By Judith Redmond

We recently went to a party in Esparto billed as “The Last Dance.” Esparto is the small town at the mouth of the Capay Valley, about 25 minutes from Full Belly. But we don’t stop there when we ‘go to town’ for a tractor part, or to get the banking done. Unfortunately we have to go all the way to Woodland — 20 minutes farther down the road.

Esparto is a town that once thrived but went downhill with the automobile, the migration to suburbs and the exodus from rural California. Who knows how it happened — slowly over a couple of decades — businesses closed one by one. On Main Street in the ’60s there was a lumberyard, a grocery, a hardware, a dry goods store, a drug store, a doctor’s office, a bank, 2 garages, a warehouse, a meat locker, a burger barn, a barber shop, a shoe repair, 2 gas stations, a fuel delivery business, an insurance office and a place to buy your fertilizer and chemicals.

None of that exists any more. The bank and one remaining gas station closed in the ’90s. The hardware store died, another one tried to take its place but that has closed as well. So now the town of Esparto, at the mouth of the Capay Valley, home to the Valley’s library, high school, middle school and elementary schools has only a few open businesses. Main Street is marred by several boarded up, very dilapidated store fronts.

Over the last few years, while businesses were still failing, others have opened — a Mexican restaurant and small grocery are doing well. With its proximity to major highways leading to the Bay Area, development pressures have taken root in the agricultural fields surrounding Esparto, and new houses have spread where corn once grew. Recently, a group of Valley residents started talking about reviving the town, bringing back some of its former grandeur and playing a role in the way that the surrounding communities grow.

The Last Dance took place on the 90-year old spring-loaded dance floor of the Lindbergh Building, an IOOF Odd Fellows hall built in the ’20s that has come to symbolize the decline of Main Street businesses. This grand building is now a mess after changing hands several times. Many of the folks at the dance remembered partying there in their youth and dancing on this wonderful floor, with its springing energy that really picks a dance right up.

We are hoping that the Last Dance won’t be the end of this story. Folks are working for a happy ending, and here’s the vision: The Lindbergh Building was purchased by New Season Community Development Corporation, an Esparto-based nonprofit, that will use some public funding for much needed renovations. New Season signed a deal with a local hardware store, whose owners pointed out that a springy floor wasn’t really compatible with shelves of nuts and bolts. So the floor has to go, but we are hoping that it will live on for many more barn dances at the Taber Ranch Event Center (www.taberranch.com)!

A building once grand, now sad, may become a new symbol. The Lindbergh Building will become part of a strong, vibrant community driven effort to rebuild Esparto into a town well suited to the diverse Capay Valley community.

Judith is a partner at Full Belly Farm. Jim Durst did the original research for this article.