment Successor Agency last year and began work October 2015 to save the history of the old movie house and make it once again an entertainment center.

Another endeavor to preserve local history is the Paseo Project, a walkway connecting the shops of Monterey Road in downtown Gilroy with the parking lots adjacent to Gourmet Alley.

I got a sneak peek of the Paseo Project the evening of Dec. 3 while hanging out in downtown Gilroy waiting for the Holiday Parade to start. It featured a newly installed placard showing a glimpse of Gilroy’s cowboy history. I’m glad individuals in the community, led by former mayor Al Pinheiro, took on the project of bringing to visitors and residents alike a commemoration of the city’s history that goes far beyond its garlicky world-wide fame.

The Paseo history project will introduce pedestrians who walk through it to the fact that Gilroy was once the Tobacco Capital of the World — a factory here employed hundreds of workers immigrated from China who rolled cigars smoked by Americans across the country.

Gilroy was also the home of one of the wealthiest ranchers in the Old West — Henry Miller, a German immigrant known as “the Cattle King of California.” He was for a time one of the largest land-owners in America. And the city’s ranching history continues with the display of Gilroy’s cowboy era, which includes mention of the beloved Gymkhana, a local rodeo-fiesta that had its run from 1929 to 1956.

Among the rodeo cowboys who participated was the legendary Casey Tibbs, who would go on to act as a cowboy stuntman in many TV shows and films and is celebrated at the Pro Rodeo National Hall of Fame in Colorado. And his likeness on top of his bucking horse Warpaint was turned into a life-sized fiberglass statue that hung from the front second-story of Hall’s Building at Monterey Road and Sixth Street for many years.

To pay for the placards, hundreds of residents purchased bricks costing $250 that will be engraved with names and messages and placed along the Paseo.

Gilroyans really love their history, and creating a short walk through the Paseo to share their city’s “biography” with visitors became a project of passion for many of them.
Our lives tread on the footsteps of the folks who made their homes here in the South Valley long before our arrival.

Perhaps a hundred years from now if we continue the tradition of preserving our heritage, people will pass through Gilroy’s Paseo and Morgan Hill’s Granada Theater and wonder about the multitude of stories a community can hold in its people and places.