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Population: 32,000 Located in Santa Cruz County
Watsonville, in the heart of the Pajaro Valley, calls itself the "Strawberry Capital of the World" and "Apple City of the West." It's easy to believe the latter in the spring when miles of orchards, some planted over 100 years ago, burst into blossoms. More than eighty factories pack and process $100 million worth of produce.
To outward appearances, Watsonville is a sleepy community. Most afternoons the city's central business district appears all but deserted. Old men sit on shaded benches in the city Plaza - donated to the town by Don Sebastian Rodriguez, who held the Rancho Bolsa Del Pajaro Spanish land grant in 1860. The midday somnolence of Main Street and the Plaza is no more than the deceptive quiet of a town, whose residents are hard at work elsewhere - in produce sheds, outlying fields and surrounding high-tech plants. Home to approximately 32,000 people, Watsonville is a chugging economic dynamo.
Besides fruit, vegetables, and nursery crops, Watsonville has produced dozens of proud old structures dating from the mid-nineteenth century; many have been restored to their former glory. The central downtown business district is currently continuing to rebuild from the devastation of the 1989 earthquake, but many of the classic structures still exist as a reminder of Watsonville's past glory. Preservation, restoration, and revitalization of the city's center is a matter of continuing interest to Watsonville officials, who have been carefully considering a downtown redevelopment plan since 1972.
The big annual event in Watsonville is the Antique Fly-In. Every year during Memorial Day weekend, thousands flock to the Watsonville airport to see the antique and experimental airplanes and to watch demonstrations and stunt flying.
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