Update: The Sidewalks of Washington Street

I found a few more examples of street name curb stampings; at the corner of Sycamore and Cedar streets (there's also a contractor stamp at that corner dated 1910), and at one corner of Cedar and Elm. Draft 2 of 'Sidewalks' contains the new info.

Lime Works tour

The flu and Wikipedia have kept me away from Santa Cruz history for most of the past month. Sadly, I missed the RA meeting on April 10. I did, however, make it up to UCSC on Sunday for a tour of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, ably led by Frank Perry (there's a link to the non-profit Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District in the sidebar to the left).

There's a tie-in between the tour and my interest in the bituminous rock mining industry. In addition to the lime operations, the Cowell ranch also contained a small bituminous rock mining quarry. One of the few surviving local examples of bituminous rock paving is at the Cooperage building in the Lime Works complex (thanks to Frank for pointing it out).

Update 2: Have you seen this house?

This house has become interesting enough to warrant its own blog. You can find it here: http://williamkerrhouse.blogspot.com/

Researchers Anonymous meeting 3/13

Attended the RA meeting last Sat. The round-table format, where each attendee has the opportunity to talk about his/her latest work, is always fascinating. Interest in local history is alive and well, and I look forward to the next meeting on April 10.

Some of the most productive time at RA is before and after the meeting, when members can talk one-on-one. A conversation with Frank and Jill Perry yielded several leads for my research on the bituminous rock industry. Now I just have to get out there and follow up.

Update: Have you seen this house?

This morning, I was re-reading the wonderful article Full Life, Empty Pockets, by Harriette Jessup Proctor, which appears in Issue Number Two of the Santa Cruz County History Journal. The following line caught my eye: "...Alexander's, an excellent Italian restaurant, in Billings' big Victorian near the highway." Bingo!

So it turns out the caption accompanying the photo in the SCPL collection is correct (sort-of). I'll attempt to track down the exact location and the identity of the original owner, but I'm guessing the Billings house stood where the Pasatiempo Inn is today. Of course, the area (part of Rancho la Carbonera) wasn't called Pasatiempo when the house was built, sometime before 1900. Marion Hollins invented that name in the 1920s. That was my mistake - when I read the photo caption, I assumed (and we all know what "assume" is an acronym for) that the house was claimed to be part of Hollins' Pasatiempo development.

Santa Cruz History Links - part 2

First, I have to apologize to everyone at Researchers Anonymous for leaving the MAH link off my first list. Second, I added a few other links that, while not pertaining strictly to Santa Cruz, are important sources of historical materials and people may not have heard of them yet. These include:
* Linkpendium - Genealogy and Family History
* Internet Archive
* Online Archive of California

Other sites I have used, but which I didn't add to the list because of their more general nature, and because they are already well known, include:
* Google Books
* the libraries at UC Berkeley, Stanford and San Jose State
* San Francisco Public Library
* Library of Congress

These are great times for lazy researchers like me. More and more historical material is being made available online. Let me know if you find any other especially good sites.

Santa Cruz Wiki: Historic Opportunity

Wikis are a great way for people to collaborate online and share their interests. Everyone knows about Wikipedia, where you can find (and contribute) information about almost anything. Santa Cruz Wiki (follow the link in the sidebar) wants to do the same for our local area; but it needs our help.

One of the major sections in Santa Cruz Wiki is Santa Cruz History. If you go there, you'll find a lot of empty headings. It's time for local history buffs to get involved and add some content under those headings. Santa Cruz Wiki could be a great new online meeting place for the local history community.

Santa Cruz History Links added

I pulled all of these from my browser bookmarks, and from the Researchers Anonymous memberlist. Let me know if you have others - thanks.

Have you seen this house?

I first saw this photo mis-identified as the Hihn Mansion in Surf, Sand & Streetcars by Charles McCaleb. I found it again in the SCPL Local History Photograph Collection (0151), identified as the R. Billings House in Pasatiempo. I'm pretty sure there have never been any Queen Anne's in Pasatiempo, but so far I haven't found any other evidence. Any ideas?

Something Completely Different

I took a break from Santa Cruz history to work on a Wikipedia article about the historical novel Stone's Fall, by Iain Pears. If you're interested, you can find it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone%27s_Fall