Sarah Griesbach 
Hollywood’s all-time happiest and saddest movie tells a story set in fictional Bedford Falls, which was inspired by the small, sweet borough of Califon. Califon’s modern-day residents claim that it is, indeed, a place quite amenable to creating a wonderful life. Visitors can hardly help but add to their pleasure at living when hiking, lunching, shopping, biking, fishing, sipping tea, or licking ice cream along the trail and on the Main Street of this famously cute community. Read on to learn about what can be found in picturesque Califon, New Jersey.
Quaint Califon
Califon is a small borough of just over 1000 people in Hunterdon County. It radiates small-town charm from every angle and in every season. While sitting outside of Califon’s fly fishing shop, South Branch Outfitters, Don Tretsky lays claim to 20 happy years of residency in the borough. He points to the nearby general store, Rambo’s Country Store, as a great place to gather history about the area.
Rambo’s is a special place. Generations gone are represented in the antiquities that line the walls above the delightful array of goods for sale. This is where to go for custom-cut butchered meats, including store-made sausages, along with their traditional chicken pot pies and, perhaps, a bottle of crisp apple cider from nearby Melick’s Town Farm and Orchards. Rambo’s has been in continuous operation since 1888. Today, it’s pretty consistently busy with shoppers, diners, and chatty regulars of all ages.
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Rambo’s isn’t even the only quaint and quirky general store frequented by Califon locals. West on Main from Rambo’s is yet another small but mighty cafe/deli selling traditional fare that combines nostalgia with deliciousness. The Califon General Store is especially beloved for fat drippy sandwiches that hikers, bikers, and hungry day trippers can eat there or take away while continuing the Califon adventure.
A Beautiful Borough
The prettiness of Califon has made it a popular site for professional photographers to use as a backdrop for wedding photos. It was also the location chosen for filming scenes in Diminishing Capacity, featuring Alan Alda and Matthew Broderick. Victorian houses line the lovely Main Street as it wends toward an iconic iron bridge that crosses the Raritan.
This bridge appears quaint and ordinary, but was made legendary by the 1946 classic Christmas movie, It’s A Wonderful Life, which was adapted after Philip Van Doren Stern’s short story set in Califon, titled The Greatest Gift. That humble bridge is the spot where the literary character of George Bailey leapt to escape his woes and where George’s guardian angel, Clarence, showed him the great value of his wonderful life. Fans of the film will be heartened to know that this inspiration for Bedford Falls town abuts a place called Pottersville.
A Beloved Bridge
Legend has it that love for this historic bridge resulted in a short-lived feat of affection performed every school day by the local school children sometime in the 1970s. It is said, but some townsfolk are doubtful about the veracity of this, that engineers found the bridge to be unsafe for the weight of the student-filled school bus that traversed it throughout the school week, and so the Borough Council planned to replace it.
Califon residents couldn’t bear to see the old bridge go. So they came up with an ingenious plan: The story claims that Califon’s heroic students came to the rescue twice every day for the duration of the time it took to reinforce the bridge. The bus would pull up to the bridge, the students would exit the bus and walk its length, then meet the bus at the other end after the driver had driven the — now within weight-bearing capacity — bus across their beloved landmark. Did it happen? Perhaps. Whatever the case, the people of Califon love their old bridge.
Local Legends and Lore
Further foundational storytelling attributes the odd borough name to a resident named Jacob Neighbor, whose enthusiasm around the surge in milling that coincided with the 1848 gold rush out west inspired him to name the New Jersey town California.
At least two competing stories circulate on the subject of how the borough name became its current condensed form. Both tales blame sign painters. One version has the painters stumped when California could not fit on the spot allotted for the borough name on the train station. The other has a sign-painting duo too drunk to complete the name upon the sign with the same fated outcome.
Old Train Tracks, New Hiking Paths
The old train station, built in 1875, stands empty at this moment but is sometimes host to exhibitions installed by the Califon Historical Society. The Central Railroad branch that once ran through the town was abandoned in 1776. Its former route forms the Columbia Trail. This scenic hiking and biking trail extends south from Califon toward High Bridge and northward to Morris County.
The decades of easy train travel in the US must have been grand. In the early 1900s, Califon was a popular day-trip destination for people from all over. City folk took the train into town to see the lovely countryside surrounding it, and their train tickets came with a voucher for ice cream.
Worth a Trip by Horseless Carriage
Califon remains a great destination, even without the train or the ice cream voucher. Lunch at Oscar’s Gourmet Cafe can be followed up by ice cream at either of the general stores or with dessert at Cookie Maven. For so few people, there are actually quite a number of options for eating.
Califon is an ideal spot for revelling in New Jersey’s natural beauty. Along with the opportunity for exploring along the Columbus Trail, Califon Island Park is a great place for picnics and for play. There is easy access to the lovely waters of the South Branch of the Raritan River and to Ken Lockwood Gorge for fishing. The New Jersey Bureau of Freshwater Fisheries stocks the river with rainbow trout and supports a healthy population of wild brown trout, though they have strict catch-and-release restrictions.
And what should you do at night in Califon? Why George and Mary Bailey would most certainly tell you to — dance by the light of the moon!
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