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Our Area - Local History
INDIANS: The Ohlone
("Oh-low-nay") Indians dwelt here in a bountiful Eden, under
sheltering coast sierras. The Main Beach village was called Aulinta (or
Ohlintak), "Place of Red Abalone," valued for its mother-of-pearl
used for jewelry, glittery fish-hooks, and strings of disk wampum (Indian
money). They were major abalone shell exporters for California and southwest
tribes, to the extent our regional Indians were named for their
shells:"Ohlones." A Central Valley tribe invaded to corner the
abalone market, but failed, and established Pogonip village in north Santa
Cruz.
EXPLORERS: In 1769 Governor Portola made a land
expedition up the coast to find the bay of Monterey, described from ship-board
with such exaggerated praise, he failed to recognize it, and continued north.
The explorers came into Santa Cruz along the bluff below De Laveaga Park,
crossing the San Lorenzo at Spanish Crossing St. near Pogonip Creek. They
erected a cross beside Laurel Creek, and named it Santa Cruz Creek.
MISSIONARIES: In 1791, missionaries took
"Santa Cruz" for the name of their new mission, founded where San Lorenzo Lumber is, to
convert local tribes into Spanish citizens. The first two chapels were of log
palisades with thatched roofs, lost in successive winter floods. So in 1793
the complex was built on Mission Hill, with adobe walls on a sandstone
foundation. In spite of one of the lowest Indian populations and highest
Indian mortality, the mission remained open as a chief supplier of ceiling
lumber for timber-poor southern missions, and vegetables for the Presidio.
PUEBLO: California's third and last town
for Spanish settlers was established in 1797 a mile east of the mission. It
was named "Branciforte" in honor of the Viceroy of New Spain, but
for lack of willing settlers from Mexico, convicts were sent instead, with no
funding to build the planned "showcase of California." It
eventually became a retirement community for California soldiers, but suffered
numerous boundary disputes with the mission.
RANCHOS: When Mexico won its independence from
Spain, it closed the missions in 1834. Branciforte settlers received
large land grants for cattle ranches, earning $2 per hide, which became known
to trading ships as "California dollars." They intermarried with
American mountain men, who built Graham Hill Road (named for Daniel Boone's
local cousin) and Ocean ST., to bring lumber to the Main Beach for
shipping. The lumber yard at the river mouth supplied one of the state's
first ship-building yards, founded next door in 1846.
DOWNTOWN: California became U.S. territory
that year, and Americans who came to Branciforte, found available land
primarily around the abandoned Mission Plaza. These separate Spanish and
American colonies soon became separate towns of Branciforte and Santa Cruz
(later united in 1905). Elihu Anthony arrived in 1848, and built the first
downtown business on the river flats, where the town clock is today. It
was a sawmill/blacksmith shop , but expanded to include a general store, post
office, and the first California foundry outside of San Francisco. Here
the state's first cast-iron plows were made.
THE "SPUD RUSH": During the gold
rush, Anthony built has 1849 wharf at the foot of Bay St. to ship potatoes to
San Francisco. When potatoes began selling for $1 each in the gold
fields in 1852, the area around Anthony's store became a boomtown of tents, as
land was leased to an influx of potato farmers. Overproduction killed the
market the following year, and the tent-frame buildings were shingled over by
stranded farmers, producing an instant downtown.
COUNTY SEAT: County court had been held weekends in
the dining room of the Mission Plaza's "Golden Eagle Hotel", but the
population boom required a full-time court house. When refused a room in the
town's first brick building, F. A. Hihn tore down his wooden flatiron building
at the junction of Pacific and Front Streets, and built a brick building to
draw the civic center into the heart of his downtown development.
Anthony's wharf was sold in 1853 to the stat's first lime works, "Jordan
and Davis, " later purchased by Henry Cowell
FISHERMAN'S PARADISE: Cabin boy Cottardo
Stagnaro jumped ship in 1874, founding what became a fishing fleet of families
from his Italian Riviera hometown of Riva Trigosa. Their old-world lateen-sail
boats supplied fish markets, restaurants, and a sardine and abalone
cannery. Fishermen's campgrounds grew up along the San Lorenzo at Beach
Flats, Laurel St. and River St., where sport fishing became second only to
summer tourism.
RESORT AND EDUCATION: Conventions found
Santa Cruz a perfect escape during the Civil War, and the West's first heated
saltwater bathhouses sprang up along the beachfront as an alternative to the
frigid bay waters. Tourism boomed with the coming of the railroad in
1876. An 1877 Opera House was built opposite the Uptown Stations
(today's Goodwill Store), while business colleges and seminaries clustered at
the Pacific and Walnut junction known as "College Corners.":
Soda fountains and candy kitchens proliferated as student hang-outs, including
the 1910 Frazier Lewis factory where the world's first candy bar was invented.
ART CENTER: California artists and writers
frequented Santa Cruz, starting with western author Bret Harte with a summer
cottage on Church St. San Francisco's mayor used his Lighthouse Field
estate "Phelan Park," as a Bohemian retreat for guests like Jack
London, Ambrose Bierce, Gertrude Atherton, sculptor Douglas Tilden, and
naturalist Joaquin Miller, John Muir, and Luther Burbank. In 1885,
Hawaii's royal princes were visiting Santa Cruz relative and introduced
surfing to the mainland for the first time. Beach Hill's first class
Sea-Beach Hotel hosted two presidents, and featured a gallery of California
paintings, and a garden famous for its 43 new varieties of pelagoniums.
RENAISSANCE: An 1894 laundry fire burned Chinatown
and a main downtown block, including the 1866 Copper St. Courthouse. But a
Romanesque civic center arose on Copper St., after which the town was called
"The Florence of the West." To publicize this downtown
renaissance, a week-long "Santa Cruz Venetian Water Carnival" was
held on the river, with decorated boat parades, entertainments, and a water
Olympics. It became an annual event.
BOARDWALK FOUNDER: Fred Swanton bought
electricity to Santa Cruz in 1889, and the West's first succe4ssful electric
trolley in 1891. It ran out to West Cliff's natural bridges, where the
Trolley Park's zoo was winter quarter for the Norris & Rowe Circus.
When President Teddy Roosevelt visited in 1903, city fathers concluded the
barnlike beachfront pavilions were unworthy of this magnificent setting.
So Swanton built an exotic-style boardwalk in 1904, rebuilt after a 1906 fire
with structur4es based on world's fair pavilions. It was a culture and
entertainment attraction, to which was added the first class Casa Del Rey
Hotel and Country Club in 1911, which included golf and polo grounds at
Pogonip.
MOVIE MAKING: Beginning in 1916, Swanton
established movie studios at De Laveaga Park, downtown, and at the
boardwalk. Nearly 200 films have been made county-wide by local or
visiting film-makers. Locals who were Hollywood celebrities include Mac
Swain, ZaSu Pitts, Shirley Temple, Johnny Weismuller, Alfred Hitchcock, and
Rory Calhoun.
Call 800-738-3261 or see our contact
page for all cell phone numbers and email addresses.
Patti Boe - Broker Associate
American Dream Realty
1041 41st Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95062
©1999-2008
Patti
Boe SC Real Estate
All information is from sources deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.
Properties
are subject to price changes, corrections, errors, omissions or withdrawal by
owners.
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