Pete's dragon? The lighthouse for the film was built on Point Buchon Trail located south of Los Osos, California, substituting for Maine. It was equipped with such a large beacon that Disney had to get special permission from the Coast Guard to operate it, since doing so during filming would have confused passing ships.
On a foggy morning in July 1976, the month of our country's bicentennial, Joe Bradbury, who taught auto mechanics at Arroyo Grande High School, received a phone call from Ryder Truck Rental. The company asked him to repair one of their box vans that would not start at the Madonna Shopping Center.
The Walt Disney Co. was renting the truck to haul camera equipment for a movie called "Pete's Dragon” (1977) being filmed on a headland south of Point Buchon near Montaña De Oro State Park.
When Joe climbed into the cab of the troublesome vehicle later that day, it started right up. The next morning, he received another phone call from Ryder Truck Rental, telling him the box truck once again would not run. This time, it was located on the Fields Ranch at a newly constructed Disney Lighthouse on an outcropping of land that eventually would be named Disney Point near Pacific Gas and Electric Co's Point Buchon Trail.
This time, Joe took his wife, Jeanne, who was over nine months pregnant with their son Loren, along with their 2-year-old son Glen.
When the Bradbury family arrived at Disney Point later that morning, the truck started immediately. Upon investigation, Joe discovered a carbon track on the distributor cap on the truck's engine. The mist and fog that is so common during July mornings provided enough moisture to allow the carbon track to conduct electricity, which shorted out the truck’s ignition system. Later in the day, when the relative humidity dropped, it started.
He kept that distributor cap for decades afterward as a training tool for his auto shop classes.
Joe told me he remembers the helicopter flying in orbits around the Disney lighthouse with a camera person in its door. Perhaps that is when Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney and child actor Sean Marshall were filming "Razzle Dazzle Day," one of the movie's songs that featured the lighthouse.
He reminisced about his family eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which they brought from home, while the film crew ate pink Madonna Inn box lunches. Joe went on to teach at Arroyo Grande High School for 30 years before his retirement and served on the board of directors of the Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers.
Another local resident who remembers the filming of the Pete's Dragon movie was Suzy Will. You see, it was filmed in her backyard. She and her husband lived in the Gate House with her young family as a caretaker at the entrance to the Fields Ranch near Coon Creek about a mile from Disney Point. Suzy told me her home became "communications central" for the film crew because they had a landline phone; back in 1976, cell phones were not in use.
The newly constructed lighthouse was authentic from the first-order Fresnel lens to the plants imported from Maine to resemble the fictitious eastern seacoast town of Passamaquoddy. During the filming of the movie, Ralph Wright, who was a Disney animator and also the dreary voice of Eeyore from “Winnie-the-Pooh,” became friends with Suzy's family and painted a Disney-inspired mural that still exists in the Gate House.
Like Joe, she also remembers the pink Madonna Inn box lunches. The film crew would often drop off the spare box lunches at their home. She told me, "It took two weeks to build to the lighthouse, two weeks to film [the scenes] and two weeks to take it down." Today, it is difficult to find or see any artifacts left from the Disney Lighthouse.
Disney had to get special permission from the U.S. Coast Guard to operate it since its operation would have confused passing ships with the other nearby light stations, and here is why: Each lighthouse along the Central Coast had its own light characteristics, providing a secure navigational tool. If you were to travel southward from Big Sur to Point Conception, you would probably first notice the Piedras Blancas Light, which flashed white every 15 seconds.
As you continue southward, you would see the Point San Luis Lighthouse, which flashed every 20 seconds. Today at the Point San Luis Light Station, a bright LED beacon has replaced the fourth-order Fresnel lens that flashes one second on/four seconds off, every night, and is visible up to 17 miles away. Heading further southward on your journey, you would observe the Point Conception light, which flashed every 30 seconds.
In 1986, PG&E purchased the ranch from the Fields family as part of the lands surrounding Diablo Canyon Power Plant and created an innovative land steward program. The program, which includes the Point Buchon and Pecho Coast trails, received the Wildlife Habitat Council's Corporate Lands for Learning accreditation. The certification recognizes individual companies and organizations for commendable wildlife habitat management and environmental education programs.
"The Point Buchon headland is one of the more prominent points along our Central Coast,” retired PG&E biologist Sally Krenn told me. “When one stands along this spectacular headland, one can sense an aura of spirituality, as the Chumash considered this one of their sacred sites."
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John Lindsey who wrote the above story, is Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant marine meteorologist and a media relations representative.
