Names on the Signs: Civil War (originally published Nov 26, 2011)
The first historical topic that really caught my
childhood imagination was the Civil War. At age ten, those romanticized stories
of courageous soldiers and epic battles really struck a chord. So it’s a bit
deflating to look at that period in Santa Cruz history and realize that not
much happened here. California was so isolated and sparsely populated that the
North vs. South passions were mostly absent. The state’s main contribution to
the war was gold. Locally, the first half of the 1860s were marked mainly
by another economic slowdown caused by the departure of many young men to serve
in the Union army (the fact that most Santa Cruz settlers came from northern
states meant there was little secessionist sympathy here).The local economic
effect was actually similar to what happened during the Gold Rush.
None of the local soldiers saw any actual combat, but they were exposed to some
of the other dangers of 19th-century warfare. Four members of the
locally-raised Company L, 2nd California Cavalry died from disease while on
garrison duty in San Francisco. The first victim was Asa Anthony, an
18-year-old nephew of Main Street
founder Elihu Anthony. Most of Company L worked for the Davis & Jordan
Lime Company, as did the Captain, Albert Brown (foreman). Anthony is buried in
the Grand Army of the Republic section of Evergreen Cemetery. Another
Company L veteran was Michael Lodge, son of Rancho Soquel grantees Michael Lodge and Martina Castro.
A somewhat different wartime experience was that of Joseph Rodriguez, a member
of that prominent Santa Cruz pioneer family. In 1863, Joseph joined Company A,
3rd California (Native) Cavalry, under Captain José Romero Pico (of
the equally prominent Pico family). By this time, the deep divide between
eastern-born anglo Californians and the native-born Californios was already
evident. The west side of the river was becoming the “white” Santa Cruz, while
the east side (including the old Branciforte pueblo) became “Spanish town”.
While the 2nd Cavalry went north to San Francisco, the 3rd
went south to garrison duty at the Drum Barracks in San Pedro. The irony of
this sort of segregation in an army fighting to end slavery was apparently lost
on the participants.
The lime business suffered from the absence of so many employees, but other
enterprises were more affected by the wartime disruption of supply chains from
eastern factories. In particular, mining/quarrying and road-building activities
were stymied by a shortage of blasting powder. In 1861, a group of San
Francisco businessmen looked at the problem and saw an opportunity. The result
was the California
Powder Works, constructed at a site on the San Lorenzo River a couple of
miles north of town.
The manufacturing plant produced its first barrel of black
powder in 1864 and soon became the county’s largest employer. To get their
product to town, the company built a covered bridge over the river and a road
known today as Ocean Street Extension. They also bought and improved the Gharkey wharf at the foot of Main Street on Beach Hill. Later, when dynamite began to supplant black powder,
company owners built a new dynamite plant on the east side of SF Bay. Today's town of Hercules started as a company town, given the brand-name of the company's blasting powder.
The Santa Cruz plant gradually reduced its operations, finally closing for good
in 1914. A few years later the property was purchased by the Masonic Order and
renamed the Paradise Park Masonic Club. Historian Donald Clark found it
ironical that a place once known for producing explosions should now be called
Paradise Park. For what was once such a prominent institution in the county,
it's odd that the California Powder Works has been so thoroughly erased from
local memory. I found a grand total of two names on signs, and you have to be a
hiker to see them. In Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, you'll find Powder Mill
Creek, which empties into the San Lorenzo opposite the Powder Works site.
Hikers can follow the creek partway down on the Powder Mill Trail.
The San Lorenzo Paper Mill, located just downstream from the Powder Works site,
had a slightly different raison d'être. Funded by another San Francisco
post-Gold Rush capitalist, Henry Van Valkenburgh, the paper mill opened in
1861. The location was chosen because, according to local historian Barry Brown, all of
the raw materials necessary for paper manufacturing were locally available:
“straw, lime, wood, water, water power, and easy access to shipping”. The mill,
which at first only made brown “butcher paper”, may have been the first paper
mill in California. The mill was eventually absorbed by the Powder Company, and
shut down at the same time in 1914.
