No updates to the original text this time, just a note about the Frank Heath painting. That 1893 view of Santa Cruz is the fifth of six panoramic views of Santa Cruz included in the "Panorama project". A future post will go into more detail about that painting.
Recently, while biking over the northernmost San
Lorenzo River
It's an old black-and-white photo of two
horse-drawn carriages passing each other while crossing a wooden bridge. There
it was – that same arched shape! The design of the modern steel pedestrian bridge was
apparently inspired by the wooden Water Street
Bridge
Seeing the photos again caused a few more atrophied neurons
to fire, and I remembered where else I had seen that bridge. On my next trip to
SCPL, I took the stairs up to the Young People’s Room. There on the wall above the
stairwell hangs a
large oil painting by Santa Cruz
artist Frank Heath (see detail at right). Painted in 1893, it shows a panoramic view of Santa Cruz
from a hill to the north (above Graham Hill Road ).
From that vantage, the nearest recognizable built features are Holy
Cross Church Water Street
Bridge
In the same year that saw construction of the County Hall of
Records, which we know today as the Octagon
Building, the Water Street crossing of the San Lorenzo River finally got a
bridge that could stand up to the winter floods.
The Watsonville
road, today’s Soquel Avenue ,
had already enjoyed a sturdy covered truss bridge for eight years – very
similar to the Powder Works
Bridge Paradise Park San Lorenzo
in 1868, Water Street had
seen a succession of wharf-style, simple-span bridges built – only to be swept
away by the rushing waters of the next rainy winter.
The new bridge of 1882 was different. Built in an engineered
style called an arch truss, it was capable of a much longer central span than
earlier versions, allowing the flood waters and their normal load of downed
trees to pass safely under. Santa Cruz finally had three well-designed, long
lasting bridges over the San Lorenzo (including the Santa Cruz Railroad trestle
- four if you count the Powder Works), in distinctively different styles.
In 1908, a 2-span, "three hinge" concrete bridge was built next to the venerable
wooden arches, to carry a new electric tram line (see photo at left). In 1913-14, the wooden wagon bridge was demolished and replaced with another concrete span, matching the appearance of the tram bridge.(2)
Sources:
Bridges Span Santa Cruz's Past, by Ross Eric Gibson
(2) Surf, Sand and Streetcars: A Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California. by Charles S. McCaleb
(2) Surf, Sand and Streetcars: A Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California. by Charles S. McCaleb
