Exploring Guerneville: Cazadero

Cazadero Community Church

Today’s adventure was to Cazadero which is a few miles west of Guerneville along Highway 116 aka River Road. Many of the places we’ve driven around have involved steep, narrow hillsides so I was surprised that the drive to Cazadero is essentially level all the way to the small town. Beyond that, the road gets narrow and hilly but not as steep as in Rio Nido or the canyons on the norths side of the river.

The town of Cazadero makes Guerneville look like a metropolis. According to the Wikipedia post, its population was 354 in 2010 and dropped to 340 by 2019. The town has one general store, an amazingly packed hardware store where I purchased bulbs for a desk lamp, an auto repair shop, the fire department and two churches. What the Wiki failed to mention is their fantastic yard full of antique service vehicles. This is not something that I would normally drive out of my way to see but for car buffs, it is worth the trip.

Church entry framing the view

Access to the town is via the Cazadero “Highway”. Not sure what your vision of a highway is but for me it is not a narrow, windy road through towering redwoods posted at 35 miles per hour.

The town began as a hunting resort and expanded when the townspeople convinced the railroad to extend the train to town. That enabled them to move their lumber off to help rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and for them to supply timbers for the pilings of the Oakland end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge which was replaced after the Loma Prieta earthquake – one of the more interesting projects I was involved with when working at PGAdesign. 

4 shots of Willy's America - Quality Parts &
Restoration for Collectors 1946-1964




Judge Francis Drake Trosper 1869-1923 "pioneer, hunter, Justice and good man. One of the best men who ever graced Sonoma County." Petaluma Argus 3 May 1924. This monument sits at a crossroads at the north end of Cazadero.

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