thedrifter
12-18-07, 05:44 AM
Ex-Marine's plucky persona helps keep Volcano on map
By Blair Anthony Robertson - brobertson@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Muriel Thebaut walks out of her front door and introduces herself with a joke.
"My husband and I are the oldest living things in Volcano, except for a couple of oak trees – and one of them died," Thebaut says.
When asked how old is old, Thebaut replies, "I'm 82 – I mean 92. Oh my, time flies."
Time indeed has flown for a visionary who some 60 years ago saw the future in this picturesque Amador County settlement, when it was stuck at something between historic Gold Rush town and a place in danger of being forgotten.
Where most people saw junk, Thebaut saw history. When others wanted to tear down dilapidated structures and modernize the place, this 5-foot-tall former Marine grabbed the reins and said, "Whoa!"
Thebaut moved to Volcano in 1948, 100 years after the founding of the town at the dawn of the Gold Rush. She and husband Jack, 94, who landed a job in Amador County with the California Youth Authority, were refugees from Berkeley. Their first home was a $75-a-month apartment over an old store. They soon built a house, where they have lived ever since, right near a sign on Consolation Street that urges motorists to "Please drive slow."
Once she settled in, Muriel started learning about the local history, absorbing so much so quickly that she became the town's unofficial tour guide, cheerleader, walking and talking chamber of commerce, renovator, recycler and entrepreneur. Along the way, she owned and operated a popular restaurant, the Jug and Rose.
"I really feel like it's my town. I'm very possessive," she said.
For years, Thebaut played host to school kids on field trips, as well as tourists from all over the world.
At her age, she is in semiretirement and her restaurant is closed. But locals still see her out and about, often being pulled along by her spunky little dog, Tucker.
One of the first things most visitors want to know is how a place so far from any volcano could get the name "Volcano." Turns out, there are several answers. The best one seems to be that the area is in a bowl-shaped valley that early residents incorrectly assumed was formed by a volcano.
At its height during the Gold Rush, Volcano was an often raucous place, with 10,000 to 15,000 fortune-seeking residents, 30-something saloons and 17 hotels. These days, Thebaut says there are about 115 folks and two hotels – one of them closed and on the market.
The local general store, a landmark on Main Street, is also for sale – the asking price is $499,000. Outside the store is the town bulletin board, featuring all kinds of messages, including one for "Free male pygmy goats. Too many goats. Need help to catch them."
When her husband was recalled by the military in 1950 and was gone for two years during the Korean War, Muriel Thebaut opened a gift shop, selling Gold Rush books and crafts that sprung from her imagination.
"I'd see this stump from a tree that was knurled and beautiful and I'd make a lamp out of it," she said. "I had sort of a talent for it and had a heck of an imagination."
A few doors down from the old assay office, which Thebaut bought after halting folks from tearing it down, is the quaint and impossibly tiny Volcano Theatre Company, which has just 33 seats and seems not much bigger than a typical living room, framed by stone walls that date to 1856. Thebaut dreamed that up, too, and salvaged the seats from a closed theater in Laguna.
The theatre is in its 34th year and sustains a local tradition: In 1854, toward the end of the Gold Rush, the town boasted California's first amateur theater company, the Volcano Thespian Society.
Across the street is the Volcano Amphitheater, another Thebaut inspiration that came about some 15 years after the theater opened. She secured and reused the large rocks for the eye-catching front wall from one of the oldest buildings in the area, the Stone Jug Saloon and boardinghouse, which was known to double as a brothel.
Reuse and recycle, progressive buzzwords today, have been part of Thebaut's way of life for decades.
"I made most of my own clothes and some of them were, well, different," she said, laughing.
Though she considers herself politically conservative, she was never afraid to rock the boat and never took a secondary role to men. That goes back to when she was on the boys track team in high school and joined the Marines during World War II. She started driving long before it was common to see a woman behind the wheel.
Even today she bucks conventional wisdom for someone her age and pours herself a scotch and soda every night.
During her early days in Volcano, not everyone understood what Thebaut meant when she told locals how the old buildings could be restored, how Volcano could be a tourist attraction.
"The townspeople were all old-timers and they resisted the tourist aspect of it, but she persevered," said son Chris Thebaut, 55, a director for the Volcano Theatre Company. "She has a lot more admirers these days. Now they honor her as being a visionary."
"She is intense," he added. "She's very bad at delegating things because (she believes) nobody else can do it right."
Asked about that, Muriel Thebaut says, "I just did what I wanted to – and I had a town to do it in."
These days, she doesn't gloat, necessarily, but she has lived long enough to say, "I told you so."
She says she's too old to be a visionary. Yet Volcano has become what she wanted it to be. Out in the middle of Consolation Street, you can stand and carry on a conversation. And on any given morning, you can still catch a glimpse of Muriel Thebaut being pulled along by her dog, Tucker.
Ellie
By Blair Anthony Robertson - brobertson@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PST Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Muriel Thebaut walks out of her front door and introduces herself with a joke.
"My husband and I are the oldest living things in Volcano, except for a couple of oak trees – and one of them died," Thebaut says.
When asked how old is old, Thebaut replies, "I'm 82 – I mean 92. Oh my, time flies."
Time indeed has flown for a visionary who some 60 years ago saw the future in this picturesque Amador County settlement, when it was stuck at something between historic Gold Rush town and a place in danger of being forgotten.
Where most people saw junk, Thebaut saw history. When others wanted to tear down dilapidated structures and modernize the place, this 5-foot-tall former Marine grabbed the reins and said, "Whoa!"
Thebaut moved to Volcano in 1948, 100 years after the founding of the town at the dawn of the Gold Rush. She and husband Jack, 94, who landed a job in Amador County with the California Youth Authority, were refugees from Berkeley. Their first home was a $75-a-month apartment over an old store. They soon built a house, where they have lived ever since, right near a sign on Consolation Street that urges motorists to "Please drive slow."
Once she settled in, Muriel started learning about the local history, absorbing so much so quickly that she became the town's unofficial tour guide, cheerleader, walking and talking chamber of commerce, renovator, recycler and entrepreneur. Along the way, she owned and operated a popular restaurant, the Jug and Rose.
"I really feel like it's my town. I'm very possessive," she said.
For years, Thebaut played host to school kids on field trips, as well as tourists from all over the world.
At her age, she is in semiretirement and her restaurant is closed. But locals still see her out and about, often being pulled along by her spunky little dog, Tucker.
One of the first things most visitors want to know is how a place so far from any volcano could get the name "Volcano." Turns out, there are several answers. The best one seems to be that the area is in a bowl-shaped valley that early residents incorrectly assumed was formed by a volcano.
At its height during the Gold Rush, Volcano was an often raucous place, with 10,000 to 15,000 fortune-seeking residents, 30-something saloons and 17 hotels. These days, Thebaut says there are about 115 folks and two hotels – one of them closed and on the market.
The local general store, a landmark on Main Street, is also for sale – the asking price is $499,000. Outside the store is the town bulletin board, featuring all kinds of messages, including one for "Free male pygmy goats. Too many goats. Need help to catch them."
When her husband was recalled by the military in 1950 and was gone for two years during the Korean War, Muriel Thebaut opened a gift shop, selling Gold Rush books and crafts that sprung from her imagination.
"I'd see this stump from a tree that was knurled and beautiful and I'd make a lamp out of it," she said. "I had sort of a talent for it and had a heck of an imagination."
A few doors down from the old assay office, which Thebaut bought after halting folks from tearing it down, is the quaint and impossibly tiny Volcano Theatre Company, which has just 33 seats and seems not much bigger than a typical living room, framed by stone walls that date to 1856. Thebaut dreamed that up, too, and salvaged the seats from a closed theater in Laguna.
The theatre is in its 34th year and sustains a local tradition: In 1854, toward the end of the Gold Rush, the town boasted California's first amateur theater company, the Volcano Thespian Society.
Across the street is the Volcano Amphitheater, another Thebaut inspiration that came about some 15 years after the theater opened. She secured and reused the large rocks for the eye-catching front wall from one of the oldest buildings in the area, the Stone Jug Saloon and boardinghouse, which was known to double as a brothel.
Reuse and recycle, progressive buzzwords today, have been part of Thebaut's way of life for decades.
"I made most of my own clothes and some of them were, well, different," she said, laughing.
Though she considers herself politically conservative, she was never afraid to rock the boat and never took a secondary role to men. That goes back to when she was on the boys track team in high school and joined the Marines during World War II. She started driving long before it was common to see a woman behind the wheel.
Even today she bucks conventional wisdom for someone her age and pours herself a scotch and soda every night.
During her early days in Volcano, not everyone understood what Thebaut meant when she told locals how the old buildings could be restored, how Volcano could be a tourist attraction.
"The townspeople were all old-timers and they resisted the tourist aspect of it, but she persevered," said son Chris Thebaut, 55, a director for the Volcano Theatre Company. "She has a lot more admirers these days. Now they honor her as being a visionary."
"She is intense," he added. "She's very bad at delegating things because (she believes) nobody else can do it right."
Asked about that, Muriel Thebaut says, "I just did what I wanted to – and I had a town to do it in."
These days, she doesn't gloat, necessarily, but she has lived long enough to say, "I told you so."
She says she's too old to be a visionary. Yet Volcano has become what she wanted it to be. Out in the middle of Consolation Street, you can stand and carry on a conversation. And on any given morning, you can still catch a glimpse of Muriel Thebaut being pulled along by her dog, Tucker.
Ellie