Anchor bay Commercial village

On the North Side of Fish Rock Gulch, in turn-of-the-century Fish Rock, Dave Berry, Jr. was fixing up his dad’s tiny grocery. Standing on the porch roof, he hauled up a wooden, hand-carved anchor and mounted it to the top of the facade. Below it he nailed a freshly painted sign that read, Anchor Bay Store. The name seemed appropriate because the few huddled and crumbling town buildings were intimately tied to the ships that anchored nearby. From where he stood he could look across the narrow dirt road and beyond the blufftop to where several steam schooners swayed in the protection of Haven’s Anchorage.

In 1924, the elderly Berry, Sr. was killed by his pet bull. Berry’s daughter asked friend and neighbor W. S. Pierce to caretake the store. The Pierce family moved into the house attached to the building, and with a hundred dollars worth of goods, tried their hand at storekeeping. Within that same year, he bought the 240 acre St. Ores place for $3500 which included the lower end of Fish Rock Gulch. The gulch was perfect for camping and fishing access and in 1925 he built a small road down into the site and began charging fifty cents per night to the infrequent traveler. Also within that year Walter Newcomb bought the acreage northward of Fish Rock Gulch which included the old town buildings. He planned to dismantle the crumbling remnants, signaling the end of the old doghole town. Pierce, carrying the name Anchor Bay with him to the south side of the gulch, began to build his own commercial development with the construction of a new store.

Within a few years, the unpaved coast road was completed allowing for the odd tourist to venture the twisting 5 1/2 hour drive up from Bodega Bay during good weather. Anchor Bay, beginning as the fanciful name on a tiny store front in a doghole town, had become the placename of one of the coast’s first tourist destinations. The paving of the coast road finally began by 1929. Anchor Bay grew slowly to eventually include not only the store, but also several outbuildings, rental cabins, a restaurant, a gas station, and a dance hall.

Although old Fish Rock was typical of the area, the area was not typical of the rest of California. Its ruggedness without natural ports, remoteness without decent roads, gave the “doghole coast” a unique character, a character still felt by those who live here today and by those who venture up the narrow, winding highway to visit these remote places where the redwoods meet the sea.

William built a wood-framed market and hardware store off of his home in (?), including a gas pump, and some cabins across the highway used by fishermen up from the City. Another tourist draw was the Point Arena Hot Springs, about 6 miles up the Garcia River. It had a big hotel, reached by stagecoach, and a natural hot spring that filled several tubs near the river. The hotel is long gone, but the hot springs and tubs are still there.

When William died, his son Norm tore down the wooden structures and rebuilt the village with concrete block in 1962. He developed the campground and sold off or developed the other land. There is a small monument in town overlooking the sea; a rusty anchor on a pedestal inscribed "Norm Pierce, he was a helluva guy." He is buried in the cemetery behind the market.

Richard McCoy bought the town in the late 60’s. (In the early 70's, he put the town up for sale for $350,000, but apparently got no takers.) It had had a major upgrade of the sewer system and modernized the shops on the East Side of the road. Although the market is now gourmet, rather than the old country-style, Anchor Bay remains a quiet, sunny spot devoid of the commercialism of Gualala.