The Sidewalks of Washington Street

Summary

The years 1908-1910 saw a major change in the appearance of downtown Santa Cruz and adjacent residential neighborhoods. For the first time, city sidewalks and curbs were constructed from concrete. The change was made possible by two related developments - one technological and one economic. On the technological side, the 1907 opening of the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company plant at Davenport made large quantities of durable concrete available for local construction use. The new plant also reduced the local cost of concrete, making it the cost-effective choice when the city embarked on an ambitious sidewalk-construction program in the next year. 

Quite a few sections of those original concrete sidewalks and curbs still exist. In addition, many of those stretches of concrete bear the identifying stamps of the various local contractors who constructed them. These stamps often include dates, which allow us to follow the progression of the sidewalk-building program through 1910, when it seems to have ended abruptly.

A lot of historical evidence is hidden, uncovered only after patient and careful sleuthing worthy of Sherlock Holmes. Sometimes, however, clues are right under your nose. That’s the case on Washington Street in Santa Cruz. While out walking one day, I noticed some lettering stamped into the concrete sidewalk at the corner of Lincoln Street and Washington. It read:

JAMES DUNN

1948

CONTRACTOR

I especially enjoyed the fact that James Dunn included a date in the stamp identifying his concrete work. Walking down the east side of Washington toward Laurel, I looked for more of these stamps. I found a surprising number, including another James Dunn, dated 1972. Mr. Dunn was evidently in business for quite a few years. Then, in the middle of the block between Elm and Maple, I saw:

McFADDEN + MELVILLE

CONTRACTORS

2 1908

Over one hundred years old! That’s not unusual for a house in this neighborhood, but remarkable longevity for a sidewalk. Continuing my walk all the way to Depot Park and back on the other side of Washington, I discovered many more of these humble little monuments to the paving contractor’s craft, including several more McFADDEN + MELVILLE stamps; most from 1908 but one incongruously dated “2 1902”. I found another 1908 just around the corner on Maple, with the name A H JONES. On Chestnut, two more 1908 stamps can be found, with the name BOYEA & SAWYER. Over on Center Street, just north of Elm, are a couple of "J. D. Ellis 1908" stamps. Apparently, each street had its own sidewalk contractor in 1908.

Another unique feature of the Washington Street sidewalks is the stamping of street names in the concrete curbs at street corners. The stampings occur at the corners of Lincoln, New, Elm and Maple streets. At the NW corner of Maple Street, a McFADDEN + MELVILLE stamp occurs in the sidewalk section adjacent to the corner. This shows that at least some of the stamped curbs are part of the original concrete. A couple of misspellings add a human touch; “WASINGTON STREET” at one corner; “MAPEL STREET” at another. The permanent nature of concrete still makes designers and builders nervous; mistakes can remain visible for a long time.

Despite the variable spelling, I like the street name stampings. I checked other nearby intersections, but I found this form of street signage at only a few other corners: 

1. Cedar and Elm streets, 
2. Sycamore and Cedar streets (there's also a contractor stamp at that corner dated 1910), 
3. Green and Cross streets,
4. Leonard and Dakota streets, 
5. Berkeley Way and Branciforte Avenue. 

I imagine there used to be more but only these few remain. By now, most street corner curbs have been replaced by more pedestrian-friendly and accessible ramps. On Washington Street, the opposite approach was used—the street paving has been raised to match the level of the old curbs at the street corners.

Finding these old sidewalks in my own neighborhood made me curious about the history of street and sidewalk paving in Santa Cruz. Prior to the explosive growth of California following the gold rush and statehood, Santa Cruz streets were graded dirt at best (turning, of course, to rutted mud in the rainy season). Continuous sidewalks were pretty much nonexistent. Commercial and residential buildings of those days usually included a covered wooden porch out front, providing a place to get out of the rain and knock some of the mud off before entering. With the development of the downtown business district in the second half of the 1800s, the buildings and porches ran together, forming more-or-less continuous wood plank walkways (like in all the western movies) well before the first street paving. Some of the more upscale residential streets, with houses set back from the roadway, also featured plank sidewalks.

This photo of the Hihn Mansion¹, built in 1872 on Church Street (later used as the City Hall, then demolished and replaced with the present City Hall), shows one such sidewalk, separated from the dirt street by a landscaping strip.

The discovery of deposits of bituminous rock, a type of porous sandstone naturally impregnated with bitumen (a tar-like form of petroleum) gave rise to the local production of a bituminous rock paving material, sometimes referred to in those days as “asphaltum”. Modern asphaltic concrete, commonly called “asphalt” or “blacktop”, is similar, but manufactured by an entirely different process. The deposits of bituminous rock were primarily found up the coast toward Davenport², in an area that came to be known as the “petroleum district”. One of the old open-pit mines is still shown (labeled “Asphalt Pit”) on the current USGS topographic map. Local mining of this material peaked in 1896-7, when the annual dollar value briefly exceeded that of the lime industry³. In addition to local use, large quantities of bituminous rock were shipped up the coast to San Francisco.

The first bituminous rock paving of sidewalks (and streets) was on Cooper Street in 1883, followed soon after by Pacific Avenue. In 1887, the Santa Cruz Surf noted that Church and Maple Streets (among others) “have unbroken lines of bituminous rock sidewalk”, and that Santa Cruz had “many miles of walks and crossings of this material”⁴.

This later photo of the Hihn Mansion⁵ shows that the board sidewalk has been replaced with a bituminous rock sidewalk, with a curb of cut granite stones (also quarried locally). From 1887 through the 1890s, local newspapers carried regular reports on the latest streets to receive bituminous rock or “asphaltum” sidewalks.

The south side of Lincoln Street, between Center and Washington, once had a bituminous rock sidewalk. In a couple of spots, old curbstones are exposed where later concrete (installed by James Dunn in 1948, perhaps?) has broken away. Broken concrete curbs on Washington Street do not reveal any curb stones, so either they were not used, were set farther back than today’s curbs, or were removed before the concrete curb and sidewalk were laid. Neither did I find evidence that Washington Street ever had any previous sidewalks, except at Laurel School⁶ (now Loudon Nelson Community Center and Laurel Park).

Use of bituminous rock paving for sidewalks, pathways and industrial floors continued into the mid-1900s, but the invention of “Portland cement” led to development of much stronger and more durable concrete paving. Then, following the opening of the Davenport cement plant in 1907, concrete began to replace bituminous rock as the preferred local material for sidewalk paving. In December of 1907, the City of Santa Cruz advertised a contract to be awarded for paving the sidewalks on both sides of Washington Street with concrete “from Lincoln Street to Washington Street extension”⁷. Work commenced in January, 1908⁸. That report agrees with most of the dates in the McFADDEN + MELVILLE stamps; apparently they won the contract. But what about that one stamp from 1902? I found no newspaper references to concrete paving in Santa Cruz before 1905, so that date appears to be a mistake (similar to the street name misspellings?). The workers may have been spelling-challenged, but they constructed some long-lasting sidewalks. The durable new concrete also preserved some interesting historical artifacts for us to rediscover more than one hundred years later.

Notes

¹ Santa Cruz Public Library Local History Photograph Collection: photo number 0131

² Laizure, C. McK. Mineral Survey of Santa Cruz County – Bituminous Rock. Included in the Santa Cruz County History articles on the Santa Cruz Public Library website.

³ Laizure, C. McK. Mineral Survey of Santa Cruz County – Table of Mineral Production: Santa Cruz County, 1894-1924. Included in the Santa Cruz County History articles on the Santa Cruz Public Library website.

⁵ Santa Cruz Public Library Local History Photograph Collection: photo number 0138

⁴ Santa Cruz Surf, 26 October 1887, 2:2

⁶ Santa Cruz Surf, 06 January, 1894, 2:1

⁷Santa Cruz Surf, 07 December, 1907, 6:2. The evidence is not conclusive, but research suggests that Washington Street changed to Washington Street Extension about three hundred feet south of Laurel Street, where Spruce Street used to dead-end into Washington. At that point, Washington Street entered the private property of the Santa Cruz Planing Mill and Lumber Yard (as shown on the 1905 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, viewable on microfilm at SCPL)

⁸ Santa Cruz Surf, 07 January, 1908, 8:1