Aerial view of Drawbridge, California. Credit video / drone footage by Jane Tyska for The Mercury News / East Bay Times
From birth, Drawbridge was an unlikely community on an impossible site, just feet above sea level. A century ago, the island town held 90 homes, hotels and cabins, with hunting so bountiful that dead ducks served as currency at its gambling tables. Now — in a rare act of reverse colonization — civilization is ceding to the elements in this windswept marsh. “It’s drowning… a memorial to past human aspirations and a memorial to failure,” said Glen MacDonald, a UCLA professor of geography.