End of an era: the last Hawaiian sugar cane harvest

A story from Hawaii Public Radio, reprinted at KQED Public Media, describes the final days of the cane sugar industry in Hawaii (on Maui). After decades of the TV jingle for C&H Sugar, singing the praises of "pure cane sugar from Hawaii", the iconic crop has fallen victim to global competition. There will be no more Maui sugar cane harvest after 2016 - Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar (HC&S) will move on to other crops. The fate of the shipping destination for that sugar - the equally iconic C&H plant in Crockett, California, is equally uncertain.

What does all this have to do with Santa Cruz County? Glad you asked - HC&S was founded in the 1890s by a partnership including "Sugar King" Claus Spreckels, the same Spreckels who once owned over 2,000 acres of today's Aptos. That purchase was made in 1874, when Spreckels was working to develop California-grown sugar beets as a competitor to tropics-loving cane. He knew that Hawaiian growers faced a big disadvantage in the cost of shipping their products to the mainland. That is still true today, and is one of the main reasons, along with lower-cost labor in other countries, that Hawaiian sugar is no longer cost-competitive.

Spreckels was, in one respect, the Donald Trump of his era - he liked to put his name on things. In Hawaii, he established Spreckelsville as headquarters for his operations. Here in California, he built the company town of Spreckels just east of Salinas, in Monterey County. Company operations moved there in 1899, closing the older plant in Watsonville. The sugar king and his resort hotel development are remembered in the Aptos area in a number of street and place names: Spreckels Drive, Claus Court, Polo Drive, and Deer Park.

There is irony in the fact that C&H Sugar began as a reaction by Hawaiian sugar plantation owners against mainland investors like Spreckels who tried to dominate the industry. Now, at the end of the Hawaiian sugar era, the old rivals decline together.

Book Review: A Description of Distant Roads (2001)

A Description of Distant Roads: Original Journals of the First Expedition into California, 1769-1770, by Juan Crespí. Edited and Translated by Alan K. Brown. San Diego State University Press, 2001.

One of the frustrating things about studying early California history is the scarcity of published editions of original Spanish-language writings. Even harder to find is the original Spanish set side-by-side with English translation. Alan K. Brown's massive edition of the missionary chaplain's diary from the Portolá expedition is therefore doubly rare and valuable (and a bargain at $60). And I do mean massive - it's not a book you can tuck into your beach bag, or even comfortably hold in your two hands for very long. For study, a reading stand is highly recommended.

The layout is in four columns, across facing pages. On the left page is Crespí's journal text, in Spanish. Because there exist different revisions of the original field notes, the text is presented sometimes in one column, other times as two (where there are significant differences between versions). The right hand page contains Brown's translations. Brown inserted white space where necessary to keep the text aligned horizontally across the facing pages. This layout makes it relatively easy to compare the Spanish and English - a functionality not available in translation-only editions. A good thing, too, in my view - some of Brown's translations seem far from literal.

This book is an invaluable resource, and of course the first date I turned to was October 17, 1769. On that day, the expedition forded the river Crespí named after San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence). "Quinientos pasos" (five hundred paces) beyond the river, the party came to a smaller stream, which received the name "el arroyo de la Santisima Cruz" [sic] (the stream of the Most Holy Cross). The rest, as they say, is history. At some later time, the superlative was dropped and the name was transferred to the mission founded nearby in 1791.

I hope that Crespí appreciated the great privilege of being the one to give new official Spanish names to dozens of places in California never before seen by Europeans. Not all of them stuck, however. In our county, the only surviving Crespí names are San Lorenzo and Santa Cruz.

Book Review: Quite Contrary (2014), part 2

Harry Love in 1865

In part one of the eventful life of Mary Bennett Love, she was just Mary Bennett. Part two concerns her second marriage - to the legendary bounty hunter Harry Love. Everyone in northern California knew of Harry Love, first and only Captain of the California Rangers, who claimed (disputed) to have killed the notorious bandito Joaquin Murrieta.

By 1854, at the age of 44, Love's career in law enforcement was over, and he began to look for other opportunities. It's unclear where and how he met the 50-year-old widow Bennett (Vardamon died in 1849), or whether they ever married, but by 1857 they were entering into contracts as husband and wife.

By that time, the couple had moved from Mary's house in Santa Clara to the sawmill property in the San Lorenzo Valley. What had been known as the "Bennett mill" became the "Love mill". We have no record of any further contacts with Isaac Graham (d. 1863), even though they lived only a few miles apart.

Love's efforts at milling and farming suffered a series of misfortunes, beginning with the winter floods of 1861-62, which washed the mill away. Those same floods destroyed the first Santa Cruz Powder Works and flooded downtown Santa Cruz. In later years, several fires destroyed Harry's buildings and crops.

Harry Love's last chance to find a place In Santa Cruz County passed when he unsuccessfully ran for Justice of the Peace in 1867. That same year, he moved back to Santa Clara and confronted Mary. The relationship between Mary and Harry seems to have been stormy at best. Mary moved back to Santa Clara in 1858, and sued for divorce in 1866. Thereafter, she felt threatened enough to hire a man to protect her from Harry. Harry died in 1868 after a shootout at Mary's house, and Mary died the same year of natural causes.

During the 1840s-50s, the population of Santa Cruz County rapidly swelled with new arrivals from the wagon trains and gold fields. Vardamon Bennett and his family came by way of the Oregon and California Trails. Isaac Graham came as a trapper, following southern trails. Harry Love came first by sea, returning later from Texas.

Many of these pioneers were bound to encounter each other before settling here. In Quite Contrary, several other names of future County residents appear. John Daubenbis crossed the plains in the same wagon train as the Bennetts, in 1846. The Adna Hecox family shared a miserable first California winter with the Bennetts at Santa Clara mission, 1846-47.

Note: Vardamon Bennett never lived in Santa Cruz County, although several of his children did. Vardamon and Mary's family should not be confused with the unrelated Eben Bennett, a "limeburner" in Felton in the 1860s.

Book Review: Quite Contrary (2014), part 1

Subtitled The Litigious Life of Mary Bennett Love, this well-researched and well-written biography was an unexpected find at Santa Cruz Public Library. Written by David S. Langum Sr., a law professor at Samford University in Birmingham Alabama, this life of Mary Bennett Love is a fine contribution to Santa Cruz County history - even though most of the story takes place outside of our county.

Born Mary Amanda McSwain in Virginia (1803), into an Irish family of very modest means, Mary met and married Vardamon Bennett in Georgia. The young couple and a growing family kept moving west - to Arkansas; then to Independence Missouri where they joined one of the earliest wagon trains to Oregon in 1842, led by Lansford Hastings. Still restless, the family moved south to California in 1843 - first to Sutter's Fort and eventually to the little port town of Yerba Buena, one of three settlements destined to be part of the future San Francisco.

The Bennetts, while not wildly prosperous, were getting along for a couple of years until, because of some not-well-explained marital difficulties, Mary decided to take the children and move south to the settlement around Mission Santa Clara. There she began a career as an independent entrepreneur, acquiring land first through land grants from the Mexican government, and later through preemptive claims ("squatting") filed with the new U.S. state of California after 1850.

Catherine Bennett Graham, ca. 1865

In 1845, the Mary Bennett story came to what was soon to become Santa Cruz County. Mary's oldest daughter, 21-year-old Catherine, decided it was time to leave the nest. She moved to Monterey, staying briefly with the Thomas Larkin family, before suddenly marrying our own Isaac Graham - a man three years older than Catherine's mother. The two likely met through Catherine's older brother Winston, who was running farming operations for Graham. Graham's previous exploits are described elsewhere but, by this time, he had established himself as a successful ranchero, proprietor of Rancho Zayante, across the San Lorenzo River from modern Felton.

Mary's immediate unhappiness about the match began many years of feuding between the Bennetts and Grahams, but the deed was done. The rough-hewn frontiersman took his new bride back to his Zayante ranch, to commence a brief and stormy marriage. Two children helped to mitigate Mary's hostility for a few years, and Winston Bennett (aided by a couple of brothers) built his own sawmill a few miles up the San Lorenzo River from Zayante, on what later became known as Love Creek, for reasons we'll come to later.

A lot of other history was happening during the early marriage years of Isaac and Catherine Graham. In 1846, the Mexican-American War began, and the Monterey Bay area was one of the first areas occupied by U.S. forces (there hadn't been a Mexican military presence in Santa Cruz since the secularization of the mission in 1835). Still under U.S. military governorship, the Gold Rush of 1848 suddenly brought the world to northern California. The sudden influx of tens of thousands of fortune hunters from all over the world initiated a chaotic period, but the main effect in isolated Santa Cruz was that most able-bodied men headed off to the gold fields for a year or two. Isaac Graham was apparently not one of those, having already made his place in the world.

The Graham marriage was suddenly upended by the arrival of Isaac's son Jesse in 1850. It's unclear whether Catherine knew of Isaac's first family, but she was almost certainly surprised to learn that his first wife was still alive in Tennessee, a fact which made her children illegitimate. Catherine had had enough.

While Isaac and Jesse were away in San Jose on business, Catherine took the children and several thousands dollars' worth of Isaac's gold, possibly aided by her mother and/or brothers. Isaac and Jesse's search for Catherine and the gold led them to the Bennett sawmill. Shortly thereafter, the younger of the mill partners - another Bennett brother named Dennis - was killed in a gunfight with Jesse Graham (not the first Bennett-Graham gunfight). Charged with murder, Jesse disappeared, but Isaac's search continued.

Finally tracking her down a year later in Oregon, Isaac Graham went to get his gold, his children, and his wife - probably in that order. Recovering the remaining $3,000, Isaac took the children and returned to Zayante. Catherine followed, beginning more years of litigation in her attempts to regain custody of her children. By now, you probably understand why this story was of interest to a law professor.

There are many more sordid legal details, but Catherine never returned to Zayante, dissolving her marriage with Graham. Mary Bennett, however, entered another chapter in Santa Cruz County history, which will be chapter 2 of this story.

Book review: A Legal History

A Legal History of Santa Cruz County, was published in 2006 by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH). The multiple authors and contributors are: Bob Bosso, Sara Clarenbach, Austin Comstock, Dwight Herr, Pat Pfremmer, Alyce Prudden, Stan Stevens, and Mark Thomas. A helpful section of the Acknowledgements breaks down authorship by chapter.

The scope of this history is sweeping, beginning with pre-statehood days and continuing right up to 2003. It includes a wealth of information not previously collected, plus never-before-published interviews with many retired judges and attorneys, covering much of the late 20th-century legal happenings in Santa Cruz County.

This book was especially valuable for a member of the current History Publications Committee at the MAH, which is beginning work on issue 9 of the Santa Cruz County History Journal - an issue that will focus on land use history of the past 50 years or so. Most of those land use issues ended up in court, and the legal complexities are described in some detail in this book.

When I got semi-serious about local history in 2009, it was distressing to find differing versions of historical facts in different publications. Getting all local historians on the same factual page was one goal of this blog. With that in mind, there are a number of questionable statements in this book. As is often the case, the inaccuracies occur in the less-well-researched "background" sections, rather than in the core legal history material - especially in the earlier chapters.

In contrast to the History Journals, the MAH History Publications Committee had little or no control over content in A Legal History. For that reason, a disclaimer was inserted on the publisher's page. With that caveat, this book is a valuable addition to the local history library. In the core subject areas, where the authors put most of their expertise and research, A Legal History adds a lot to the published historical record of Santa Cruz County. 

You can see in the book cover image that the copy reviewed here came from Santa Cruz Public Library. Volunteers should perhaps be instructed not to cover up book titles with bar code stickers, but the unpaid helpers make valuable contributions to our library system. SCPL doesn't get enough credit for its efforts to remain a major repository of local history materials, and for supporting the Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz County.

Book Review: Cadillac Desert (1986)

The history of engineered water projects in the American West hasn't altered Santa Cruz County as much as places like Los Angeles or the San Joaquin Valley, but the ideologies and politics described in Cadillac Desert: the American West and Its Disappearing Water are still locally relevant, 30 years after the book's 1986 publication. In a state increasingly worried about water shortages, it's important to understand how we got here, even as our county remains one of the few in California that neither imports nor exports water. As the saying goes, those who fail to learn from history are likely to repeat it.

The enduring popularity of Cadillac Desert owes a lot to the writing skill of its author, environmental journalist Marc Reisner. In a way that dry technocratic reports and academic research papers rarely do, Reisner created that sense of impending crisis that keeps readers turning the pages, like in a suspense thriller novel. Rachel Carson arguably created the template for this kind of "wake-up call" environmental writing in 1962 with Silent Spring. It worked, calling attention to the threats to American birds - especially predators and scavengers - from pesticides like DDT, which has since been banned. The recent renaming of the former College Eight at UCSC recognizes the seminal nature of Carson's work. 

Cadillac Desert tried to do the same thing for water - especially irrigation-farming water, with some success. Every headline today about how the West will soon dry up and blow away owes its impact to Reisner. Even though such outcomes are just as avoidable as eagle extinction, the continued force of "eco-disaster" writing is a good reason to reread Reisner's book 30 years later. It's also good to be reminded how much special interests are still able to direct government (especially federal) water-project spending into sketchy projects that benefit only a handful of wealthy land owners.

Both the strength and the weakness of eco-disaster writing lie in its projection of worst-case scenarios where bad ideas and bad policy are never recognized and changed, leading us off an environmental cliff of our own making. What in fact happens is that someone like Reisner eventually succeeds in telling the story in such a compelling way that a critical mass of desire for change is created. Politics and policy follow the votes, while rising costs, diminishing returns, and environmental damage dampen the enthusiasm for resource-exploitation projects. Unfortunately, a certain amount of not-easily-reversible damage remains, especially salt buildup/intrusion.  

Water politics in California and other western states is shifting away from the big-engineering thinking that built Hoover Dam, toward a recognition of limits and a new definition of water conservation. Cadillac Desert describes how "waste" used to mean letting rivers flow all the way to the ocean, and "conservation" used to mean building dams to stop it. Thanks to this book and others like it, we're learning to appreciate and support "sustainable" water policy that benefits everyone. As we struggle with development pressures, water rationing, salt-water intrusion into aquifers, and an uncertain climate future, we need to pay attention to the lessons in Cadillac Desert.

P.S. For an actual suspense thriller novel set in the grim, dry western future foreseen by Cadillac Desert and climate change fears, read The Water Knife (2015), very well-written by Paolo Bacigalupi.

Bird’s Eye View of Santa Cruz, 1870 [highlights]

Bird’s Eye View of Santa Cruz, 1870 [highlights], A. L. Bancroft & Co. Lith, S. F.

(https://prezi.com/0jzehm8b43q2/birds-eye-view-of-santa-cruz-1870-highlights/) 

Go here for an overview of the "Six Panoramas" project.

These notes accompany a Prezi slide show presentation designed for the 2016 Santa Cruz County History Fair, focused on the most significant features. The “expanded” version includes all structures noted as being built before 1871 in Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture, by John L. Chase (3^rd edition, 2005). The information presented here is from Chase, unless noted otherwise. Text tags shown in the slides are underlined in the text below, in the order of their appearance in the animation.

Slide 1.

This lithograph is an early panoramic pictorial view of Santa Cruz. The original was 30” x 20”. A cropped copy of it hangs in the Archives office at MAH. A larger-than-original-size print hangs in Room 8 at City Hall. When studying this image, it’s important to remember a few things:

1. The airborne viewpoint is imaginary - the artist couldn’t actually see all the features shown from one place. That accounts for many of the inaccuracies.
2. It’s not a photograph. The drawing of most features is simplified, especially those farther away. Some streets, structures and landscape features are drawn incorrectly.
3. The artist manipulated perspective to get a wider field of view. In some spots the result is noticeable in skewed street directions and apparent distance. Some more distant buildings are drawn larger than life (e.g. Holy Cross church).
4. Judging from the inclusion of several structures built in 1870, it seems that this view must have been composed late in the year.  

Slide 2. - Zoom to title.

The “Bird’s Eye View” was a popular type of graphic image in the second half of the 1800s. Many of them have been collected by the Bancroft Library, digitized, and made available online for viewing and/or download.

Slide 3.

The original includes, in its bottom border, a key to 26 items number-tagged on the image. The key is split to left and right of the title. Just above the key is the name of the artist, C. [Charles] B. Gifford. (What is “Delt. S. J.”? Society of Jesus? San Jose?)

Slide 4.

To the right of the title is the second half of the numbered key. Just above the key is the name of the lithographer and publisher. A. L. Bancroft was the brother of historian Hubert Howe Bancroft, and publisher of his historical books.

Slide 5.

Using the number-tags as a starting point, it’s possible to identify a number of historical Santa Cruz features.

1. Coast Road. This is actually Bay Street, originally known as Lime Kiln Road because it was built to haul lime from the Lime Works to the wharf. The 1866 city map has both names. In this view, the shape of the road as it approaches the bay doesn’t show the actual bend that follows the bluff line above the lagoon (see 1857 Coast Survey map in Slide 7).

2. Road to Lighthouse. This is today’s Lighthouse Street. The field of view is not wide enough to show the lighthouse itself (built 1869). The road was new when this view was drawn (not shown on the 1866 map).

3. Davis and Cowell’s Wharf. Henry Cowell bought out Isaac Davis’ original partner A. P. Jordan in 1865.

·        The steeply-sloping upper part of the wharf may be the original “chute” built by Elihu Anthony in 1853, or a rebuilt version of it. Later photos show a less-steeply-sloped upper section.

·        Davis & Jordan added the lower part in 1857.

·        Santa Cruz’ first bridge (also built by Anthony, in 1849). Built with simple piles and spans like a wharf, the low bridge was replaced by a higher truss-type span in 1875, so that the new Santa Cruz Railroad trains could pass beneath.

Slide 6

Detail from the 1866 Foreman-Wright city map (copy in MAH archives). The following features are indicated by arrows, in this order:

• “Bay Street” and “Lime Kiln Road” names both shown
•  “Rountree’s Lane” was the access to the A. L. Rountree lands. Rountree sold Lighthouse Point to the government.
• The future Road to Lighthouse is not shown, as it was not built until 1869.

Slide 7 - back to the lithograph. Moving up Bay Street (with another number 1):

• Rountree’s Lane
• 1869 Bayview School building (SCPL 0546) can be seen at the intersection with Mission Street, where the school’s later incarnation stands today.
• Follow Lime Kiln Road on up to its end at the vaguely-indicated Lime Works – now the main entrance to the UCSC campus.
• The final leftward bend shows today’s Cardiff Place continuing straight (High Street not shown) to the 1864 home of original lime works partner A. P. Jordan. In 1865, the house (now called Cardiff House) passed to Henry Cowell.
• Where Laurel Street goes up the hill, one or more of the smaller buildings may be remnants of the old mission grist mill, first constructed in 1796 (Chase says the mill buildings were all gone by 1866).
• The cluster of buildings with the smokestack is the R. C. Kirby tannery complex, located on Majors Creek – the original Arroyo Santa Cruz and today’s Laurel Street Brook. Kirby moved to this location in 1863. The middle of the smokestack is about where Emily’s bakery stands today. Another view of the Kirby tannery can be found on page f14 of Elliott. Note that Elliott’s 1879 view shows considerable differences in the tannery buildings.

Slide 8

  Farther to the right:

• In 1870, Walnut St ended at Mission, with a short private drive beyond.
• The approximate creekside location of the Joseph L. Majors mill (grist) is perhaps indicated by the disembodied mill wheel (There are photos and drawings of the mill in Marion Pokriot’s biography of Majors).
• On the higher terrace, the one large house may represent the one Majors built.

Slide 9

  Beach Hill and vicinity:

4. Laurel Street Public School. An 1862 Santa Cruz Sentinel article noted that construction of a school was underway. The school is shown at the corner of Laurel and Washington, where the park is now.

5. Pacific Avenue. – called Willow Street before 1866. The evenly-spaced trees shown around the junction with Laurel St could be some of the last remaining willows, originally planted by the padres to delineate and fence the mission’s food-crop fields.

Notice also how the wide bend of the San Lorenzo River, unconstrained by today’s levees, swung over almost to Pacific Avenue near the end of Laurel St.

6. California Powder Company’s wharf. Originally built by David Gharkey in 1857, the wharf was acquired by the Powder Co. in the 1860s. Powder Company buildings cluster around the top of the wharf near today’s intersection of Main and 1^st (back corner of La Bahia). For more wharf info, see the article by Frank Perry, Barry Brown, Rick Hyman, and Stan Stevens (http://limekilnlegacies.com/pdfs/Notes-on-Santa-Cruz-Wharves.pdf).

Note: 2^nd Street – shown running behind the Powder Company warehouses - provided the only road access to Beach Hill in 1870 (from Pacific), and is not shown clearly in this view. Neither Beach Street nor Riverside Avenue existed.

• Powder storage. The small box structure off the side of the wharf was added by the powder company for storage of explosives awaiting shipping (thanks to Frank Perry for that tidbit).

Slide 9 (cont.)

  Also in this area:

• Blackburn residence, built c.1854. The location shown, opposite the end of Washington Street, is too far west. The structure remains today as the Blackburn House hotel, located between today’s Center and Cedar Streets.
• Chinatown. The 1^st Santa Cruz Chinatown was on the west side of Pacific between Lincoln and Elm. The structure with a smokestack may be the cigar factory located in that area.

Slide 10

  All of the early downtown Protestant churches are in this view:

7.   Episcopal Church. 1865 Calvary Episcopal is the oldest Santa Cruz church building still standing.

8.   Congregational Church. Church Street got its name because this 1858 church was built on it, located between Cedar and Center streets.  

9.   Unity Church. (1868) Built on Walnut Street, just off Pacific (See SCPL photo #339).

10.  Baptist Church. On Locust Street, up on the terrace, built in 1867 (later moved to Center St). Note that both Locust and Union streets continued up the hill at this time, and Union appears to have steps on one side.

11.  Methodist Church. Shown is the second iteration of the town’s oldest Protestant church, built in 1863 at the corner of Mission and Green streets.

Also in this area:

• Boston and Jones (formerly Kirby and Jones) tannery, with the tall smokestack, which developed from the original mission tannery. Boston’s widow closed the tannery for good in 1875 and subdivided the land, but the 60’-tall smokestack remained for another ten years. Homes nearby included:
• R. C. Kirby (1850s), still standing at 117 Jordan St. – not shown.
• Rafael Castro-Joseph Boston (1836 adobe with frame 2^nd story added). Formerly located on today’s High Street, it may be the large structure partly visible behind the tannery. Note that High Street is not shown to the west beyond this point.
• Alexander McDonald house (1867), still standing at 330 High St. This may be one of the two structures shown to the left and behind the tannery.
• John B. Perry (1850s), still standing at 114 Escalona Dr. (then called Davis St.) It may be the one house shown on the short street in front of the tannery. Perry designed and built many early frame buildings, including Cardiff House and the 1866 County Courthouse.
• Pope House hotel on Mission Street (see SCPL photo 0019). The street to the left appears to be today’s Storey Street, which no longer connects with Mission.
• Field. The Storer and Lucy Ann Field house (early 1860s) remains today, at the top of the Locust Street stairway.
• Kunitz. Johann Kunitz moved his soap and glue factory to River Street before 1872, when F. A. Hihn built his mansion. This block is now the City Hall complex.

Slide 11

  Mission Hill:

12.  Roman Catholic Church.  Shown is the wooden Holy Cross Church built in 1857 (see Elliott, p.f6).

• The repaired remainder of the adobe chapel, with a wooden façade, is to the right.
• Adobe?. The location and shape of this building suggest that it may be a small remaining section of one of the long mission residence buildings, similar to the Neary-Rodriguez adobe. The building is included in the mission model on display at Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park.

13.  Upper Plaza. Note the lack of any landscaping at this date. According to Chase, the area had just been remodeled in 1870. Streets were laid out on three sides of the plaza and the old mission water supply ditch was under-grounded.

·        The 1850s Alzina house still stands on the plaza.

14.  Mission Street.

15.  Sisters’ School.  The second home of the Sisters of Charity School.

·        The school’s previous home can be seen behind the newer. The old adobe “juzgado” had previously been repurposed and enlarged as William Blackburn’s Eagle Hotel in 1848 (see Elliott, p.f6). The Sisters first used it as a school, then as a student dormitory, and finally as a convent.

·        Neary-Rodriguez adobe – originally one of the mission neophyte dormitories. The street shown parallel to the near side did not exist.   

16.  Public School. Shown is the first Mission Hill School, built in 1857 and replaced in 1875.

17.  Temperance Hall. A public meeting hall built in 1861 by a local temperance society (see photo in Chase p.87).

Also:

·        Schwartz - 214-222 Mission. – Louis Schwartz built three 1½ story houses in 1867 that remain today.

Slide 12

Downtown:

18.  Lower Plaza. Many buildings are identifiable from photos.

·        Pacific Ocean House hotel (1865). Next door on the right: Lulu Carpenter’s (1865), which remains today.

·        Across the street is the Zoccoli’s building (1866), which remains today (see SCPL photo 0093).  

19.  Stage Road to San Jose – Water Street bridge, first across the San Lorenzo River at Santa Cruz. Shown is an early iteration of the bridge, built on piles.

20.  IOOF Hall and Post Office. The building indicated is not what we remember today as the Oddfellows building (where the town clock was originally), which was not built until 1873 - on the other side of Pacific. A photo in Chase (p.143) shows this building but the text does not identify it. Partly visible behind is the 1868 Duncan McPherson building, which still exists.

21.  County Courthouse – This is the first courthouse, built in 1866. It burned down in 1894 and was replaced by the “Cooper House” building. The empty corner of Cooper and Main is where the Octagon building is now. (See photo in Chase, p.178)

22.  Main Street. The first city street map (Foreman and Wright, 1866) showed the name changed from Main to today’s Front Street, but no doubt many still called it Main Street in 1870. The section south of Cooper Street was still relatively new in 1870 (see SCPL photo 0093) 

23.  San Lorenzo River - meandering prettily but prone to flooding before levees.

25. Branciforte River. Now called Branciforte “Creek”, it retained the name of the original Spanish pueblo.

·        Ford 1. The old ford can still be seen at Branciforte Creek / San Lorenzo. The location marked ford 2 appears to be another ford.

·        Bridge. Brand-new (in 1870) wharf-style bridge at today’s Soquel Avenue, replaced in 1874 with a covered bridge.

Slide 13

  Ocean Street area:

19.      The second “19” label is on today’s north Ocean Street, just above the intersection at Water Street.

24.      Watsonville Road. Today’s Soquel Avenue follows the old Spanish road.

·        The horse-drawn wagon is starting up the hill from the intersection of today’s Ocean St. and Soquel Ave., past the first Branciforte School (today’s Branciforte Plaza).

·        At far right, Branciforte Avenue (original main street of Branciforte) follows the top of the bluff.

25.      Branciforte River. The second “25” is a short distance upstream from the bridge at Water Street.

Slide 14

  River mouth area:

23.  San Lorenzo River. The lower river didn’t yet have any roads following its frequently-flooded shoreline in 1870, and Ocean Street simply ends at river’s edge. There was no railroad bridge crossing the river near its mouth until 1875.

·        Barson. Fred Barson had just bought this property, and had not yet built the Riverside Hotel (1877).

·        Beach Flats. Nothing built there in 1870.

·        Ocean View Avenue was laid out the next year. Ocean Villa (shown prominently in the 1876 Trousset painting) was built at the end.

26.      Bathing House –The structure shown is not one of the more-permanent “baths” (e.g. Dolphin, Neptune) built later and closer to where the Boardwalk is now. The rope or cable shown extending out into the surf was a safety precaution, in the days before lifeguards.

• The artist? Many landscape artists put themselves somewhere in the scene.