An original source of inspiration here (and the blog's original title) was "Names on the Signs". Street names, in particular, are a rich source of local history connections. Just found some new info on one such: Trescony. A side-street off of Mission Street, the name commemorates an Italian immigrant named Alberto Trescony, who moved to Santa Cruz around 1870 (in a UC Davis oral history interview, son Julius says it was 1876), and remained for several years before returning to Monterey County, where he died in 1892 (while staying at a hotel in Salinas). Clark (Santa Cruz County Place Names) mentions that Trescony lived in Monterey as early as 1841, but I hadn't followed up on that tease until today.
While looking for something else, I found a short bio of Trescony on the Monterey County Historical Society site. Turns out he had quite an extensive career in the Monterey-Salinas-Salinas Valley area, including ownership of Rancho San Lucas, and later other ranchos in the same area - the upper end of the Salinas Valley. Today, there's a turnoff from Hwy 101 to the small town of San Lucas. The Sentinel mentioned that, in 1891, Trescony donated land for a cemetery in San Lucas, where he was buried the next year.
Either by design or because of changed circumstances, much of Trescony's Santa Cruz land was soon subdivided. Sentinel real estate transaction notices of the 1880s and 90s contain numerous references to "Trescony's Addition" or "Trescony Building Lots".
Note: this post has been added to a page titled The Italians.
