A lucky few remain after the tourists depart. About 400 people live in what has become an exclusive community, and these days most aren't in the apple business. Joining rancher families that have lived here for three generations are a new crop of doctors, lawyers and the like who seek the country life within commuting range of the city.

It's not all Norman Rockwell. Oak Glen folks do their share of small-town squabbling. "They're individuals," says apple rancher Dennis Riley. "That's probably the reason why they're here."

But people are united in their desire to keep "up here" from becoming like down below. "Everybody moves up here and they say `now, nobody else move up,' " says Alison Law, whose family has been here since 1931. "Everybody falls in love with it the way it is."

They just aren't sure how to keep it the way it is.

San Bernardino County zoning laws for this unincorporated community already limit just how thin the pie can be sliced. Lots must be at least 2.5 acres, and even larger in some places, which is meant to preserve the rural nature of Oak Glen. And yet that still leaves large landowners with the temptation to divvy up their property for pricey homes, leaving some to suspect Oak Glen could become just another upscale foothill enclave. "I think we've got another 10 to 15 years the way we are," says Mert Hudson, whose Snowline Orchard just turned 100 years old.

Plans are afoot to preserve Oak Glen as a rural apple-growing town, led by a private nature conservancy that has been buying up land. The Wildlands Conservancy is also trying to convince apple ranchers to agree to restrictions preventing development on their property in exchange for payment from the conservancy.

Local real estate agent Jo Ann Wilshire, whose family has lived in Oak Glen for three generations, says folks aren't jumping at the idea yet. "It's iffy," she says. "The people up here, they aren't quick to make decisions."

If an independent spirit from the pioneer days remains in Oak Glen, so does the ability to band together to fend off a perceived threat, like a proposal earlier this year to build 68 homes on the outskirts of Oak Glen and annex the area to Yucaipa. Oak Glen residents packed the Yucaipa City Council chambers in protest and the council quickly rejected the idea.

"They fight between themselves until an outside entity goes after them and (then) they are a force to be reckoned with," says Claire Teeters, editor of the weekly Yucaipa News Mirror and a local history buff working with others on a book about the region.

Rugged land

The settlers who made Oak Glen had to be tough. Today's cute shops are set against one of the most rugged ridges in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Squatters settled in the area in the 1840s and 1850s, Teeters says. While different ranch families have claimed to be the first to grow apples, Enoch Parrish, who came here in 1866 (and whose name lives on in the Parrish Ranch) often gets the credit. But Teeters says her research indicates a Paulino Weaver who arrived in the 1840s was first to grow apples, though she adds no one can know for sure.

These early settlers had to contend with grizzlies until the bears became extinct early in this century. Today, residents have their hands full with black bears that thrive in the absence of the grizzly, their natural enemies. The less-aggressive black bears are lured in part by the same thing that draws tourists: apples and other eats. Usually, hungry bears are simply a dumpster-diving nuisance.

More ominously, the infamous San Andreas fault runs right beneath Oak Glen. That's what makes the mountains rise so dramatically and creates the beautiful scenery. The fault also brings the abundant water (though not abundant enough to prevent some feuding over water rights) that helped make Oak Glen so attractive for farming. As Law explains, when two tectonic plates rub together, the sediment grinds down into a finer clay soil that traps water. Some landowners have their own wells from the old days.

Of course, the shifty San Andreas could always decide to upset the apple cart, but Law doesn't seem too worried, having grown up in a home directly on the fault. "If it were not for the San Andreas, Oak Glen would not be raising apples," says Law, 50.

Oh, yes, the apples. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the commercial apple business thrived in Oak Glen, where the mile-high, cool climate was just right. Orchards even spread down to Yucaipa, but it was too warm, and commercial enterprises retreated to higher climes, Teeters says. By the 1940s, Oak Glen growers were concerned about competition with larger apple growers in places like Washington. So roadside stands were set up, and the growers slowly switched from commercial production to tourist attraction for city-slickers. Today about 400 acres of orchards remain.

Despite the changes, perhaps the most striking thing about Oak Glen is the continuity of this town, and how deep the family roots run.

Coming home

Jo Ann Wilshire steps outside Wilshire's Apple Shed, last vestige of a family enterprise that goes back to 1877 when her grandfather Joe Wilshire planted his orchards. She points to Wilshire Peak, where the ashes of her father, Blackie Wilshire, are scattered at 8,707 feet. On the other side of the road from her shed runs Wilshire Creek.

Wilshire grew up on the ranch, but by 18 she wanted out, which, in the 1940s, required a husband. "I went to University of Redlands and looked for a tall, good-looking football player," she says.

They were married for 20 years and had four kids before divorcing. Wilshire went on to become a a corporate troubleshooter for a woman's clothing company, flying around the country, hiring and firing. High heels. Dyed hair. Fake lashes. And tense muscles.

She burned out and her second marriage went up in smoke, too. That's what finally brought her back to Oak Glen to stay after three decades away. "I felt safe here. When you're raised with something this beautiful you don't really realize it 'til you're away."

Wilshire let her hair down -- literally -- and traded business suits for blue jeans. "I came up here and I learned to cry," she says. "You find out what's real."

Her kids and now her grandkids still help out in the store. Of course, she plans to hand it down when she dies. "This is a safety net for my kids in case one of them gets in some kind of trouble," says Wilshire, 66. "You don't have to stay married just to have someone to take care of you."

Wilshire says her real estate job provides more than extra income. "I kind of wanted to keep my finger on the pulse of what was happening up here in Oak Glen," she says. "We don't want to turn it into a bedroom community."

She has only one Oak Glen listing right now, a house going for $449,000. "I have a lot of people that would like to live here, but it's out of their price range," she says.

Used to be you'd see old ranch trucks rumbling along the roads, remembers Kandie Cansler, who's lived here 18 years. "Now we see Mercedes and Rolls Royces and BMWs, this kind of thing, coming up the road pretty frequently," Cansler says. "I just see this getting more and more exclusive over the years."

Traditions endure

Even with fancy homes, amenities for residents are few, so folks drive down the mountain for most of their shopping. Absent a town hall or even a post office, Law's Oak Glen Coffee Shop serves as the center of town. The volunteer firefighters meet here, as do the locals who crowd the counter for breakfast and to catch up on town happenings.

Today, Alison Law is hanging out at the coffee shop opened by her father and now run by her brother, Kent Colby. Eating breakfast at the counter is Janice Baumann. The three of them grew up together, attending class in the same one-room schoolhouse.

And that gets Alison to reminiscing. She didn't realize riding a donkey to school was unusual until TV came along, making her feel deprived of the suburban norm. Like Wilshire, Law left town for a time but she wasn't gone so long, quickly realizing what a good thing she had in Oak Glen.

Something of a philosopher, Law talks a lot about the indigenous people who were here thousands of years ago and how she sees herself as a caretaker of the land for future generations.

"My dad still makes change out of a cigar box," Alison says. "When the power goes out in the year 2000, that little box will open just fine. We'd probably all be better off if we were still riding horses or walking."

Next door at the apple stand, her father, 81-year-old Alex Law, is indeed making change from his cigar box. A couple from Claremont buys a bag of apples, and he invites them to drive up to his house to get a better view.

As much as anyone, Alex Law transformed Oak Glen into a tourist stop. He was the first to open a roadside stand, and the Laws were also first to open a pie shop restaurant. But he's also something of an Oak Glen traditionalist, saying he's always worried "we'd have people with tons of money come in and spoil the place with their ideas."

A voice for change

Dennis Riley is a traditionalist, too, though in a different sort of way. He's a relative newcomer -- only been here 20 years -- but he thinks he's taken the Oak Glen spirit to heart. A former insurance salesman, he now lives in a log cabin he built on his apple ranch, and he tries to revive the frontier experience for visitors.

His big innovation at Oak Glen was the "u-pick" apple orchard. "U-pick" orchards today are an accepted part of Oak Glen's appeal, but Riley says when he introduced the concept in 1981, it didn't go over well with some old-timers who worried people would damage the orchards. Riley concedes he's been rather outspoken.

"It's not like an urban community where people are shifting in and out all the time," he says. "There's a hierarchy up here. Opinion is usually strongly influenced by the old families who have been here a long time."

Still, Riley believes Oak Glen's apple tradition can be preserved, paradoxically, by bringing some change. The town, he says, could be developed into a year-round destination where people spend the weekend, not just drive up for a day. That would require more bed and breakfasts, restaurants and off-season events. In fact, people often ask him about overnight accommodations. This would be a way to draw enough tourist dollars to keep the apple-ranching viable, he says.

Otherwise, he says, Oak Glen eventually may become just another upscale bedroom community. But he doesn't know if anyone will listen. "This is an old, old community. You've got to be here a long time before your ideas are accepted -- longer than 20 years," he says.

Recent arrivals

Kathlyn Quatrochi wishes Oak Glen had more of a sense of community among residents who aren't involved in the apple business. She moved up here in 1991 to open the Oak Glen Inn bed and breakfast. She's considering building a nondenominational church to bring people together. "It's a community where people who want privacy come to," she says. "It really is a town of very individual people."

The beautiful environment keeps her here. "If you have to live in Southern California, I can't think of a nicer place," she says.

That same scenery lured Tony and Natalie Rosenblum-Radys, who bought a 3,800 square-foot home up here in June. They had been living in La Crescenta, one of LA's nicer suburbs but had visited Oak Glen during apple season year after year. The couple has six children ages 7 through 21 in their blended family, and they wanted the quiet country life.

Sure, there are adjustments. Tony's job selling commercial security systems is in LA, but he tries to work from home most days. Natalie notes that the area doesn't have the same cultural offerings they're used to, but they do take the kids for voice lessons at the University of Redlands. Nice shopping means driving to Palm Springs or Riverside, Natalie says.

It's all worth it when Natalie looks out the window in the morning or smells the mountain air. "I can't believe I live here, and I don't have to go home at the end of the weekend," says Natalie, 40.

Folks around town have been friendly and neighbors came by to greet them after they moved in. Natalie once lived in rural Oregon, where many people dreaded invaders from California. She thinks people in Oak Glen are nicer to newcomers because they know development won't run rampant.

In fact, that's one reason why the couple chose Oak Glen. They were confident the hills weren't going to be covered with homes in a few years. "It's like you don't want to tell the secret to very many people," says Tony.

Published 9/27/1998