Mountain men in Santa Cruz

Several companions of Isaac Graham, from his days as a fur trapper, also ended up in Santa Cruz. Joseph L. Majors seems to have been the first. By marrying the daughter of a Castro, Majors was able to obtain Mexican citizenship. That allowed him to own land including Rancho Zayante, which he then rented to various Americans, including Job Dye, Isaac Graham and Henry Naile.

Also, discovered a biography called The Trials of Isaac Graham, which is available at the UCSC library.

More Isaac Graham

Following a link from the Wikipedia article on Isaac Graham, I found a biographical article written by Michael Kinsella. The article has a lot of information, but no bibliography or source notes. My quest would be greatly aided if Mr. Kinsella, who used to live in Santa Cruz but is now in Seattle, is willing to share some of that info. He has a MySpace page, where I was able to send a message - no response so far. I'll attend the next RA meeting and ask if anyone knows him.

Majors, Graham and Wikipedia

It's been awhile since my last post, so I ask myself, "What have you been doing?" In the course of my research on the bituminous rock industry of late 19th century Santa Cruz County, I encountered the Majors family, owners of one of the north coast properties containing substantial bituminous rock deposits. It turns out that Joseph L. Majors, the first of his family to come to this area, was a compatriot of Isaac Graham - namesake of Graham Hill Road. While the record is scanty regarding Majors, Graham had quite a life before he got here. Learning more about Graham led me to study the brief history of 'Alta California', after Mexican independence from Spain and before the Mexican-American War of 1846-8. I've been reading Bancroft's History of the Pacific States, which can be read online or downloaded.

Another historical distraction has been Wikipedia. Creating and editing WP articles is interesting and educational. Considering that WP articles come up near the top of most web searches, it's scary how much wrong information there is. An army of diligent editors aim to improve that situation. Some of the articles I've worked on relate to Santa Cruz history, including the above-mentioned Isaac Graham, which needs expansion from its present puny state.

John Chase

I was saddened yesterday to read of the passing of John Leighton Chase, author of The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture. Given my interest in architecture, it is probably natural that Sidewalk Companion is my favorite and most-often-consulted reference book, and was the first local history book I ever bought.

I never met John Chase, since he moved to southern California about the time I moved from there to Santa Cruz. One surprising thing I learned from the Santa Cruz Sentinel's article about Chase was that he was a twenty-two year old UCSC senior when he wrote Sidewalk Companion. The meticulous research and approachable writing style seem like the products of a much more mature and experienced writer. Thank you, John Chase, for giving us Santa Cruz history geeks such a treasure.

William Kerr House update

See the William Kerr House blog for new info

Bituminous rock

After months of distractions, I'm trying to get back onto some local history projects. Thanks in part to a post at the Researchers Anonymous bb (by RA member Rick Hyman), I finally bit the bullet and joined Ancestry.com. In addition to its intended use for genealogy research, the site contains many helpful resources for local history researchers. I'm using it to gather info about the early County residents involved in bituminous rock mining, production, transportation and construction. The mining took place mostly on the lands of a handful of North coast property owners. Some were originally dairy farmers like the Enright and Majors families. Others seem to have been mainly miners, like A. Walrath and I. L. Thurber. Davis and Cowell also got involved; the northwest corner of their holdings contained some bituminous rock.

Book Review: Decline of the Californios

'A social history of the Spanish-speaking Californians, 1846-1890'; By Leonard Pitt (1966), available at SCPL.

The names are familiar from California street signs: Castro, Vallejo, Berryessa, Bernal. Or, if you grew up in southern California as I did: Pico, Sepulveda, Dominguez, Olvera. These are the names of some of the families who, through huge land grants awarded by the Mexican government, owned much of California in 1846. Pitt's very readable book tracks the declining fortunes of these "Californio" families from the Mexican War into the gold rush, statehood and on through the development boom of the 1880s. There are no direct references to any persons or events in Santa Cruz County, but the larger background of California events during this time period helps to provide context for a better understanding of Santa Cruz history.

More early concrete sidewalks

The neighborhoods east of Ocean St. have some concrete sidewalks that, while not as old as the Washington St. area, are still pre-WWI. On Berkeley Way, I found a driveway with a contractor stamp dated 10-11-09. There are street name curb stampings at the corner of Berkeley and Branciforte Dr. More street name stampings found at Leonard St. and Dakota Ave. (a "tee" corner where curb ramps have not replaced the original corner curbs) .

Update: The Sidewalks of Washington Street

I found a few more examples of street name curb stampings; at the corner of Sycamore and Cedar streets (there's also a contractor stamp at that corner dated 1910), and at one corner of Cedar and Elm. Draft 2 of 'Sidewalks' contains the new info.

Lime Works tour

The flu and Wikipedia have kept me away from Santa Cruz history for most of the past month. Sadly, I missed the RA meeting on April 10. I did, however, make it up to UCSC on Sunday for a tour of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, ably led by Frank Perry (there's a link to the non-profit Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District in the sidebar to the left).

There's a tie-in between the tour and my interest in the bituminous rock mining industry. In addition to the lime operations, the Cowell ranch also contained a small bituminous rock mining quarry. One of the few surviving local examples of bituminous rock paving is at the Cooperage building in the Lime Works complex (thanks to Frank for pointing it out).

Update 2: Have you seen this house?

This house has become interesting enough to warrant its own blog. You can find it here: http://williamkerrhouse.blogspot.com/

Researchers Anonymous meeting 3/13

Attended the RA meeting last Sat. The round-table format, where each attendee has the opportunity to talk about his/her latest work, is always fascinating. Interest in local history is alive and well, and I look forward to the next meeting on April 10.

Some of the most productive time at RA is before and after the meeting, when members can talk one-on-one. A conversation with Frank and Jill Perry yielded several leads for my research on the bituminous rock industry. Now I just have to get out there and follow up.

Update: Have you seen this house?

This morning, I was re-reading the wonderful article Full Life, Empty Pockets, by Harriette Jessup Proctor, which appears in Issue Number Two of the Santa Cruz County History Journal. The following line caught my eye: "...Alexander's, an excellent Italian restaurant, in Billings' big Victorian near the highway." Bingo!

So it turns out the caption accompanying the photo in the SCPL collection is correct (sort-of). I'll attempt to track down the exact location and the identity of the original owner, but I'm guessing the Billings house stood where the Pasatiempo Inn is today. Of course, the area (part of Rancho la Carbonera) wasn't called Pasatiempo when the house was built, sometime before 1900. Marion Hollins invented that name in the 1920s. That was my mistake - when I read the photo caption, I assumed (and we all know what "assume" is an acronym for) that the house was claimed to be part of Hollins' Pasatiempo development.

Santa Cruz History Links - part 2

First, I have to apologize to everyone at Researchers Anonymous for leaving the MAH link off my first list. Second, I added a few other links that, while not pertaining strictly to Santa Cruz, are important sources of historical materials and people may not have heard of them yet. These include:
* Linkpendium - Genealogy and Family History
* Internet Archive
* Online Archive of California

Other sites I have used, but which I didn't add to the list because of their more general nature, and because they are already well known, include:
* Google Books
* the libraries at UC Berkeley, Stanford and San Jose State
* San Francisco Public Library
* Library of Congress

These are great times for lazy researchers like me. More and more historical material is being made available online. Let me know if you find any other especially good sites.

Santa Cruz Wiki: Historic Opportunity

Wikis are a great way for people to collaborate online and share their interests. Everyone knows about Wikipedia, where you can find (and contribute) information about almost anything. Santa Cruz Wiki (follow the link in the sidebar) wants to do the same for our local area; but it needs our help.

One of the major sections in Santa Cruz Wiki is Santa Cruz History. If you go there, you'll find a lot of empty headings. It's time for local history buffs to get involved and add some content under those headings. Santa Cruz Wiki could be a great new online meeting place for the local history community.

Santa Cruz History Links added

I pulled all of these from my browser bookmarks, and from the Researchers Anonymous memberlist. Let me know if you have others - thanks.

Have you seen this house?

I first saw this photo mis-identified as the Hihn Mansion in Surf, Sand & Streetcars by Charles McCaleb. I found it again in the SCPL Local History Photograph Collection (0151), identified as the R. Billings House in Pasatiempo. I'm pretty sure there have never been any Queen Anne's in Pasatiempo, but so far I haven't found any other evidence. Any ideas?

Something Completely Different

I took a break from Santa Cruz history to work on a Wikipedia article about the historical novel Stone's Fall, by Iain Pears. If you're interested, you can find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone%27s_Fall

The Sidewalks of Washington Street

Draft 1 of this short article can be viewed at: http://thesidewalksofwashingtonstreet.blogspot.com/
Please help me improve it by adding your comments and suggestions. Thanks!

Bituminous Rock Mining in Santa Cruz County

Local history research is like police detective work. One clue presents a mystery, leading to more clues, eventually uncovering a complete story. But that story becomes, in turn, the first clue to a new mystery. The research that went into The Sidewalks of Washington Street led me to many new and interesting discoveries about Santa Cruz. It turned out that those concrete sidewalks represent some of the first concrete ever used in Santa Cruz. Concrete is so common today that it's boring, and has become almost synonymous with de-humanizing urban ugliness. In 1908, however, concrete was new and exciting and revolutionary.

Working backward in time from 1908, I found a whole industry that was once important in this area, but has now almost completely vanished. Unlike the lime industry, which has left behind the wonderfully mysterious lime kiln ruins, bituminous rock mining left very little physical evidence. A cryptic reference on a map, a few granite curbstones exposed, a handful of old photographs, some newspaper articles and geological reports; these show the outlines of a new mystery. The story waits to be uncovered.

Welcome, Santa Cruz history buffs!

This blog is a place for me to share my interest in the history of Santa Cruz, California. I welcome comments, suggestions, items for posting, interesting links, events, and anything else you want to send me. I'll be posting first drafts of my own writing for review and commentary. Let's get started!