Remember ‘Pete’s Dragon’? Disney built a lighthouse at this SLO County spot during filming

On a foggy morning in July 1976 during the month of our country’s bicentennial, Joe Bradbury, who taught auto mechanics at Arroyo Grande High School, received a phone call from Ryder Truck Rental.

The company asked him to repair one of their box vans at the Madonna shopping center in San Luis Obispo that would not start.

The Walt Disney Co. was renting the truck to haul camera equipment for a movie called “Pete’s Dragon” being filmed on a headland south of Point Buchon near Montana De Oro State Park.

When Joe climbed into the cab on the troublesome vehicle later that day, it started right up.

The next morning, he received another phone call from Ryder Truck Rental, telling him the box truck once again would not run. This time, it was located on the Fields Ranch at a newly constructed lighthouse on an outcropping of land that would be eventually named Disney Point near the PG&E Point Buchon Trail.

This time, Joe took his wife, Jeanne, who was more than nine months pregnant with their son Loren, along with their 2-year-old son Glen.

When the Bradbury family arrived at Disney Point, the truck started immediately. Upon investigation, Joe discovered a carbon track on the distributor cap on the truck’s engine.

The mist and fog that is so common during July mornings provided enough moisture to allow the carbon track to conduct electricity, which shorted out the truck’s ignition system.

Later in the day, when the relative humidity dropped, it started. He kept that distributor cap for decades afterward as a training tool for his auto shop classes.

Joe told me he remembers the helicopter flying in orbits around the lighthouse with a camera operator in its door. Perhaps that was when “Pete’s Dragon” stars Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, and Sean Marshall were filming “Razzle Dazzle Day,” one of the songs in the movie that features the lighthouse.

Joe reminisced about his family eating peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches that they brought from home, while the film crew ate box lunches from San Luis Obispo’s Madonna Inn in pink boxes.

Joe went on to teach at Arroyo Grande High School for 30 years before his retirement. He also served on the board of directors on the Point San Luis Lighthouse Keepers.

Another local resident, Suzy Wills, also remembers the filming of “Pete’s Dragon.”

You see, it was filmed in her backyard. She and her husband lived in the Gate House as caretakers with their young family at the entrance of the Fields Ranch near Coon Creek, about a mile away from Disney Point.

Suzy told me that her home became “communications central” for the “Pete’s Dragon” production crew.

because she had a phone landline. Cell phones were not in use back in 1976..

During the filming of the movie, Ralph Wright, a Disney animator who was also the dreary voice of Eeyore from “Winnie the Pooh,” became friends with Suzy’s family and painted a Disney-inspired mural that still exists in the Gate House.

Like Joe, Suzy remembers the Madonna Inn box lunches. The film crew would often drop off spare lunches at their home.

“It took two weeks to build the lighthouse, two weeks to film and two weeks to take it down,” Suzy told me.

The structure was built to be as authentic as possible — from its first-order Fresnel lens to its landscaping,featuring plants imported from Maine to help the California coastline resemble the fictitious East Coast town of Passamaquoddy.

Disney had to get special permission from the Coast Guard to operate the lighthouse since its operation would have confused passing ships with the other nearby light stations.

Here is why: Each lighthouse along the Central Coast had its own light characteristics, providing a secure navigational tool.

If you were to travel southward from Big Sur to Point Conception, you would probably first notice the Piedras Blancas Light Station, which flashed white every 15 seconds.

As you continue southward, you would see the Point San Luis Lighthouse, which flashed every 20 seconds. Today at that lighthouse, a bright LED (light-emitting diode) beacon has replaced the fourth-order Fresnel lens that flashes one second on and four seconds off every night, and is visible up to 17 miles away.

Heading further southward on your journey, you would observe the Point Conception light, which flashed every 30 seconds.

Disney released “Pete’s Dragon” in 1977, garnering Academy Award nominations for best original song and best original score. The movie cost an estimated $8 million to make, at least $2 million more than Disney’s 1964 hit “Mary Poppins.”

Today, it is difficult to find or see any artifacts left from the Disney lighthouse.

In 1986, PG&E purchased the ranch from the Fields family as part of the lands surrounding the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, and created an innovative land steward program.

This program, which includes the Point Buchon and Pecho Coast trails, received the Wildlife Habitat Council’s Corporate Lands for Learning accreditation. The certification recognizes individual companies and organizations for commendable wildlife habitat management and environmental education programs.

Retired PG&E biologist Sally Krenn told me that “The Point Buchon headland is one of the more prominent points along our Central Coast. When one stands along this spectacular headland, one can sense an aura of spirituality as the Chumash considered this one of their sacred sites.”

Unfortunately, these trails are closed until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic. PG&E monitors news about the coronavirus pandemic closely and will re-open the trails when it is safe to do so.