King City, CA

King City is where the Salinas Valley ends its run of farm towns on U.S. 101, one town past Greenfield and about an hour's drive south of Salinas. The Salinas River runs along its edge, with the Santa Lucia Range to the west and the Gabilan Range across the valley to the east. The town grew from land Charles King bought in the 1880s out of the old Rancho San Lorenzo, and it took off once the Southern Pacific railroad reached the settlement in 1886. Farming has stayed the base of the economy since, and the fields still start where the last street ends. Two landmarks stand out. The Robert Stanton Theater, on North Mildred Avenue, began as a New Deal auditorium for the high school and still hosts performances. San Lorenzo Park, the county park beside the river, holds the county's Agricultural and Rural Life Museum, where a schoolhouse, the old train depot and a blacksmith shop have been gathered. For a night out, The Rustic Barrell Taphouse & BBQ and Castro's Surf and Turf both appear on the current Yelp list of the town's best restaurants. Pinnacles National Park is the big regional draw. No road connects the park's east and west sides, and the shortest drive between them runs through here on Highway 101, which makes the town a natural pause for hikers. A multimodal transportation center is planned for later in the decade, and Pine Canyon, a rural community just south, shares the valley setting. Larger cities are far away. Salinas is about an hour north and Paso Robles is the next sizable city south, with farmland filling most of what lies between. King City works as the valley's southern service stop, the place ranchers and farm crews come to for supplies, and it still does its business on its own main street. The Dutton Hotel ruins add one more fragment of local history to a city otherwise focused on everyday valley life.