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.
