Name: Paulo Garcia
From: San Francisco, Calif.
To: Stansbury Park
When people pack up their things and move to a different home across the country it may take days and weeks to organize a plan and carry out the moving, but for Paulo Garcia and his son, Trace, packing up takes three hours.
"Some people probably think we're convicts or illegals or something like that," laughed Garcia. "We've never really stayed long in one place, and we move around pretty easily."
Garcia was born and raised as a carpenter in Chihuahua, Mexico, and gained his citizenship in the United States as a young adult hoping to make a living with his own business in California. As the years went by he fell in love and was married, but his wife passed away three years later. Trace has been his constant companion ever since.
"Trace and I have traveled up and down the West Coast for over 13 years now," Garcia said. "We'd hit county and state fairs and any carnivals that we could see our work at. Sometimes we'd stay in a city for a couple of years and set up a shop, but when business started to slow we'd pull out and find somewhere else. My work trailer has a living quarters built in so if we need to we can live in there. It's kind of been hard on Trace as he's been pulled from school to school, but he's a friendly kid, and he likes to travel. I wouldn't pull him around unless he was absolutely okay with it."
Garcia moved to Stansbury last December from San Francisco. After settling into his home, he turned his garage into a woodworking shop and has built over 120 pieces of furniture. Garcia sells his pieces to stores in Salt Lake City and also plans to set up a tent at this year's county fair.
"I'm always looking for a new place to sell my stuff," said Garcia. "We were traveling up I-80 coming from San Francisco and just decided to pull off at the Grantsville exit and found our way into Stansbury. I turned to Trace and said 'Heck this looks like a good place to start.' We found a home and business is good so I think we'll be staying for a while -- possibly permanently."
Garcia doesn't complain about his new hometown.
"I like this new terrain. There's something different about Tooele County. I feel like we fit in and people are happy to have us here," he said. "I do miss the ocean sunsets and sea breeze, but the Great Salt Lake has an awesome sunset every so often."
compiled by Natalie Tripp
If you're a newcomer or know of a newcomer who'd like to share the story of why they moved to Tooele County, please contact Sarah Miley at (435) 882-0050 or via e-mail at swest@tooeletranscript.com.