�Una Negra, California, now a boomtown, population 485,400 approx, that sits rather unnoticed on the sparsely used Central Coast. Even with it�s incredible and relatively sudden growth, Una Negra, is still a quiet and somewhat unknown city. A product of the Digital Revolution, the city, rebuilt after disaster and neglect left it nearly uninhabitable, is a shining user-friendly ecological-minded community now. More and more people are pouring into the city, as technological industry blossoms. Arts and tourism have come to town recently, adding yet more to the city. The residential, and now some of the industrial, sectors of the declined and decrepit old Una Negra town are being restored and rebuilt, returning genteel age to the forming metropolis. For further information call Karen Wigman at (605) 555-3247���
Una Negra is a shining new city on the Central Coast, but there is much much more to this town than THEY would lead you to believe. Even the openly known history of Una Negra exposes the strange and dangerous duality here��
Una Negra, was a unknown native gathering place that became home to Mission Una Negra under the auspices of the Spanish Dominicans who were the backbone of Spanish Imperialism. The original town, and most of the Mission was lost in 1840 to an unknown plague, which nearly wiped out the original native tribe that lived there.
The following decades are lost as a period, with fragmented records and conflicting folklore, due to the wildness of the colony after loss of Spanish control. With the rise of now Mexican control, the town focused on agriculture in the adjoining area and growing wealth from a surprisingly abundant crops from the sea. The town settled into a slow growth until it stagnated around the turn of the century.
By the 1920s, Una Negra was a hospitable small community that valued it�s privacy as it was still far off the expanding American road system. It�s seclusion now assured by the Los Padres National Forest and the ruralness of the surrounding area. The only renown Una Negra really had was it�s very fine horse breeding and still high quality seafood. Some new families settled in ranches in the hills, as they reaped in great wealth from the rampant land speculation. As seen, Una Negra was a nice but dull place to live. The Great Depression changed all that.
The owners of many of the few industries in town were quickly wiped out by the economic fall. Farmers now homeless poured into the city overtaxing the already suffering economy. The only profitable industry left, Fishing, was struck suddenly by the diminishing harvests from the oceans. Many citizens of the town found themselves deeper in poverty as the canneries closed like dominoes falling. Una Negra slid quickly into great decline, and then came an even greater blow to the once fine city.
In the summer of 1932, Una Negra was struck by the land under the city ripping apart from the force of a shallow 7.6 earthquake. Sections of town were literally swallowed by the small but deep rift that opened that day. One great loss was the original Mission. Uncontrolled fire did in the town�s hall of records and strong aftershocks destroyed the only bridges and train lines in the town. The quake created a great enough chasm along it�s path that the river the city is named was redirected into the fissure as it joined the ocean. For the next several years, Una Negra was a virtual rubble-filled ghost town.
A minor rebirth for the city occurred in 1935 as one man of new industry, affluence founded in oil, came to Una Negra to reside. He poured much of his own money into restoring some of the city. Still most of the city was uninhabitable, still in ruins. But as the oil baron brought not just his own industry, but also found outside investments. In 1941, the city was on the cusp of returning to it�s former stability as he convinced the Navy to open a small facility just outside of town. Una Negra grew as the facility served as a way station in the turbulent years of World War 2. Even with the great influence of the oil baron, this prosperity did not last when for undisclosed reasons, the navy base closed in 1947.
After the base closure, Una Negra slipped into poverty and degradation even further. The oil baron withdrew into a total seclusion, most old residents have stories of witnessing his apparent insanity. The loss of his funds signed the apparent death warrant for the city. It�s prized location privacy ensured its slip into continued obscurity. By the late 50�s, the city was barely sustained by faltering light industry and the tiny amount of fishing left. Then other darker businesses moved in.
With the city�s privacy creating only obscurity, the forgotten Una Negra became a valued depot on the network of illegal drugs, stolen goods. And contraband of all forms passing up the West Coast. The suffering residents lived in fear and helplessness as the criminal element kept the city tightly in their control. The limited police force was bribed and intimidated into not only turning a blind eye, but even becoming partners in the rich flow of illicit goods. Those few elder residents who stayed on in Una Negra hold to their belief that the Sheriff himself was the overlord of all the illegalities flying in the city. Still with sections of town in rubble from the earthquake now several decades back, the city fell deeper into shadowy decrepitude.
Una Negra�s twilight through the 60�s and 70�s fell down hard enough that even the criminals decided to mostly their enterprises to the North and South of the state. By now, there was barely anything worth saving, and the few remaining residents scratched by on what pitiful industry was left. By the early 80�s the city looked more like Beirut than a Central Californian city. Una Negra was a ghost town riddled with fear and despair.
Personal computers. The rebirth of Una Negra was in the intense computer revolution of the 80�s. Five local high school graduates, unceasingly good friends, came back to their home city to open a small computer game company from a tiny storefront building. FGHU Games Inc. started to produce the most challenging graphic-intensive thinking games, selling original programs faster than they could produces them. The small storefront operation moved to a large office building, and then to a giant complex on Una Negra�s East Hill. The five local boys, with the quiet backing of their now late mentor and former employer, poured much of the monumental profits from their diversifying company into the city. They attracted other small independent technology companies to Una Negra, and the city went from bust to boom, even after the great PC crash of the late eighties.
Una Negra�s growth showed a city returning with a vengeance. Within the span of a decade or so, the city became a quiet center for independent high-tech industries of all kinds, centered in the complexes on East Hill and the new Downtown built on the edge of Thompson Reservoir. The city�s reconstruction focused on both cutting edge technology and the new growing ecological concerns, not including the influx of Arts, brought in with the help of the private patron and owner of the Green City District art colony. One of the five original FGHU founders funded the opening of one of the finest private city colleges in the whole nation, with it�s focus of Art, Environmental Sciences, and of course, Computer Sciences.
By the mid 1990�s, Una Negra is still growing and outside eyes are beginning to take notice of the once private town, but the city is now nearly two cities. New Una Negra keeps growing, but still most of the old town lies as dangerous dark areas of ruins and poverty. Not everyone has yet to benefit from the sudden growth. Time has yet to heal all of the city�s ills. The new �clean� city government wants all to believe that new city is cleansed and shining, but shadows of natural and unnatural disasters still have a hold from the older Una Negra. Just as the Chasm left from the 1932 earthquake reminds everyone of the rift that nearly killed the city back then, it now reminds the current residents of the dark tear in the city.