Stations: Watsonville Junction

Along the northern edge of Rancho Bolsa de San Cayetano, the gently meandering Pajaro River flows ever closer to the sea, leaving on both sides a vast, silted floodplain that provided the foundations for the twin towns of Pajaro and Watsonville, the former located to the south of the river in Monterey County, the latter to the north in Santa Cruz County. The river was named after a bird, perhaps an eagle, killed by Awaswas-speaking Native Americans and stuffed with straw, later to be found by soldiers of Gaspar de Portolá’s expedition on October 8, 1769. Bolsa de San Cayetano, in contrast, was not established until 1824, when it was given by the Mexican government to Ignacio Vicente Ferrer Vallejo, father of the famous Californio patriot Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. Upon Ignacio’s death in 1831, the rancho passed to his eldest son, José de Jesús Vallejo, but José expressed little interest in the ranch after 1842. At least one child of Ignacio remained on the property at the time of the United States’ annexation of California in 1848.

Lucy Bell Rich holding Elwood Rich at Watsonville Junction, 1913. Photo by Edith Rich. [Courtesy Carol Bethany – colorized using MyHeritage]

Pajaro as a settlement grew within the rancho in fits and starts. In the first twenty years after statehood, it was little more than the junction of the roads to Santa Cruz, San Juan, and Monterey, with the only notable commercial building being a boarding house. Other commercial structures may have arisen on private properties, yet no settlement arose during this time—all notable commercial business occurred in nearby Watsonville, which began development from 1852. The Pajaro Valley at the time was used primarily for cattle grazing, tanning, making tallow, and growing grain crops, especially wheat and oats. In 1851, J. Bryant Hill became the first settler to attempt to run a commercial farm. Hundreds of settlers followed him, squatting on rancho land that was poorly policed by its owners. Decades of lawsuits followed, but the ranch owners lost in the end. Throughout this time, farmers in north Monterey County drew closer to their brethren in Santa Cruz County, leading to the creation of a shared Pajaro Valley School District in 1853, as well as other joint ventures.

The arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1871 briefly destabilized this relationship. Southern Pacific had expressed interest in running its new coastal route directly through Watsonville, but residents of the town failed to provide enough fiscal inducements to Southern Pacific to cause them to deviate from their intended route. As a result, the line ran south of the Pajaro River, stopping just before the main road to Monterey and Salinas opposite the narrow bridge over the river to Watsonville. Through traffic to Pajaro Station began on November 27, 1871, and the location remained the end-of-track for the branch for the next year until it was extended to Salinas. Despite consternation among the Watsonville populace, the community quickly embraced the nearby railroad and began shipping from the station.

The Watsonville Junction passenger depot beside the Wells Fargo warehouse, circa 1900. [Courtesy Pajaro Valley Historical Association – colorized using MyHeritage]

Pajaro grew gradually over its first decade. For the first five years, the stagecoach to Santa Cruz chose Pajaro as its southern terminus. It is likely that a turntable was installed at the station to turn locomotives back toward San José, and a few freight spurs may have been added early to cater to local lumber and agricultural firms. Other businesses, especially small hotels, boarding houses, and warehouses, likely arose around the freight yard as Southern Pacific began expanding its facilities. Nevertheless, the community remained small and focused entirely on the railroad. This did not change when the narrow-gauge Santa Cruz Railroad reached Pajaro in May 1876. The tracks shared yard space with Southern Pacific but the rails did not interact, so likely ran adjacent to each other to allow transloading, perhaps with platforms installed between them. Though there is no evidence of the Santa Cruz Railroad having a turntable in the yard, it did have a turntable in Santa Cruz, which would not be required unless another turntable was at the other end of the line. Stage service was replaced with rail service to Santa Cruz, but the facilities likely remained to house visitors in Pajaro. In fact, the arrival of the Santa Cruz Railroad probably had little impact on Pajaro and may have even diverted some traffic away from the yard to Watsonville.

Watsonville Junction passenger and freight depots, April 28, 1940. Photo by W. C. Whittaker. [Courtesy Jim Vail – colorized using MyHeritage]

From the very beginning, daily passenger trains ran from Pajaro to San Francisco over the Southern Pacific line. These also exported increasing numbers of agricultural products, lumber, beer, refined sugar from sugar beets, and lumber, while importing mercantile goods, foodstuffs, mail, and imports from the East Coast and elsewhere. To support the rise in traffic, the railroad built its first local passenger depot, a 27-foot by 81-foot single-story wood frame structure. Across the yard, a 200-foot by 40-foot warehouse was erected to store grain while it awaited transport. Other facilities included a stockyard for holding excess rolling stock and a freight office.

The Watsonville Junction freight yard, circa 1920. [Courtesy Pajaro Valley Historical Association – colorized using MyHeritage]

Competition with the South Pacific Coast Railroad, which completed its route through the Santa Cruz Mountains in May 1880, substantially decreased revenue along the Santa Cruz Railroad, leading to its bankruptcy in 1881. Southern Pacific, seeing the potential of the failed venture, purchased the narrow-gauge railroad and upgraded its track to standard-gauge in 1883. At Pajaro, this meant that the tracks to Santa Cruz were fully integrated with the existing tracks in the yard, and the narrow-gauge turntable was removed and likely replaced with a standard-gauge turntable, unless one had already been installed by the Southern Pacific Railroad earlier. With this conversion complete, Pajaro became the junction point of Southern Pacific’s Pajaro & Santa Cruz Railroad, later the Santa Cruz Branch, and the route to Soledad that would eventually become the Coast Division mainline.

Sanborn Fire Insurance map of the Pajaro Station yard, 1888. [Courtesy Library of Congress]

The completion of the Loma Prieta Railroad in the hills above Aptos in 1884 led to the next major expansion of the Pajaro Station yard: the addition of a 2,000,000 board feet capacity yard to store the lumber harvested by the Loma Prieta Lumber Company. This sprawling lumber yard sat just beside the tracks to Santa Cruz in the center of the Pajaro freight yard. The company’s planing mill was situated on the southeast side of the yard, while the railroad’s roundhouse sat to the east of the lumber stacks. At this time, the roundhouse was still very small—only capable of holding two switch engines. The passenger depot and grain warehouse had also been joined by a 32-foot by 179-foot wood frame freight depot and a second grain and potato warehouse, both grain warehouses being leased to somebody named Jackson. These structures were arranged along Railroad Avenue on the north side of the tracks. Three parallel tracks ran along this section, although it is unclear where they merged east of the station. By 1892, one of the grain warehouses was leased to Besse & Sill but grain and lumber remained the primary products shipped out of the station.

The Watsonville Junction roundhouse, circa 1965. [Courtesy Derek Whaley – colorized using MyHeritage]

The turn of the century saw more substantial improvements made at Pajaro. Trackage in the area increased substantially in the yard, including a new spur to the Unglish Brothers fruit drier on Railroad Avenue, two additional tracks across from the depots and warehouses, and the removal of the Loma Prieta Lumber Company’s yard. Meanwhile, both grain warehouses were leased by H. E. West. In 1902, express parcel service came to the station. Total trackage at Pajaro was first recorded in 1905 as 16,743 feet, which also reflected the addition of the wye that year. This wye meant that trains from Santa Cruz could now go directly to the south without using the turntable or exchanging cars. The next year, the total trackage was increased to 19,375 feet. The April 18, 1906, earthquake, however, caused significant damage to the roundhouse when the yard’s water tower collapsed atop it. The yard shut down for two days while crews cleared the tracks of debris. Over the next year, a new roundhouse and water tower were built, as well as a new freight depot, which was moved to the site of the Unglish Brothers’ drier. A new track was installed to access this depot, running along the south side of Railroad Avenue. At the same time, the passenger depot was moved across the yard to the inside curve of the southern leg of the wye.

A Southern Pacific locomotive beside the water tower at Watsonville Junction, circa 1950. [Courtesy Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History – colorized using MyHeritage]

Although the narrow-gauge route through the Santa Cruz Mountains was the favored method of bringing tourists to Santa Cruz, not everyone went that way, especially travelers who also planned to stop at the Del Monte Hotel in Monterey. Thus, Pajaro was a major transfer point. Yet the name led to endless confusion among those not familiar with the Spanish pronunciation of Pajaro—Pa-ha-row—especially East Coasters. As a result, on July 22, 1913, Southern Pacific rechristened the station Watsonville Junction. Though locals may have been indifferent or a little irritated about the change, those in Watsonville and elsewhere in Santa Cruz County were jubilant since it meant customers would know where to switch trains. Many thought the entire town would also be renamed, but Pajaro retained its former town name even as the station became more closely linked with the city across the river.

Inside the Watsonville Junction roundhouse, circa 1930. [Courtesy Pajaro Valley Historical Association – colorized using My Heritage]

As the decades progressed, the yard at Watsonville Junction continued to evolve. In 1913, along with the name change, a 20-foot by 37-foot two-story wood frame yardmaster’s office was built on the south side of the yard, where it could oversee the operations there. By 1917, the yard had achieved its maximum extent. To the east, a stockyard of at least six tracks led into the main yard. To the south, two tracks broke off from the yard and split into four before merging into a single track as it enters Elkhorn Slough. To the north, six sidings merged into one just before crossing Salinas Road (G12) on the way to Watsonville. And to the west, six tracks broke off on the south side only to quickly combine back together, with two tracks crossing Salinas Road and merging soon afterwards to form the third corner of the wye. Within the wye itself, a second tighter wye track wrapped around an enlarged turntable and eleven-stall roundhouse and connected with a leg of a southbound track. Some of the structures at the yard at this time included a railroad stock warehouse and oiling station situated beside a maintenance spur on the northern side of the yard to the east of the roundhouse. Meanwhile, the depot itself was situated on the southern side of the wye, where a small parking lot provided easy access to cars and buses.

Groundbreaking for the new Watsonville Junction depot, 1947. [Courtesy Watsonville Public Library – colorized using MyHeritage]

The 1920s and 1930s saw a realignment of features at Watsonville Junction. In 1927, a train order registry was located there, forcing all trains to stop and register at the station before moving on. At the eastern end of the yard, a new stockyard was built beside the old freight and grain warehouses, which totaled seven in 1931. These mostly catered to specific freight patrons since five spurs terminated beside the warehouses. It was also in this time that the Salinas Road industrial lead first opened with its first two customers. Despite the Great Depression, Watsonville Junction was very active in these years—the stockyard was never empty of cars waiting to join passing trains.

For a moment in the 1946, a station under the name Pajaro appeared once again, this time 1.8 miles to the east of Watsonville Junction at the end of Hayes Road. This location marked the easternmost extent of the freight yard, where the tracks combined into the double-track except for a single spur that terminated directly west of Hayes Road. There is a sprawling farm just to the south of the tracks that may correspond to an agricultural firm that used the station in 1946, but none of the available Southern Pacific records note a specific freight customer here. What is more likely is that the station was set up as a centralized traffic control (CTC) waypoint, much like Corporal near Sargent, but was merged into Watsonville Junction because it was already within the yard limits. Today, the CTC kiosk bisects the disused spur that runs along the north side of the mainline, but the station name Pajaro vanished in the next employee timetable.

The new Watsonville Junction passenger depot, circa 1970. Photo by Margaret Koch. [Courtesy Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History – colorized using MyHeritage]

On October 31, 1949, a new passenger depot opened beside the old depot. This was a 28-foot by 128-foot frame stucco building with a Carmel stone veneer, a new and unique design reflecting post-war architectural aesthetics. The previous structure was decommissioned the same day but repurposed as the yard office on August 26, 1952, with alteration to the structure made in 1953 and 1967. It seems to have been demolished in late 1978 after the new depot was expanded to add a freight agency and yard office. On June 30, 1966, a new yardmaster’s office building, a 24-foot by 24-foot prefabricated metal square, was erected. This seems to have coincided with the demolition of the water tower, roundhouse, and turntable, which had been deemed unnecessary following the conversion of all locomotives from steam to diesel power in the preceding decade. Passenger service had been on a steady decline since 1938 when all regular service along the Santa Cruz Branch ceased. The last periodic service to run to Watsonville Junction ended entirely on April 30, 1971, when Amtrak took over passenger services.

Southern Pacific locomotive no. 5623 at Watsonville Junction, 1958. [Courtesy Derek Whaley – colorized using MyHeritage]

Although all passenger service had ceased, freight service continues through Watsonville Junction and the location remains an active switch for the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, albeit only for freight services at this time. Several freight customers in Pajaro and Watsonville use private spurs for loading cars and the Union Pacific Railroad uses yard trackage to assemble trains of perishable and non-perishable goods for transport out. The second passenger depot remained in place as an office for Southern Pacific Transportation Company staff until the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, when it was severely damaged. Though some restoration work was attempted, the building was eventually condemned and demolished on January 18, 2012. At the time, the plan was to complete environmental planning for the extension of the Bay Area transportation rail system and then erect a third depot, but this has not happened as of January 2025. A few passenger trains do pass through Watsonville Junction daily but these do not stop there. Presently, Union Pacific uses a temporary, modular building for its local offices.

Google aerial photograph of the Watsonville Junction yard, 2024.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.894091, -121.745736
100.4 miles from San Francisco
20.3 miles from Santa Cruz

Watsonville Junction remains an active rail yard for the Union Pacific Railroad. Several passenger trains still pass through the yard each week, though none presently stop there. Freight trains pass through regular while hoppers from the Graniterock quarry at Logan are often assembled in the yard, awaiting transport to southern destinations. Foundations remain for about half a dozen buildings, but almost none of the original structures remain on site. An abandoned freight platform still sits beside Salinas Road with a spur track terminating at it. All the other trackage is intact and moderately in use, including a still significant wye that, on its western side, crosses over the site of the former turntable. Two industrial leads run alongside SunRidge Farms / Falcon Trading Company and behind a number of food distributors. In the middle of the wye, four sidings eventually merge together to the east to join the mainline. Another spur runs alongside Railroad Avenue beside an 8-lane assembly area that is located further to the east, beside the two mainline tracks. Remnants of other sidings and spurs remain, some disused, others entirely disconnected, and long-term evidence of the railroad throughout the area is not difficult to discern in aerial photographs or on the ground.

Citations & Credits:

• Henry E. Bender Jr., “SP San Jose to Watsonville Junction.” December 2017.
• Margaret Clovis. Images of America: Monterey County’s North Coast and Coastal Valleys. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006.
• Erwin G. Gudde. California Place Names: The Origin and Etymology of Current Geographical Names. Fourth edition. Berkeley, CA: UC Press, 1998.
• Edward S. Harrison. History of Santa Cruz County, California. San Francisco: Pacific Press Publishing Co., 1892.
• Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene Rensch, and Ethel Grace Rensch. Historic Spots in California. Third edition. Revised by William N. Abeloe. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966.
• Betty Lewis, various articles for the Register-Pajaronian.
• Southern Pacific Railroad. Various employee timetables and station books. 1883–1996.
• S. H. Willey. Santa Cruz County, California: Illustrations Descriptive of its Scenery… San Francisco: Wallace W. Elliott & Co., 1879.

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.