Stations: Nuga

Out on the fringe of Watsonville Slough, 0.5 miles from the nearest road, the Santa Cruz Railroad Company established its least known and most remote stop, a place that the Southern Pacific Railroad eventually named Nuga. Yet the history of this little waypoint between Ellicott and Watsonville far off the beaten path is much more complicated than it should be.

Flood-damaged Southern Pacific Railroad tracks northwest of Nuga at the Harkins Slough bridge, 1909. [Neil Vodden, Jack Hanson]

After years of disagreement between the people of Santa Cruz and those of Watsonville, it was finally decided by Frederick A. Hihn and the other directors of the Santa Cruz Railroad Company to bypass Watsonville by nearly two miles with the intention to cross the Pajaro River closer to its outlet into the Monterey Bay. Thus, in late 1875, railroad grading crews cut across the lands of around a dozen farmers and orchardists without warning or compensation, sparking a vicious legal battle. What would become Nuga proved to be at the center of the issue, since it was here that the railroad would ultimately turn inland on a path that would have the line enter the Watsonville town limits in spring 1876.

Map of the Rancho Bolsa del Pajaro showing property boundaries and owners with the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way passing through the center, June 1889. [Santa Cruz GIS]

This land was once a part of Ranch Bolsa del Pajaro, the same Mexican land grant upon which much of Watsonville itself was situated. By 1867, the tract between Watsonville Slough and Beach Road was owned by Thomas Martin, who operated a private farm and ranch on the property. When the grading crews of the Santa Cruz Railroad passed through his property in November 1875, he was not pleased. He had not granted the right-of-way to the railroad and the railroad did not ask permission to cut down his fences, plow over his land, and grade the railroad across it. In fairness, Martin himself likely only suffered a little from the slight, since most of the land through which the railroad passed was slough, but he nonetheless joined Charles Ford and Alvin Sanborn’s lawsuit against the railroad, halting railroad construction in the process.

What precisely happened next for Martin is unclear, but county records show that he transferred a thin right of way through his land to the Santa Cruz Railroad Company on November 21, 1876, six months after the railroad itself was completed. Unlike his angry neighbors, though, Martin negotiated a station out of the deal. Martin’s Station catered not only to Martin’s farm but was also a gathering point for farmers and ranchers working near the mouth of the Pajaro River. A short road, long since removed, was built between Beach Road and the station to allow ease of travel.

Map of part of the Ranchos Bolsa del Pajaro and San Andreas belonging to John, Thomas, William, and James Martin, August 27, 1891. [Santa Cruz GIS]

For the railroad, the presence of the nearby Watsonville Slough and a shallow freshwater lagoon on Martin’s land led to the erection of a water tank for passing trains just northwest of Martin’s. Virtually nothing is known about this water tank, but it was used throughout the period that the railroad through Martin’s was narrow gauge. Public timetables printed in the Sentinel from the late 1870s include Water Tank as a passenger stop, possibly for people wishing to bathe in the lagoon or slough. The last mention of Water Tank is in September 1883, during the standard-gauging of the right-of-way to Santa Cruz, and it seems likely that the waypoint was no longer needed once standard-gauge locomotives began running on the track at the end of that year.

The purchase of the Santa Cruz Railroad by Southern Pacific in 1881 led to the renaming of Martin’s to Laguna, a reference to the adjacent Watsonville Slough. This was probably done to avoid confusion with another “Martin’s” found on the Monterey Branch and named after Thomas’s son, William H. Martin. Thomas continued to own his property off Beach Road, although he was sent to an asylum in 1889 for mental health reasons. He was released in 1897 and continued to farm until his death in February 1911. However, ownership of the trapezoidal station site was transferred at some point earlier to the railroad.

Laguna proved over the years to be a troublesome location to the railroad. For one, it was a shockingly dangerous location, with several trains derailing at the site and at least a few passengers and crew killed over the years. This may be due in part to a sinkhole that periodically made its appearance near the station, buckling tracks and misaligning the right-of-way without warning. This happened because the tracks just to the west marked the lowest point on the entire line, at just six feet above sea level as it crossed Watsonville Slough, and as such the tracks flooded regularly, knocking the tracks out of commission until flood waters receded and the right of way was cleared and repaired. In 1910, efforts were made to raise the track and install a rock wall to protect the right-of-way, although it still experienced seasonal flooding afterwards.

Aerial view showing the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way and facilities at Nuga (lower center), 1937. [University of California, Santa Cruz]

Nonetheless, Southern Pacific continued to support the station since it served an important purpose for the lower Pajaro Valley. By 1905, the station had a 674-foot-long siding situated on the south side of the tracks. Over the next three years, this nearly tripled in size to 1,528 feet, or 39 carlengths. Such an expansion was likely due to an aggregate quarry that opened on the north side of the tracks between the station and the slough. This was certainly operating by 1909 and supplied ballast to repair railroad bridges and culverts in the Watsonville area. The station hosted a small warehouse with freight-loading platform and telephone service, a smaller unattended passenger shelter with platform, and a packing shed.

Right of way and track map of Nuga on the Santa Cruz Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division, June 30, 19[17?]. [Santa Cruz GIS]

Curiously, the name Laguna did not stick—in January 1909, the station was renamed Nuga, an inversion of the its previous Laguna that removed the first and last letters. This may have been done to avoid confusion with the Laguna Creek flag-stop on the Coast Line Railroad south of Davenport or Lagos station on the Ocean Shore Railway, also at Laguna Creek. By 1913, the station had been reduced in status, while in 1926 the siding was cut back. In the early 1940s, the siding was removed entirely even though Sidney Harold Gandrup, a local real estate developer and rancher, still used the shed beside the tracks. On October 26, 1954, all the railroad facilities at Nuga burned down when a grass burn-off on the adjacent field spread out of control. This likely saved the station from destruction in the flood of 1955, though this may have further contributed to Southern Pacific formally abandoning the station on May 20, 1957.

Oil tankers parked on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line tracks over Harkins Slough just northeast of the Nuga station site, February 2020. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

In more recent years, the site of Nuga has been reclaimed by the adjacent farm despite still legally belonging to the railroad (now the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission). In 2018, Iowa Pacific Holdings through its Santa Cruz & Monterey Railway subsidiary parked dozens of empty oil tanker cars onto the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, including at Nuga's site. These prompted protests from Greenway and other groups, eventually resulting in their removal after Progressive Rail took over the contract to operate on the line.

The former location of Nuga on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, December 10, 2017. [Derek Whaley]

Public access to the site is no longer possible without trespassing on adjacent property. The location is just to the east of where Watsonville Slough runs under the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. No evidence of the siding or station remains at Nuga, although the area just to the south of the existing tracks remain undeveloped and wide enough for a siding. Where a farm road that continues to Beach Road meets the tracks marks the former station point. All the area between the tracks and Watsonville Slough remains an undeveloped, rocky field that may represent the short-lived quarry at the station but otherwise shows few signs of development.

Citations & Credits:

• Bender, Henry E., Jr. "SP72 (SP Santa Cruz Branch)." 2017.
• Clark, Donald T. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Second edition. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, Coast Division Employee Timetables and Officers and Agencies books. 1889–1940.
• Various articles. Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel, Evening Pajaronian, and Register-Pajaronian. 1867–1956.

Sources: Family History

The family history and genealogy industry is booming, with people now able to even analyse the DNA of their pets. In the United States and other former colonies with large populations descended from Europeans, the idea of tracing one's ancestors back to their immigrant ancestors and beyond is appealing. It helps people establish and build upon cultural connections to other countries and peoples. Researching genealogy and ancestry has its dark side, too, but most people search for their ancestors out of curiosity or to discover long-lost relatives. Because family history is often considered a topic for amateurs or retirees, it is sometimes disregarded as an important part of local history research. But that could not be farther from the truth!

Members of the Leibbrandt Family, circa 1900. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

One thing that every local historian learns early on is that every town has its founding families. Depending what one may be researching, these families may be important to identify early on. When a community is first established, there is usually only a small number of individuals living there. This means that intermarriage between these families is common and frequent. Indeed, it is more unusual to find a founding family that doesn't have genealogical connections to other members of the community, and when this does occur, it is usually because of religious or cultural reasons. Even areas of research that seem too niche or obscure may have unexpected genealogical ties to the wider community that are worth noting.

Genealogy of the family of José Joaquín Castro of Rancho San Andrés, an early Spanish settler whose family married into several other prominent Californio and American families. From Ronald G. Powell, The Tragedy of Martina Castro: Part One of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation (Zayante Publishing, 2020).

For Santa Cruz County, there are several early families whose importance to the area's history resonates to this day. Descendants of these families still live in the county, own businesses, run for politics, and lead community groups. Perhaps the most influential family has been the McPhersons, whose progenitor, Duncan McPherson, became co-owner of the Santa Cruz Sentinel in 1864. His descendants continued to run the newspaper until 1990. Meanwhile, a great grandson, Bruce A. McPherson, has served in the California State Assembly and Senate, as well as Secretary of State, and currently sits on the County Board of Supervisors. Members of the family, like most 19th century Santa Cruz families, married into several other prominent families, notably the Hinds and Miller families.

Members of the Bennett family, ca 1905. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Ways of using this type of source:

Researching genealogy is unique in that one searches for specific people, sometimes outside of an obvious context. To begin any family search, one must have at minimum a name (first and last) and a date. It can be a birth or death date, a marriage date, a burial date. The options are quite broad and don't have to be exact. From a name and a date, the entire world can open up. Alternatively, nothing may happen at all. A frustrating truism for any family history researcher is that the people who are best recorded are the famous and the infamous—if a person was just normal, as most people are, it may be difficult to find a lot of information on somebody.

An unnamed family, possibly in the Soquel or Live Oak area, posing in front of their home, circa 1890. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

If you have a name, approximate date, and a location, then a good place to start a genealogical search is FindAGrave.com. This database compiles millions of headstones and cemetery records into one place, often with photographs of the headstones, newspaper clippings, and even photos of the deceased. It is ideal for people buried in the United States, United Kingdom, or other English-speaking countries, though it is gradually expanding beyond the Anglophone world. An account is not required, though if you create one, you can save your research. The benefit of starting with FindAGrave is that you can often fill in several blanks all at once, which can provide you with information to dig deeper. As with all genealogical websites, FindAGrave is not perfect and prone to errors, but the photographs, clippings, and gravesite details all help verify the information.

Frederick Duncan McPherson Sr.'s FindAGrave page.

Using the example of Frederick Duncan McPherson Sr.'s record, you can find a date of birth, place of birth, date of death, place of death, burial location, plot number, and several genealogical connections linked together by users based on headstone details and newspaper clippings. With this information in hand, other websites become more useful. FamilySearch.org is run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who have a religious interest in family history. Members of the LDS Church also own Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, and several other genealogical and genealogy-adjacent websites. From a simple search for Frederick Duncan McPherson Sr., his World War I draft registration card is available, as well as a birth record for his namesake son. This search also helpfully includes a link to the FindAGrave record and less helpfully links to the birth record for Frederick's grandson, Bruce, whose father shared the same name as his grandfather. Family members sharing the same name is one of the many difficulties a family history researcher will encounter.

Search results for historical documents relating to Frederick Duncan McPherson on FamilySearch.org.

Clicking on VIEW ALL below the first four items reveals thousands more records, some of which will relate to Frederick Sr., some to Frederick Jr., and others to completely unrelated Frederick McPhersons. Vetting these is the task of the researcher. Some of the most important sources can be census records, gathered every ten years in the United States. These can show where somebody is living, who they are living with, their relative ages, their street address, and other things that may or may not help in researching local history. FamilySearch offers scans of many important documents, including census records, marriage certificates, death notices, conscription and military files, and much more. Many of these are available anywhere, while some require special access only allowed at FamilySearch Centers, usually LDS churches. In Santa Cruz County, the only FamilySearch Center is the church in Live Oak at 220 Elk Street.

MyHeritage search results for Frederick Duncan McPherson.

As is to be expected, different websites provide slightly different resources. For the United States, Ancestry.com is generally considered the best website. It can often be accessed for free from your public library, or individuals can subscribe to the service for a fee. Ancestry provides millions of resources that can help a researcher dig deep into the genealogies of local families, connecting dots between them in ways they may not otherwise know. Street directories often show where businesses were located, while immigration records can pinpoint precisely when a person first entered the country and from where. Outside the United States, MyHeritage is often touted as a slightly better alternative, with more European-based resources. These can still be helpful for local history researchers, though, as Santa Cruz County actually has many families who immigrated from Europe and found there way to Santa Cruz in one lifetime. Therefore, their pre-US family history may be discoverable! Like Ancestry, MyHeritage requires a subscription fee to use—its free library version is less helpful than its competitor.

Results for searching for Frederick McPherson in Santa Cruz County from 1873 to 1990 on Newspapers.com.

Lastly, family history research would be significantly less valuable without using newspapers. While newspapers as a topic have already been discussed in an earlier Sources blog post, they are very important to family history research, especially if a person is proving difficult to pinpoint. Newspapers can help identify when a person lived in a place, what they did, and who they associated with. If they did anything notable, that should also appear. The best newspaper websites are Newspapers.com (subscription required) and the University of California, Riverside's California Digital Newspaper Collection.

Downsides and problems with this type of source:

The worst aspect of family history research—and one that does not get emphasized enough—is that it includes a lot of wishful thinking. Most of the primary source resources used in family history research were never meant to be used in the way family history researchers use them. Birth, marriage, and death certificates are legal documents the function to establish facts. That they include genealogical information on them is secondary. This is even more the case with census data, military records, and other government documents. Always stay skeptical when doing family history research, regardless of how reliable the source seems. Even cemetery records and obituaries can be wrong or leave out vital details. A good family history researcher will try to find at least two independent sources to prove a relationship, though this is not always possible.

Otto W. and Mary Antelman on the occasion of their 61st wedding anniversary, October 19, 1936. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

One extremely dangerous aspect of family history research is relying on the research of others. People are fallible and family history research is hard and time-consuming. Even if a researcher discovers a mistake, they may forget to correct it everywhere or they may simply give up on their research. Almost all genealogical websites including FamilySearch, Ancestry, and MyHeritage, features user-created family trees that the website's algorithm will try to match with yours. This can be very helpful when researching leads, but never trust these other trees unquestioningly. And never merger another user's tree with yours—you never know what mistakes they've made in their research and you may not have the time to verify all of their information. It is always better to compare a user's tree and their sources and add the records manually to your own tree. It may take more time, but it ensures that your tree is of a consistent quality.

United States census record for the McPherson family, 1940.

More broadly, family history is difficult primarily because there are so many resources available and sometimes a source will look better than it is. Common names, such as Miller and Smith, are especially problematic because even a relatively small community may have multiple unrelated families with those surnames living at the same time. Add to that the tendency for English-descended families to favor John, William, Charles, and James as first names, and you may find certain branches of a family almost impossible to research with certainty. On the other hand, unique names can be both a godsend and a curse. Take for example the Leibbrandt family, owners of the most popular of the bathouses on the Santa Cruz Beach in the 1870s-1890s. This is a very unique name, so it is very easy to identify in records. However, it has been spelled inconsistently from the beginning, with even members of the family spelling it differently. It is at times Leibrandt, Liebbrandt, Liebrandt, Leibrant, Leibbrant, Libbrant, Libbrand, and more! Thus, when looking through genealogical records, all of these alternatives need to be searched. This also does not take into account text recognition errors, which may appear in both scanned documents and digitized newspapers.

The Umberger family in Santa Cruz, 1944. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The key takeaway is to be careful and thorough when doing family history. Family history is a vital tool for any local history researcher. It helps establish marital and ancestral relationships between families, especially founding families, and may explain otherwise strange events or unusual business partnerships. It can also reveal the origins of conflicts or feuds, as one branch of a family may have had a falling out with another. At the end of the day, family history is an important part of local history research and should not be discounted. 

Family History resources:

• FindAGrave.com – A good first stop for anyone who died in the United States or any English-speaking country. Less reliable for non-English countries but still worth a look. The information here is not always 100% reliable, but still often provides a good starting point.
• FamilySearch.org – The only entirely free family history research website, though an account is required to view anything. It includes a good selection of original documents and also features family trees from members. Some material is only available from designated Family Search Centres, which are often at LDS churches or local libraries (check the website for details).
• Ancestry.com – A subscription site that can also be accessed for free from many libraries across the Western world. Ancestry offers the best original source information for United States ancestry. Be careful not to get lost in user-created genealogies, though, as these can be very poorly cited.
• MyHeritage.com – Also a subscription site. Still useful for United States ancestry but also includes a broader selection of international sources, which can be good for tracing ancestors beyond North America. There are multiple subscription tiers, but many of these are just fluff that add little to genealogical research quality.
• Newspapers.com – Owned by Ancestry.com, this website has the largest collection of global newspaper scans (most from microfilm and microfiche) in the world. It requires a subscription but it is worth it if researching newspapers beyond California. 
• California Digital Newspaper Collection – Run by the UC Riverside as a free alternative to Newspapers.com for California. It does not include as many California newspapers but it does include some that aren't on Newspapers.com. UC Riverside provides most of the California newspapers for Newspapers.com and, after a set exclusivity period, they become available on the CDNC as well.

Curiosities: Santa Cruz County's Borders

What is Santa Cruz County? It is perhaps a strange question since it seems easy to answer: Santa Cruz County is an administrative division on the California coast surrounded by Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties. But this is the status of the county today. Two of those counties did not exist when California became a state in 1850, and before statehood there were no counties at all! The development of Santa Cruz as a county and its changing borders over the past 175 years are the result of changing politics, culture, business, and many other factors. The origins of Santa Cruz County date back to the origin of Santa Cruz itself, when it was little more than a Spanish colonial outpost on the edge of a globe-spanning empire. 

"Ground plan of [Mission Santa Cruz] and surroundings kindly supplied by General Vallejo," ca 1878. [Courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley]

Santa Cruz began as Mission Santa Cruz when it was first established by a Franciscan missionary group led by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén on August 28, 1791. The name itself—meaning Holy Cross—was adopted by Father Juan Crespí on October 18, 1769 as the designation for a creek (now known as Majors Creek) that flowed from Trés Ojos on Mission Hill into Neary Lagoon. At the mission, the Franciscans established a small community of monks and neophytes (Native Americans forcibly removed from their villages and converted to Christianity) that encompassed the Mission Orchard and Potrero to the north, Mission Hill and the flood plain below, and the West Side. On the east side of the San Lorenzo River, meanwhile, a Spanish invalidos (retired soldiers) pueblo known as Branciforte was established by Governor Diego de Borica in 1797. This name came from Miguel de la Grua Talamanco, Marqués de Branciforte, Viceroy of New Spain. The colony had no center and sprawled to the southeast to encompass around a dozen large unrecognized private properties.

"Map of City of Santa Cruz," 1933, by the California Pacific Title Company. [Courtesy Antique Maps Inc.]

When California became a state on September 9, 1850, both Santa Cruz and Branciforte remained distinct. Santa Cruz had ceased to be a monastic community following Mexican land reforms in the 1830s and as such much of its land had been given or sold to various families. By the 1840s, the land on both sides of the river had fallen into private ownership and a crude commercial zone had emerged around the old mission on the Upper Plaza. Following statehood, the commercial district shifted to the Lower Plaza below Mission Hill near the junction of Main Street and Willow Street (now Front Street and Pacific Avenue). On the East Side, commercial and industrial progress was slower with businesses gradually arising along Ocean Street, Soquel Avenue, Water Street, and Broadway. The only notable property development in Branciforte during this period was the establishment of Camp Alhambra, later Seabright, around 1880 as a seaside resort. It was only in 1905 that the area east of the river joined the City of Santa Cruz.

Excerpt from "A Map of the United States of Mexico," 1826, by Henry Schenck Tanner. [Courtesy California State University, Monterey Bay]

For its first 59 years of existence, Santa Cruz was not a recognized political entity. Mission Santa Cruz, like all of the California missions, was a decentralized area bounded only by the vague spheres of influence expressed by the surrounding missions at San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Juan, and Carmel. California went through several different administrative arrangements in the Spanish and Mexican periods but Santa Cruz always remained a part of Alta California, or Upper California, and under whichever governorship that territory fell. Neither the government of New Spain nor Mexico established counties and most daily governance was handled by alcaldes (combination mayor and sheriff) for the pueblos and head priests for the missions. Military affairs were handled from presidios at San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Diego. Not long after the Spanish government definitively fell to the Mexican government in 1821, monastic institutions were dissolved and land was granted by the governor to private individuals across Alta California. About a third of modern Santa Cruz County was divided into land grants, mostly arranged along the coast. On paper, all of these were beholden to the nearest alcalde for judicial matters but there was little enforcement in this wild northern frontier of Mexico.

Santa Cruz Fourth of July reenactment #2, ca 1875, Romanzo Wood [Courtesy California State University, Chico – colorized using MyHeritage]

Statehood changed everything for Santa Cruz. As host to both a former mission and pueblo, it had a surprisingly large pre-Gold Rush population compared to many other settlements in the state. By this point, several people of America, British, German, French, and even Russian nationality had settled in the county with many marrying into the settled Californio population. To these was added a massive influx of failed gold miners who swarmed into the county as early as 1849 and continued to increase the population over the next decade. Like all states of the United States, California chose to arrange itself by counties. As the territorial government began to organize the state, it initially planned to include Santa Cruz as part of Monterey County since the area's population was only 640 individuals at the time. A group of 19 California residents protested, citing the difficulty of travelling to Monterey from Santa Cruz and the different interest of the two areas. Thus, when the final 27 counties were agreed on February 18, 1850, Branciforte County was created separate from Monterey. Yet again people protested, arguing that the county seat was in Santa Cruz so it made no sense to name the county after the pueblo. The territorial government acceded to the request and renamed it Santa Cruz County on April 5, 1850. California formally became a state on September 9, 1850.

Skyland on the Santa Cruz–Santa Clara County line, ca 1925 [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

While the name was agreed upon, the boundaries of Santa Cruz County have remained a point of contention ever since. Boundaries generally follow either ridgelines or waterways, whenever possible, and for Santa Cruz County it was entirely possible since the county was isolated between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The ridgeline, therefore, made a lot of sense as the inland boundary and it was established along what is today Skyline Boulevard, Summit Road, Loma Prieta Avenue/Way, and Mt Madonna Road. But waterways as borders make less sense since the peoples on either side of the river or creek often interact regularly. Thus, a major problem quickly became apparent that was not necessarily visible on the concept maps drawn up by the territorial officials in San José: where to draw the northern and southern boundaries of the county?

Map of California, from G. W. Colton, Colton's Atlas of the World (New York: J. H. Colton & Company, 1856).

The petition made in January 1850 had requested that the southern boundary essentially begin in the Gabilan Mountains west of San Juan and continue southwest in a roughly straight line until reaching the vicinity of Moss Landing. This would have placed the entire lower Pajaro Valley, including the area south of the river encompassing modern Pajaro, Aromas, and Las Lomas—about 25,000 acres—within Santa Cruz County. For the northern boundary, the petitioners suggested Point Año Nuevo as the northern boundary, with the line following the ridge to the top of the range. The government rejected both of these boundaries. To the south, the officials illogically drew the line down the middle of the Pajaro River, a body of water that was known for its periodic course changes. To the north, they overshot Año Nuevo completely and continued all the way to San Gregorio Creek, which was followed east until reaching its shared headwaters with San Francisquito Creek (the top of modern-day Page Mill Road). This boundary and the rest of San Francisquito Creek formed the southern boundary of San Francisco County, with Santa Clara County sharing the entire border of Santa Cruz County to the east and Monterey County to the south. The northern area, therefore, encompassed Pescadero, Pigeon Point, and Año Nuevo, as well as several other small coastal and mountain communities.

"Map of the Southern Part of the Rancho Punta Del Año Nuevo, San Mateo County, California," surveyed by W.B. Treadwell and published March 1869. [Courtesy Antique Maps Inc.]

This was the state of the county for nearly two decades...and nobody at the edges liked it. To the north, the area immediately north of Waddell Creek caused endless headaches for people attempting to travel to Santa Cruz to conduct business. For many years there was no formal road here and travelers had to take the beach, which was uncrossable during high tide, storms, rain, or any other number of situations. The same slide activity that impacts that area today also made it treacherous then. In 1861, William Waddell built between his mill on Waddell Creek and the cove southeast of New Years Point, but it was expensive to maintain and not easily used in the winter months. The solution was obvious—separate the inaccessible part of Santa Cruz County and add it to another county that could more easily reach it. In 1856, San Mateo County had been formed out of the southern part of San Francisco County. Listening to petitions from Pescadero residents, the state transferred everything north of the southern border of Rancho Punto del Año Nuevo to San Mateo County on March 16, 1868, taking from Santa Cruz County approximately 90,000 acres of territory. Despite the border being quite clear legally, mapmakers for several more decades often included New Years Point within Santa Cruz County and it also remained the name of the northernmost polling station into the late 1890s.

Map of the Town of Watsonville, 1860, surveyed by James T. Stratton. [Courtesy Santa Cruz GIS]

To the south, farmers in north Monterey County were angry that they had to travel into a different county to sell their goods. While most of the arable land in the Pajaro Valley is within Santa Cruz County, a small portion along the south bank of the Pajaro River running from the vicinity of Aromas to the river mouth is also fertile land. Yet in the 1850s and 1860s, the best port in the Monterey Bay was at Santa Cruz, with additional fair-weather ports at Aptos, Soquel, and Davenport Landing. The only real alternatives for Pajaro Valley residents were Hudson's Landing, an unreliable tidal wharf near the northern headwaters of Elkhorn Slough, or the wharf at Moss Landing. Transportation across the Pajaro River could be quite difficult during the winter and spring, when high water levels made fording the river impossible. Ferries and bridges were attempted in the 1860s with the first permanent structure erected in 1868. Three years later, in 1871, the Southern Pacific Railroad reached the small settlement of Pajaro on the south side of the Pajaro River across from Watsonville.

The Santa Cruz local meets the main Coast Division commuter train at Watsonville Junction, ca 1918 [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The arrival of the railroad in northern Monterey County occurred at the precise moment that citizens of Watsonville were agitating to move the county seat south, where the county was most accessible to the outside world via roads across Hecker Pass and through the hamlet of Chittenden, and south down the Salinas Valley. The railroad made the point even more clear that Watsonville was the gateway to Santa Cruz County. Yet to achieve their goal, they knew they needed to annex the rest of the Pajaro Valley. It was certainly not a new idea. In 1856, residents of the Pajaro Valley on both sides of the river, as well as people around Gilroy (the upper Pajaro Valley) and San Juan, petitioned the government to create a new county, with San Juan as the county seat. The legislature was unimpressed and the idea was rejected.

Southern Pacific Railroad tracks passing through Chittenden near the southeastern county line, ca 1900 [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

In the aftermath of the failed secession scheme, Santa Cruz County was more unified than ever before or after. While some still campaigned for annexation of the valley or secession to Monterey or Santa Clara County, others decided the best option was to convince the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad to extend its track to Watsonville. In 1867, wealthy men from both leading towns of the county joined forced to incorporate the California Coast Railroad, which they hoped would connect Watsonville to Gilroy, where the newly-formed Southern Pacific Railroad planned to run its first line. Indeed, in 1869 that came closer to reality when the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, a subsidiary, extended the track to Gilroy putting a spur of the transcontinental route within reach. Before the partners could act, though, Southern Pacific incorporated the California Southern Railroad in 1870 and began buying land along a right-of-way to Watsonville. The next year, Southern Pacific extended a branch line from its mainline to Hollister to Pajaro. The move, while welcomed, was an insult to the people of Santa Cruz County since the railroad only entered the county briefly at Chittenden before crossing into Monterey (now San Benito) County. It was for this reason that many in Santa Cruz lost faith in Southern Pacific and began organising their own railroads. But the people of Watsonville quickly decided that they did in fact have a railroad, and they had no need for a separate one to Santa Cruz.

Excerpt from "Official Map of Monterey County, California," 1898, surveyed by Lou G. Hare. [Courtesy Library of Congress]

The establishment of San Benito County from the northeastern section of Monterey County on February 12, 1874 as well as the start of construction on the Santa Cruz Railroad around the same time led to a panic among Watsonville's leading citizens. They suddenly realized that they had one last opportunity to seize the county seat from Santa Cruz and annex the rest of the Pajaro Valley, but they had to act fast. Perhaps thinking that the State Assembly was in a mood to shift county boundaries, the city fathers began circulating a petition among the residents of Watsonville and those across the river in Aromas, Pajaro, and the scattered farms south to Elkhorn Slough. At the same time, a vigorous war of letters were raged in the pages of the Santa Cruz Sentinel and Pajaronian. And as a hail mary, Charles Ford placed an injunction on the Santa Cruz Railroad hoping that the project would either go bankrupt fighting a pointless lawsuit or fail to meet the conditions of its contract with the county. None of these plans worked, though: the county boundary stayed put and the railroad continued building its route to the Southern Pacific tracks at Pajaro.

Official Map of Santa Cruz County, by Andrew Jackson Hatch, 1889. [Courtesy Library of Congress]

With one exception relating to the southeast border around Mount Madonna Park in 1976, Santa Cruz County's boundaries have not shifted since 1868, but it wasn't for lack of trying. In 1879, as the financial conditions across the United States continued to stagnate and taxation in Santa Cruz County increased as a result, editor William Richard Radcliff, editor of the Pajaronian, boldly suggested the county be annexed to Santa Clara or Monterey County as a means of reducing debt and lowering taxes. It was not as radical as an idea as it may seem. Neighboring San Mateo County was divided by the Santa Cruz Mountains with only rugged roads binding its two sides together. In 1879, Santa Cruz had a railroad line that linked its leading city to Santa Clara County, as well as several roads through the mountains. Many residents of Santa Clara County also had business interests in Santa Cruz County, with some businessmen travelling between the two counties weekly.

Ruins along upper Pacific Avenue after the April 14, 1894 fire. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

This idea went nowhere, especially once the Southern Pacific Railroad took control of all of the county's railroads in 1887. By this point, Santa Cruz was well connected to the state's railroad network even if its route through the Santa Cruz Mountains was of a different gauge than the rest of Southern Pacific's system. On April 14, 1894, though, a massive fire destroyed many buildings in downtown Santa Cruz, including the county court house and other local governmental buildings. Radcliff revived his old proposal to annex the county to Santa Clara. Once more the country was in the midst of a depression and the taxes required to rebuild the destroyed county buildings would be a burden on many. Radcliff's bold plan led to weeks of debate and editorials in the Pajaronian, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and the Santa Cruz Surf, but in the end nothing happened. Santa Cruz retained the county seat and Santa Cruz County remained separate from its neighbors.

The boundaries of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, 2024.

More proposals have come and gone over the subsequent 130 years with varying levels of public discourse but no success. Many businesses, organisations, and governmental entities now transcend the Pajaro River, showing that the county line is a little more than an administrative division. This is no more apparent than the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, a Santa Cruz County-centered district that includes two primary schools and a middle school in Monterey County. And as expected, the Pajaro River has shifted its course since 1850 and now around 175 acres of Monterey County sit on the north side of the river while about 110 acres of Santa Cruz County are on the south side. Although the boundary has barely moved since 1868, the bases for those boundaries have and will continue to shift as time moves on. And future political decisions too may lead to further re-drawings of the county line, leading to a larger or smaller county than today, or even no county at all! Only time will tell.

Citations & Credits:

• Clark, Donald T. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Second edition. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Lydon, Sandy, "The plan to obliterate Santa Cruz County." The Pajaronian, October 12, 2022.
• Various articles from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Pajaronian, and the Santa Cruz Surf.

Bridges: Live Oak Area

The Santa Cruz Railroad had a goal—indeed a requirement—if it wanted to earn its first subsidy payment in 1874: it had to build 5 miles of operable railroad beginning in Santa Cruz and heading east. But this task would not be easy. The narrow-gauge right-of-way would have to cross the San Lorenzo River, Woods' Lagoon, the top of Schwan Lagoon, and Rodeo Gulch before it reached the 5 mile mark near the west bank of Soquel Creek. The largest engineering obstacle was obviously the river, while a long trestle was required to cross Woods' Lagoon. But four smaller trestles were still required before the railroad could achieve its initial goal.

The northern end of Schwan Lagoon with Loma Prieta in the distance, circa 1920. [University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Schwan Lagoon is today known as the eastern lake of Twin Lakes, though when the area was initially settled, it was a true lagoon, with brackish water flowing into the Monterey Bay. By the 1870s, the lagoon was mostly cut-off from the bay and its salinity had dropped substantially, though there was still a small outlet and the lake was sometimes inundated during king tides and winter storms. The west side of the lagoon had been owned by the family of Manuel Rodriguez since before California became a state, and his descendants would continue to own property there well into the twentieth century. The east bank, meanwhile, was owned by Jacob Schwan, a German immigrant whose name became associated with the lagoon. At the head of the lagoon, Leona Creek flows from the mountains through Arana Gulch and provides the lagoon with its most substantial source of freshwater. Two other unnamed feeders drain from to the east from nearby fields that were once scattered forests atop a coastal sandstone terrace. Between the creek and these feeders was the land of Henry B. Doane. It was over these creeks that the Santa Cruz Railroad had to cross in order to continue east toward Soquel Creek and Camp Capitola

Survey Map of East Santa Cruz showing property owners, circa 1870. Drafted by Thomas W. Wright, Santa Cruz County Surveyor. [Santa Cruz GIS]

After crossing Woods' Lagoon, passing through a narrow cut, and ascending to the top of the terrace, the Santa Cruz Railroad right-of-way reached Leona Creek. The original bridge over this year-round stream would have measured around 200 feet and was probably a trestle-type bridge, though no photographs have been found of the original structure. About 450 to the east, a bridge about 110 feet long crossed an unnamed seasonal feeder creek. Like the bridge before, this was likely of a simple trestle design. Continuing another 1,300 feet to the east, a short bridge probably around 70 feet long crossed the easternmost unnamed seasonal feeder creek of Schwan Lagoon. Again, this was likely a trestle style and would not have been very high above the ground.

The Southern Pacific Railroad's right-of-way through the East Side, circa 1890. [Santa Cruz GIS]

All three of these bridges suffered the same fate, though probably not at the same time. When the Southern Pacific Railroad took over the Santa Cruz Railroad and standard-gauged the tracks in 1883, the Leona Creek bridge was probably filled, with a wide culvert built at its center to allow the waters of the creek to pass under the right-of-way. The other two bridges may have just been widened initially since they were not very high above the ground.

Southern Pacific Railroad tracks through the Twin Lakes area, circa 1953. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Aerial photographs show that both of the eastern bridges had been filled by 1928, but the ground around them, especially the easternmost bridge, was still relatively clear of debris, suggesting the filling had occurred fairly recently, perhaps in the 1910s, when much of the local railroad infrastructure was improved. Culverts would have been built beneath both of these fills, too. However, in the mid-1950s, the site of today's Simpkins Family Swim Center and Shoreline Middle School was turned into an aggregate yard. In the process of creating this yard, the area was leveled and the seasonal creek bed was buried. This included any trace of the fill and culvert.

Lithograph of the residence of James Corcoran, circa 1880. [UC Santa Cruz]

To the east of Schwan Lagoon, another substantial lagoon had its origins in the Santa Cruz Mountains and Rodeo Gulch, through which its only significant freshwater source flowed. The west bank of this lagoon had been settled in the mid-1850s by James Corcoran, an Irish immigrant, who owned the property through which the Santa Cruz Railroad was built in 1874. He would eventually subdivide and the tracks would form his northern boundary with Philip Legett and Martin Kingsley. East of Rodeo Gulch, the right-of-way passed through the land of V. W. Thompson. The railroad faced no substantial obstacles across this 0.6-mile-long stretch that would become known as Del Mar or Cliffside in later years. But Rodeo Gulch itself required the most substantial bridge in the Live Oak area.

U.S. Forestry Service aerial survey showing Southern Pacific Railroad trackage through Live Oak, 1948. [UC Santa Cruz]

The bridge over Rodeo Gulch was the third most substantial structure between Santa Cruz and Soquel Creek, measuring about 300 feet long, but it probably still only required a trestle bridge due to the low flow of the creek through Rodeo Gulch. As with the bridges above, no photograph seems to exist of the original bridge over Rodeo Gulch nor does the Santa Cruz Sentinel report on the type of structure erected here. Like the other three bridges, the structure across Rodeo Gulch was either replaced or modified when the Southern Pacific Railroad standard-gauged the track in 1883. At the same time, it was shortened a little, with fill replacing some of the trestlework at either end. This second or modified bridge was replaced again, possibly as late as the 1920s, by a concrete viaduct-style bridge with regularly spaced support piers and a ballast deck. The fills on either side may have been extended further when this was installed.

The current railroad bridge over Rodeo Gulch, December 2018. Photo by Derek Whaley.

Of the original four Live Oak railroad bridges, only the Rodeo Gulch bridge survives. Two of the those at the head of Schwan Lagoon are now fills with culverts running beneath them, while the third has been completely buried and sits unnoticed beside the Simpkins Family Swim Center. Frustratingly for railroad explorers, this non-existent fill is the only one that is easily accessible without trespassing on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. It sits directly adjacent to the turnaround at Shoreline Middle School. However, the smaller surviving fill can be viewed and accessed from the end of Live Oak Avenue. The fill over Leona Creek and the bridge over Rodeo Gulch are inaccessible to the public. All four of these sites are owned by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission and are scheduled to be included as part of the county's coastal rail and trail project.

Citations & Credits:

• Donald T. Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary, second edition (Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008).
• Bruce MacGregor, The Birth of California Narrow-Gauge: A Regional Study of the Technology of Thomas and Martin Carter (Stanford: University Press, 2003).

Infrastructure: Wyes

A wye is a common railroad track feature that can serve several different purposes. Usually triangular or Y-shaped, hence the name, the primary purpose of a wye is to allow a locomotive to reverse its orientation without the need of a turntable. Wyes can often be formed via the junction of three railroad branches or spurs, allowing trains coming from any direction to head in any direction. The benefit of a wye over a turntable is that it requires little more maintenance than a normal track switch and does not rely on a manual or mechanical turntable. The main downside is that a wye takes substantially more space than a turntable, especially if it includes a long spur to allow an entire train to reverse direction, as is sometimes the case. As a result, wyes can vary in size from relatively compact to encompassing an entire freight yard.

An excursion train returning from Davenport on the northwest leg of the Santa Cruz wye, July 21, 1951.
Photograph by Wilbur C. Whittaker. [Jim Vail – colorized using DeOldify]

The railroads of Santa Cruz County and the Santa Cruz Mountains have featured several wyes, though they were a later addition to local lines. None of the early narrow-gauge common carriers used wyes—they preferred turntables because they were more cost-effective and took substantially less space. Smaller locomotives were also easier to manually rotate on turntables than their larger brethren. There was also the issue of compatibility and competition. The Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad and Santa Cruz Railroad were rivals and did not have any formal connection between their lines, despite being the same gauge. Furthermore, both of their lines were linear, so only needed turntables at either end. This remained the case when the Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad was taken over by the South Pacific Coast Railroad in 1879. On the other side of the county, the narrow-gauge Santa Cruz Railroad was incompatible with the standard-gauge Southern Pacific tracks in Pajaro, so there was no opportunity to create a wye until the Santa Cruz Railroad was standard-gauged in 1883.

Aerial photograph of the Watsonville Junction freight yard with its wye, 1935. [UC Santa Cruz]

With the standard-gauging of the Santa Cruz Railroad, the first wye in the region was installed at Pajaro, later Watsonville Junction. This remains to this day the largest and most important wye in the region, switching trains between the Union Pacific Railroad's coastal track between San José and Salinas with trains from the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. The region's second wye may have been built as early as 1884, when the Loma Prieta Branch was constructed up Aptos Creek. However, the branch also had a turntable until some point before 1908, so it is possible that the wye replaced an earlier turntable between 1900, when Loma Prieta Station was closed, and 1908. This wye was located in Aptos across from the depot on the County Road (Soquel Drive), where a small yard was built to allow trains to move between the Loma Prieta Branch and the Santa Cruz Branch. It was bisected by the F. A. Hihn Company's apple warehouse spur, which also hosted the station's freight platform.

Sanborn Fire Insurance map showing the Aptos wye, 1908. [Library of Congress]

The largest wave of wye construction in the region happened between 1906 and 1909. During this time, a rivalry erupted between the upstart Ocean Shore Railway and the entrenched Southern Pacific Railroad. Along the coast, the Ocean Shore began building a route between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. In Santa Cruz, the company installed a wye within its maintenance yard paralleling Laguna Street on the West Side. North of Davenport, it built a second wye in 1907 at a place named Folger on the south bank of Scott Creek. This was intended to be a temporary turning point for trains until the route north was completed, which never happened. As such, two of its corners were stub spurs that only had enough space for the locomotive and tender to reverse. However, in 1908, the northeast corner of the wye was extended to Swanton to allow rail access to the San Vicente Lumber Company's timber holdings on Little Creek.

Aerial photograph showing the Davenport wye, 1928. [UC Santa Cruz]

Meanwhile, the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Line Railroad subsidiary built a wye at the Santa Cruz Union Depot. This was constructed for practical reasons rather than necessity—Santa Cruz already had a large mechanical turntable, but the wye allowed trains coming from Davenport to head either north through the Santa Cruz Mountains to the Bay Area or south to Salinas and Los Angeles. In Davenport, just north of the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company refinery, a smaller wye was built to allow locomotives to turn around. Unlike all the other wyes in the region, this one never served any other purpose and included two stub spurs to allow the turning of the locomotive. At the same time Southern Pacific was building these wyes, they also built a wye at Vasona near Campbell to allow trains from Santa Cruz to take the Los Altos Branch (Mayfield Cut-off) to go directly to San Francisco, bypassing San José.

The southern leg of the Vasona Junction wye, circa 1958. [Charles Givens]

Further south, the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad featured the region's only narrow-gauge wye at Moss Landing, which allowed sugar beet trains coming from both Watsonville and Salinas to collect or drop off freight at the seaport. The Southern Pacific Railroad, meanwhile, once had a wye at Castroville—or rather Del Monte Junction—allowing trains from the north and south to turn down the Monterey Branch. The Monterey Branch itself did not feature any wyes but it did host the region's only balloon loop track at Fort Ord. Much like a wye, a balloon loop allows a locomotive or train to reorient itself in the opposite direction. Such a feature typically takes even more physical space than a wye but only requires one switch and is designed to reposition an entire train, thereby simplifying the reversing process.

Aerial photograph of the Moss Landing wye, 1931. [UC Santa Cruz]

Gradually, all of the region's wyes have been disestablished with the exception of those at Santa Cruz and Watsonville Junction, both of which remain in regular use. The Ocean Shore Railroad's wyes were removed no later than 1923, when the entire Southern Division was disestablished and demolished. The Aptos wye was removed around 1928 when the Loma Prieta Branch was abandoned. The Davenport Branch was probably removed in the 1950s or 1960s once diesel locomotives allowed the trains to more easily reverse along the entire 11-mile Davenport Branch. Vasona Junction's wye was decommissioned in January 1964 when the Los Altos Branch was cut back and became the Permanente spur. More recently, the Watsonville Junction yard was reconfigured dramatically and reduced in size. As a result, the outer track of the wye that crossed Salinas Road to the west was removed and a new track installed through the center of the yard through the former site of the roundhouse, thereby creating a tighter wye.

Aerial photograph of the Santa Cruz wye and freight yard, 1931. [UC Santa Cruz]

There is still one last wye, as well as two more loops, in Santa Cruz County. Roaring Camp & Big Trees Railroad, a tourist excursion train service that runs up Bear Mountain in Felton, includes a wye just beside the park entrance, wrapping around the pump house. Furthermore, the main track wraps around the recreated town and picnic grounds, creating a loop that allows narrow-gauge steam trains to reverse direction and climb up the mountain. Similarly at the top of the mountain, a loop wraps around the upper picnic area at the summit, reorienting trains so they can properly descend the mountain. In contrast to Roaring Camp's route, all of the miniature railroads in the region have relied on turntables or loops to reverse their engines.

Southern Pacific Railroad (Monterey Bay and Santa Cruz Mountains):

• Pajaro / Watsonville Junction
• Vasona Junction
• Santa Cruz
• Aptos
• Davenport
• Castroville / Del Monte Junction

The Ocean Shore Railway (Southern Division):

• Santa Cruz Maintenance Yard
• Folger

The Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad:

• Moss Landing

Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow-Gauge Railroad:

• Pump House Wye