Let’s talk about the town of Crockett, baby.

 Right from 80, between Hercules, Vallejo and Martinez, right before you get on the bridge if you look down towards the waters edge, you’ll see the pink and white C&H sugar refinery sign. 

The rolling neighborhoods and buildings on the adjacent hillside comprise the “shabby chic” 1950s style gem of a town we’re going to get all up into here, the town of Crockett. 

Ya’ll, do you believe there is a place in the center of so much legit East Bay realness, where you can buy a waterfront home for 500,000$? How is it possible and how does everyone not know this? Talk about best kept secret, jeez. I guess we’re over here spilling the beans.

It used to be in the town of Crockett someone had to pass on before a house would become available. Even then, chances were high it would be inherited by closest living relatives and not hit the market. That isn’t the case any longer, the town is made up of many more transplants than it had back in the day. 

The location of Crockett, between the water and the steep hill side of the regional shoreline park, gives it the feel of existing somewhere entirely different from where it actually is. Walk around the rolling streets and you do not get the sense you’re surrounded by the Bay Area, it gives a uniquely small-town vibe, of a past era. 

Big part of the anomaly of a small town being able to stay small, is it’s weirdly hard to get to. There is no direct exit to get into Crockett, you loop through a series of slightly confusing miles through the park to even find the place. You ain’t getting there unless you’re really trying with purpose. There are no big box stores, just local mom and pop stuff. There is a single, largely unnecessary stoplight. The town has got a gas station, but staying in line with the general theme, they are the slowest gas pumps ever. 

Crockett was purely and contentedly a company town. Not surprisingly, given the location the first settlers in the late 1800s had built up a sleepy little fishing village. In 1906 everything changed with the establishment of the CandH sugar refinery. With it came the building of schools, local recreational facilities, community projects and good, reliable jobs. The company sustained multigenerational ties to families, Italian and Portuguese immigrants who came for the work and stayed. The company built a swimming pool for the town and put on a Nutcracker play every Christmas where the children would receive a gift. It was more than a place people went to work; it was the very fabric of the town itself. 

There were all kinds of peaks and valleys in the journey of what was C&H and Crockett, in1938 a famous battle between labor unions brought national attention. Under the Nations economic collapse, sugar prices fell, labor disputes arose, neighbors pitted against each other. The violence in the town became so bad, California highway patrol had to block off the entry and exits to the town to keep the fighting contained where it was. I think we should picture like a small-town version of Peaky Blinders, but in California, and like 20 years later than the time period the show takes place in. Yikes. 

In 2017, the refinery in Crockett filled its last bag of sugar. There had become controversy around the refinery producing a rotten egg smell that bothered residents in surrounding towns. 

The factory is still running in a much smaller capacity, not large production like before. It currently employs 450 people. During its large-scale operation, they were packaging and producing 14% of our Nations refined sugar. The factory still plays a big part in the town, hosting an annual “Sugar Run” race and a Sugartown street festival. They’ve also got a local C&H baseball team. 

So yeah, the refinery was a HUGE deal in the forming of the way Crockett still is today. It would not exist in the capacity it does, if not for the role C&H played. 

Crockett's population has gone up a bit in the past couple years, it went from 3,405 in 2022 to 3,574 people today. About 56 percent of people in Crockett currently own their homes. The average property values is 706,300$. Almost every resident drive to work with a minimum average commute time of 40 minutes, which means folks go out and work in surrounding towns. 

As of June 2024, there were 9 homes listed for sale in Crockett. Houses are currently turning over in an average of 48 days. Since last year, it has continued to be a seller’s market. 

Crockett is super safe, with a very very low crime rate. People really care about the community, and lots of residents remain, whose families had worked at the refinery. They simply have a lot of history with the town, and a lot of skin in the game when it comes to preserving what it was and keeping it special moving forward. 

Downtown Crockett is hosting an Octoberfest this year if you want to go check it out! October 13th. There is a big artists community in Crockett, so the bars and restaurants regularly host art shows, poetry slams and jazz music. The weekends always have stuff going on, good food and local color. If it’s a place you’re curious about, pop online and look up the schedule at Toots tavern. This upcoming week they’ve got a Sabbath cover band, and you can always catch the regularly occurring Guerrilla Karaoke.