Mountain men in Santa Cruz

Several companions of Isaac Graham, from his days as a fur trapper, also ended up in Santa Cruz. Joseph L. Majors seems to have been the first. By marrying the daughter of a Castro, Majors was able to obtain Mexican citizenship. That allowed him to own land including Rancho Zayante, which he then rented to various Americans, including Job Dye, Isaac Graham and Henry Naile.

Also, discovered a biography called The Trials of Isaac Graham, which is available at the UCSC library.

More Isaac Graham

Following a link from the Wikipedia article on Isaac Graham, I found a biographical article written by Michael Kinsella. The article has a lot of information, but no bibliography or source notes. My quest would be greatly aided if Mr. Kinsella, who used to live in Santa Cruz but is now in Seattle, is willing to share some of that info. He has a MySpace page, where I was able to send a message - no response so far. I'll attend the next RA meeting and ask if anyone knows him.

Majors, Graham and Wikipedia

It's been awhile since my last post, so I ask myself, "What have you been doing?" In the course of my research on the bituminous rock industry of late 19th century Santa Cruz County, I encountered the Majors family, owners of one of the north coast properties containing substantial bituminous rock deposits. It turns out that Joseph L. Majors, the first of his family to come to this area, was a compatriot of Isaac Graham - namesake of Graham Hill Road. While the record is scanty regarding Majors, Graham had quite a life before he got here. Learning more about Graham led me to study the brief history of 'Alta California', after Mexican independence from Spain and before the Mexican-American War of 1846-8. I've been reading Bancroft's History of the Pacific States, which can be read online or downloaded.

Another historical distraction has been Wikipedia. Creating and editing WP articles is interesting and educational. Considering that WP articles come up near the top of most web searches, it's scary how much wrong information there is. An army of diligent editors aim to improve that situation. Some of the articles I've worked on relate to Santa Cruz history, including the above-mentioned Isaac Graham, which needs expansion from its present puny state.

John Chase

I was saddened yesterday to read of the passing of John Leighton Chase, author of The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture. Given my interest in architecture, it is probably natural that Sidewalk Companion is my favorite and most-often-consulted reference book, and was the first local history book I ever bought.

I never met John Chase, since he moved to southern California about the time I moved from there to Santa Cruz. One surprising thing I learned from the Santa Cruz Sentinel's article about Chase was that he was a twenty-two year old UCSC senior when he wrote Sidewalk Companion. The meticulous research and approachable writing style seem like the products of a much more mature and experienced writer. Thank you, John Chase, for giving us Santa Cruz history geeks such a treasure.

William Kerr House update

See the William Kerr House blog for new info

Bituminous rock

After months of distractions, I'm trying to get back onto some local history projects. Thanks in part to a post at the Researchers Anonymous bb (by RA member Rick Hyman), I finally bit the bullet and joined Ancestry.com. In addition to its intended use for genealogy research, the site contains many helpful resources for local history researchers. I'm using it to gather info about the early County residents involved in bituminous rock mining, production, transportation and construction. The mining took place mostly on the lands of a handful of North coast property owners. Some were originally dairy farmers like the Enright and Majors families. Others seem to have been mainly miners, like A. Walrath and I. L. Thurber. Davis and Cowell also got involved; the northwest corner of their holdings contained some bituminous rock.

Book Review: Decline of the Californios

'A social history of the Spanish-speaking Californians, 1846-1890'; By Leonard Pitt (1966), available at SCPL.

The names are familiar from California street signs: Castro, Vallejo, Berryessa, Bernal. Or, if you grew up in southern California as I did: Pico, Sepulveda, Dominguez, Olvera. These are the names of some of the families who, through huge land grants awarded by the Mexican government, owned much of California in 1846. Pitt's very readable book tracks the declining fortunes of these "Californio" families from the Mexican War into the gold rush, statehood and on through the development boom of the 1880s. There are no direct references to any persons or events in Santa Cruz County, but the larger background of California events during this time period helps to provide context for a better understanding of Santa Cruz history.

More early concrete sidewalks

The neighborhoods east of Ocean St. have some concrete sidewalks that, while not as old as the Washington St. area, are still pre-WWI. On Berkeley Way, I found a driveway with a contractor stamp dated 10-11-09. There are street name curb stampings at the corner of Berkeley and Branciforte Dr. More street name stampings found at Leonard St. and Dakota Ave. (a "tee" corner where curb ramps have not replaced the original corner curbs) .

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).