Long before Heart Hill became a landmark on Paso Robles’ Highway 46, it was simply part of a ranch tended by two brothers. Claude and Dick Booker, orphans adopted into the Booker family, spent their entire lives working the land with a devotion so steady it rarely announced itself. They were farmers, community pillars, and, above all, men whose lives revealed that love is not always loud. In the late 1950s, while hiking with their friend Edgar Wiebe, the Bookers noticed a stand of oak trees that almost resembled a heart. They decided to help nature finish the job. Using binoculars, a bulldozer, and plenty of stubborn enthusiasm, the trio carved away just enough brush to let the remaining oaks form the heart we see today. There was no grand proclamation or symbolic dedication, just two brothers and a friend deciding to shape a heart into their hillside. 

Love, for the Booker brothers and Ed Wiebe, meant showing up for the people around them. They were known to bale hay for an injured neighbor without being asked. In both kindness and mischief, they acted out of the same fierce loyalty to the community and land they cherished. They donated buildings, funded scholarships, strengthened the school system, and did it all without desire for recognition.

Though the bulldozer has long been retired and the men have passed on, Dick in 1990, Claude in 2000, and Ed in 2025, the heart they shaped remains; weathered, enduring, unmistakable. Today, it stands not as a monument to romance, but as a living symbol of a deeper love: the kind rooted in land, in community, in steadfast partnership, in decades of choosing to care. The story will continue to be told by ancestors like Ed's granddaughter, who humbly shared it with me over a casual conversation. Because love is like that: quiet, resilient, and able to take root in the most unlikely places.