The SF Chronicle is out with a generous “”Martinez isn’t all that bad”  article by hard-hitting culture critic Peter Hartlaub He praises States coffee and Luigi’s sandwiches and even has an update on the famous beavers which according to him a are now living in a tank under the mayors desk.

Or something.

This historic town – with beer, beavers and a shipwreck – is the Bay Area’s secret getaway

Driving by Martinez for the last 40 years, my instinct has been to roll up the windows and increase my speed. The city has mostly been defined to outsiders by the imposing wall of refinery equipment visible along Interstate 680.

But that’s the East Bay city’s secret weapon: the element of surprise.

With a historic downtown best accessed by train, Martinez is a thriving throwback filled with all the things you need for a perfect five-hour day trip: antiquing, breweries, coffee shops, real and mythical history, a shipwreck, beavers and two of my Top 10 Bay Area sandwich shops.

Such gallant praise! You actually stopped driving by with your windows rolled up? How you do go on! We’re blushing. Stop it.

With apologies to Sunol and Crockett, this is my new No. 1 Bay Area city if I ever have to go into witness relocation. It’s the perfect setting for one of those romantic comedies where an in-need-of-humbling city slicker breaks down in a small town.

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  • Total SF: This Bay Area planned community was scorned. Turns out it’s pretty great.

“It’s not pretentious. It’s very working class, but a mix of all kinds of people,” says Rachel Lowenthal from behind the desk at Faded Gold Vintage, a clothing store filled with concert T-shirts from every band I loved in the 1980s and 1990s. Her dog Slash sits in a pen behind the cash register.

“I’ve always liked the small-town vibe, but also going in a more progressive direction.”

Yeah yeah yeah. Salt of the earth and plenty of it. An entire salt shaker of the earth. That’s what we got in Martinez.

The first thing you need to know about Martinez is that it was always pretty cool.

The town along the Carquinez Strait hosted the Bay Area’s first ferry service in the mid-1800s, was the birthplace of Joe DiMaggio, home of naturalist John Muir and kinda-maybe hosted the bar that made the first martini. (It’s still under debate, more on that later.)

He muses about the forester and wanders about the shops and the breweries, then this:

Two miles away is revered conservationist John Muir’s former home, now the John Muir Historic Site. Muir lived and was buried in Martinez; I’m glad to discover his 1914 death was covered by the Chronicle with a poet’s flourish. (“So on a perfect day, with just a fleecy-clouded trace of overnight tears, the mother earth took her favored son into her arms for his everlasting sleep,” his obituary read.)

I’d intended to make his home, which now documents his love of nature and preservation efforts in Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park, the centerpiece destination for my day trip. But the federal park is closed due to the government shutdown.

This just in: National historic sites are run by the federal government. Who knew?

Modern Martinez residents seem to have moved on to beavers anyway. The story: Two beavers arrived in 2006, had a family and did millions of dollars in damage to the city’s downtown creek flood control spillway. City leaders decided to catch and euthanize the native animals, but the citizens revolted.

“It’s hard to believe that the hometown of John Muir can’t come up with a better way than killing the beavers,” Martinez City Councilman Mark Ross said in 2007.

Eighteen years later, the beavers remain in a reengineered spillway and are an unofficial town mascot; look for an Illuminaries mural at Ferry and Green streets.

The mind reels. The jaw drops. Alhambra Creek Spillway? And the beavers are still there to this day? Oh my gosh, why wasn’t I informed? I haven’t seen them since 2017. If I had known  the culture critic knew all about them I would have just asked.

Millions of dollars for the reengineered spillway. Those beavers are so dam selfish. Never you mind about the double sheetpile wall boondoogle that didn’t cost taxpayers a penny. But I do wonder who told him about the magical holding tank where the beavers are still living 20 years after their arrival. Apparently our beavers don’t age age either. Because that’s about twice the life span that we’d expect. Even if he didn’t have time to review the papers own articles or email me you’d have think he might have used the google?

Clearly Mr, Hartlaub is from the prestigious JUST SAY ANYTHING school of journalism. He’s clearly not afraid to run so others can walk. Maybe in addition to a magical spillway Martinez has built the castor fountain of youth?