1
10
43
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/9c4699c3e0dca921585f65bf6c910d51.pdf
ed845fb8c758bd33f5e39dbb11676381
PDF Text
Text
A Howling Wilderness:
Education in the Summit Road Area
By Stephen Payne
Citations in the text refer to the Selected Bibliography, Local History Article AR-219.
The devotion of the Summit settlers to their children's education was evidenced by the number
of school districts formed over this small area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. In all there were six
school districts on the mountain. The first district was Summit School, originally housed in a
private residence near the cross-roads of Summit Road and the Santa Cruz Highway in the
1870's. The school was near Schultheis Lagoon which "was a favorite spot in which to pass our
noon hour paddling around on half-submerged logs," recalled Mrs. E. H. (Loomis) Chase. The
school was finally located at a permanent location one-half mile down the Santa Cruz Highway
toward Patchen. This school house, built by Edward Martin, is now a private residence.
(40:1/2/1962; 38:/6/10/1935; 34:12/1927)
The second school on the mountain was also built in the 1870's. Lyman Burrell donated land
right on the boundaries of Santa Clara County and Santa Cruz County, for the school which
bears his name, Burrell School. In 1889 the Burrell School burned during a brush fire that
covered a large area of the mountains before finally being extinguished near the Highland
School. The Burrell School was rebuilt by local residents in 1890, and on July 4th of that year it
was given the first flag pole of any mountain school. The new school was also the first in the
mountains to have a school bell. The school is now a private residence, with the new owners
remodeling the building. (40:12 / 4 / 1961; 34:5 / 1910)
Little is known about the Wright's School, located at Wright's Station. The school served the
community of Wright's from the 1880's until 1929. The school was finally suspended
permanently in 1932 because of a general decline in the population of the Wright's area. (8)
In 1882, Miss Rose Merrill held classes in a little cottage in back of the depot building at Laurel.
The children were not subjected to tests or grades. What books that could be found were
supplied by the children. The average daily attendance was between six and fifteen students.
The teachers were paid between $55 in 1884 and $65 in 1906, but their living expenditures
�were minimal. The rent for the teacher's cottage was only $2.50 per month. The school was the
first teaching experience for many of the early teachers who were fresh out of San Jose Normal
School. In 1947 the school closed and the children were bused to Scotts Valley Union School.
(2:22-27, 33)
The first classes held at Highland School, 1881-1882 session, were held in an old Chinese ranchhand cabin. The next year Judge George Miller donated one-third acre for a new school
building. Local residents built the building and William Sears was the first teacher. In 1892 the
school census report shows twenty-two pupils in the Highland School. Of these, seven were
under five years of age, which leads one to believe that the school might have been used as a
baby-sitting service as well as an educational institution. In the 1890's faculty members from
Stanford University held summer seminars at Highland School in such subjects as economics,
history, and political science.
The April 18, 1906 earthquake damaged the school and The Realty chided the trustees for being
so slow in repairing the school. In 1914 a new school was built next to the original one. The old
school building was sold to the Farm Bureau and renamed Highland Hall. In 1971 the newer of
the two schools burned down. Presently the old school is being used as a residence.
(40:8/13/1959, 12/7/1961, 8/20/1959; 10; 34:6/1906; 44:125)
On December 1, 1906, a group of residents living in the lower section of the Highland School
District met in the home of R. S. Griffith, and Redwood Lodge Road. These neighbors were
concerned that their children had to walk a mile and a half in the rain up the hill to the Highland
School. Voting to form a new school district the parents sought the approval of the
Superintendent of Santa Cruz County Schools, C. S. Price. With Price's approval the parents built
a twenty-six by thirty-foot, one-room school costing $200. Miss C. Tempelten opened the new
Hester Creek School on September 1, 1906. (34:12/1906; 40:7/21/1959) In 1949, the Summit,
Burrell, Highland, and Hester Creek schools merged and formed a new school district, Loma
Prieta School District. Hester Creek School became the Hester Creek Community Church
(American Sunday School Union).
The constant problem facing the elected trustees of the various mountain school districts was
that the teachers did not stay long. Most of the teachers were women and for many of them
the mountain school was their first assignment. After teaching for a year or two, most went on
to other districts. In 1879, the average spent on education by each district was under $450 a
year. Figures from 1881 to 1882 reveal that the State of California's share in educating the
children of the Santa Cruz Mountains ranged between $33 and $100 annually per child, while
the County of Santa Clara apportioned $63.33 to $190 per school district. The pay for teachers
in 1892 was an average of $57.93 per month for female teachers while their male counterparts
received $96.36. Although the teacher turnover was quite high and the total spent on local
education quite low, the children were educated. Some of the former pupils continued their
education and returned to teach in the schools where they had once been students.
(34:9/1906; 46:205-206; 42;64; 33:9/3/1881)
�Source
Excerpted from Payne, Stephen Michael. A Howling Wilderness: a History of the Summit Road
Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906. Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Copyright 1978 Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
It is the library’s intent to provide accurate information, however, it is not possible for the
library to completely verify the accuracy of all information. If you believe that factual
statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please
contact the library.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Howling Wilderness: Education in the Summit Road Area
Education in the Summit Road Area
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Payne, Stephen
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
TEXT
Language
A language of the resource
EN
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-215
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Cruz (County)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Santa Cruz Mountains
Summit
Schools-Public
Highland School
Burrell School
Summit School
Wrights Station
Hester Creek School
Loma Prieta School District
Laurel School
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Excerpted from: Payne, Michael. "A Howling Wilderness: A History of the Summit Road Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906." Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1978 by Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with permission of the author.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134530#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">Selected Bibliography</a>
Education
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/f0f7b73030ae88a086557746ff3a80b7.pdf
468e652369ef691a83c32a9869276dba
PDF Text
Text
A Howling Wilderness:
Felling the Giants
By Stephen Payne
Citations in the text refer to the Selected Bibliography, Local History Article AR-219.
The first redwood tree (Sequoia Sempervirens) seen by a white man was on the Corrallitos
Creek, in what is now Santa Cruz County, in October 1769, by members of the Portola
Expedition. (62:480) One hundred years later redwood lumbering was Santa Cruz County's
largest business. (46:192-197) In 1860 Santa Cruz County lumbermen cut ten million board feet
of lumber. This was only a fraction of the total redwood supply available in the County. A
United States Agricultural Report in 1875, showed Santa Cruz County as having 52.8 % of its
land covered with redwood forests. (55:Vol. VII, 75fn.7; 57:203; 56:205) The lumber industry
served two purposes: 1) it supplied lumber for a growing California, and 2) the efforts of the
lumbermen in clearing the forest enabled settlers to come into previously-inaccessible regions
of the Santa Cruz Mountains and begin farming the land.
Although the growth of the redwood lumber business was due largely to the efforts of the
Anglo-Saxon lumbermen after the United States took possession of California in 1846, other
people before the Anglos had used the giant trees. The Costanoan Indians used large branches
or fallen trees to build their huts. Later the Spanish and Mexicans used the small trunks as roof
beams over their adobe buildings.
Between 1836 and 1840, Thomas Larkin, the United States Counsel to Mexican-held California
(Alta California), had a lumber business in Santa Cruz County. In 1838 Pedro Somsevain and
William Blackburn whipsawed lumber for Isaac Graham at his Felton lumbering site-Graham
later helped in the American takeover of California in 1846. But these early lumbering efforts
were by the slow whipsaw method as the demand was small. (55:Vol. VII, 76 Fri. 7; 3:2)
In 1840, Graham opened a water-powered lumber mill three miles above Santa Cruz on the San
Lorenzo River, near where the California Powder Works was erected in 1865. This mill had the
�first mechanical saw in Santa Cruz County. The mill was built for Graham by Peter Lassen, a
Danish blacksmith living in San Jose. (55:Vol. VII, 75 fn. 7; 44:85)
The switch from the whipsaw method to a mechanical lumber mill was the beginning of the
lumber boom that was to last in the Santa Cruz Mountains until the early 1900's. The old
whipsaw method was slow and tedious. The lumbermen worked in pairs. They would dig a
seven foot pit, deep enough for a man to stand in, and to accommodate sawdust. Then a
nearby redwood tree would be selected. A scaffold was built six to ten feet above the ground
and the men would proceed to cut the tree down, using axes, saws or a combination of the
two. The scaffold was needed because the first ten feet of a redwood is hard, with the grain
twisted and unusable. After the tree had dropped, the men would strip branches and cut the
tree into the desired finished lengths-eight, ten, twelve feet, etc. These lengths were then
dragged over the pit. One man would stand on top of the log while the other would stand in the
pit. Together they would push and pull the whipsaw up and down until the board was cut from
the log.
Although the process was slow it took very little capital to enter the lumbering business. These
men lived in cabins close to the pit during the summer and fall, until the rains came. In the
winter they would cut firewood, stakes, and other "split stuff." Little is known about these early
lumbermen for most lived lonely lives in the woods, remaining bachelors. (3:2-4)
Another early lumbering method was to fell the redwood and split lengths of lumber out of the
logs with wedges and malls. Much of the early lumber was split rather than whipsawed. (57:
203) Even after the gold rush started, many men found that they could make more money by
splitting lumber in the Santa Cruz Mountains than they could in the gold fields. Whipsawed
lumber and split lumber was worth $100 per 1000 board feet, or up to $5.00 per fourteen-inch
plank. Each tree had about 200 feet of timber.(57:203; 20:Autumn 1960; 44:141)
In the 1840's the first mechanical saws began to be used in the Santa Cruz Mountains. These
early water-powered sawmills were located on streams that had been dammed into lagoons or
ponds. An overshot waterwheel powered an up-and-down "Muley" saw. These saws were very
slow, but a vast improvement over the old whipsaw or splitting methods. The operator would
often sleep during the process, awakening when the piece of board dropped to the floor. The
operator would then reset the log and resume his slumber. Although the circular saw was
invented in 1810, by Sister Tabitha Babbit of the Harvard Shakers, it was not used in the large
lumber mills in the 1850's. By the 1850's there were very few whipsawers left in the area. The
early "Muley" mills cut 5,000 linear feet of lumber a day, equal to ten whipsawers. (55:Vol. VII,
77fn.7; 38:7/8/1934; 64:22,24,71; 3:4-5)
The early powermill business was quite risky. Unlike the low cost of a whipsawyer team or a
splitter, whose cost involved only hand saws, axes, wedges and mallets, the mills cost between
five and fifteen thousand dollars to build. Because the mills were located in deep ravines, on
creeks, the danger of a flood washing out the entire investment was always present. By the
1850's the cost of timber rights was also high and most mills required several financial backers.
�Along with the cost of the mill and mill shed, other buildings had to be built to house the large
crews necessary for full production: a cook shed, consisting of a large eating hall with kitchen
and storage; a company store, or sometimes private stores, with a post office; a meeting hall in
large camps; stable areas consisting of a barn for horses, mules, and oxen along with storage
for feed; bunkhouses or cabins for the crews; a blacksmith shop; and business buildings. All
these went into the construction of a lumber camp. Although the camps resembled small
towns, and many of the early camps eventually became towns, the company did not allow
certain amenities found in towns. Saloons were prohibited. The loggers would have to walk or
ride to the nearest town for entertainment of this nature. (3:5-7)
Large companies employed between fifty and sixty men. The men worked a long, hard, twelvehour day, with the teamsters working fifteen hours a day, since they had to feed and water the
stock in the morning and at night. The pay was $1.50 a day, and $.50 for room and board was
paid back to the company. Most of the men worked only during the dry season, but the fallers
and strippers could work the entire year.
The fallers worked in pairs. First they selected a suitable redwood tree--the trees varied in size
from six to fifteen feet in diameter and reached 200 to 250 feet in the air. Then they would
determine the direction that they would fall the redwood and prepare the area. This meant
building a cushion of small trees, brush and limbs to soften the fall of the tree-redwood is very
brittle and the trunk could easily split. Next the fallers would cut a notch six to ten feet up the
trunk to hold the scaffold used to stand on when falling the tree. After the tree fell, the
strippers would cut away all the branches and strip the bark from the tree, then cut the tree
into the proper sections-eight, ten, twelve feet, etc.
In the early spring the drag crews would start working. They would first burn all the brush,
broken trees, and limbs scattered all around the site. These fires would not penetrate the dense
logs. The drag crew would then build a skid road. These roads followed gullies downhill to the
mill site. The men would dig out a six to eight foot road bed and then bury logs, eight to ten
inches in diameter and six to eight feet long, three-quarters into the ground every few feet. A
skid greaser would then smear beef tallow on each buried log, making it easier for the oxen to
drag the cut logs down to the mill site.
The teamsters and their helpers tied cables around the logs and threaded the cable into a block
and tackle set-up that was anchored to a stout tree. Oxen would then pull the logs down to the
skid road. Several logs were then tied together in a train. Eight to ten yoke of oxen were used to
pull the train down the skid road to the mill. A teamster or "bull puncher" controlled the oxen
with a long sharp pole while the skid greaser went in front, greasing the buried logs. Men
walked alongside the train to watch the progress on turns and dangerous areas of the skid road.
A big problem was keeping the logs from going out of control on downgrades and into the
oxen.
Upon reaching the mill the logs were rolled by log jockeys into the millpond. At the mill the
superintendent oversaw the production for the owners, but the millwright ran the mill
�operation and was responsible for keeping it in good working order. The logs were floated into
position to be taken up to the saw where the sawyer made the initial cuts on the log and
controlled the speed for the entire operation-the sawyer also acted as the camp spokesman for
grievances. The edger determined the width of the boards; then the second edger, or trimmer,
cut the board into the proper lengths, from ten to sixteen feet with intervals of two feet. The
small cutoff pieces dropped beneath the saws and were carried to a large burner by camp
laborers. Eight to ten stackers took the finished lumber and put it into piles reaching twenty
feet into the air.
Finished lumber did not usually remain at the mill for long. Transportation to market was
handled by jerkline teams of five to eight pairs of horses and mules. From 2000 to 25,000 board
feet of lumber was piled on the heavy wagons and driven to market by a teamster at a cost of
$9.00 per thousand board feet.
Undated postcard from the library's
collection. The caption reads, "Hauling
Wood with Oxen Team in Santa Cruz
Mountains, Calif."
Along with the crews working in the forest and mill, other
men worked around the camp. The cookshed often was run
by a Chinese cook, who called the men to eat by banging a
large triangle or pan. The blacksmith was very important for
keeping shoes on mules, horses, and oxen. He also made
repairs on the mill machinery and made yokes for the oxen.
These yokes were cut from hardwood blocks four feet long
by eight inches square. The blocks were seasoned in water
to remove the sap, then fitted to the oxen.
Although the fallers and strippers could work all year, once
the rains began the haulers and mill hands were laid off.
Many of these men lived in company cabins during the
winter and did piece work splitting railroad ties, posts, stakes, shakes, pickets and firewood.
During the winter the men could work whenever they wanted, as they were paid by the cord or
by the thousand board foot of lumber.
Although the men worked six days a week, twelve to fifteen hours a day, when Saturday night
came they were ready to relax. The loggers would head for the nearest town with a saloon. On
Sunday morning those that were able to went to church, while the rest slept off the previous
night's revelry. On Sunday afternoon the men attended dances, picnics, feeds, and card games.
While the early "Muley" saws cut about 5,000 board feet of lumber a day, the later circular and
band saws could cut as much as 10,000 feet a day. The sawed lumber sold for $20.00 per 1000
board foot. Along with boards, the mills produced "split stuff": posts were four by six inches by
five feet long, and rails were two or three by six inches by ten to twelve feet long and both sold
for 8 cents each; pickets were two and one-half or three inches square and six and one-half feet
long and sold for $25.00 per 1000 board foot. Except for shakes, "split stuff" was used to make
fences. Pickets were driven one foot into the ground every two to three inches. Near the top a
�rail was nailed to each picket. Split boards were used to make a squirrel-tight fence in gardens
and vineyards and to cover shanties.
In the 1880's the South Pacific Coast Railroad was built through the Santa Cruz Mountains. The
advent of train service allowed men to live with their families near the depots. Train service
also made transportation to market of the cut lumber quicker.
The development of the steam donkey allowed the mills to keep up with the new faster pace
demanded by the railroad. A steam donkey was a mechanical cable winch. It was powered by
steam produced by a boiler fueled with cordwood and water. The steam donkey moved logs on
hillsides and skid roads quicker than oxen. It could also be easily moved to the next site by
attaching a cable to a stable tree and letting the winch reel in the cable, thus pulling the
machine along.(3:8-22; 51:3-5; 40:7/1959; 20:Spring 1958, 4; 14)
Although the early pioneer farmers in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains cut and
split lumber for their own use and sometimes to sell, they were not primarily occupied by the
lumber business. The first full-time lumbermen in the Summit area were Stephen "Si" Hall
Chase and his cousin, Josiah W. Chase.
The Chases left Maine in 1859 on the three-masted schooner, the Golden Rucket. Sailing
around Cape Horn they arrived in San Francisco on May 18, 1859, and immediately headed for
the Santa Cruz Mountains. They worked as laborers in the lumber camps around Lexington and
Alma, in the lower Santa Cruz Mountains. On April 15, 1863, they bought about 146 acres from
Lyman Burrell for $100 (6) and built a mill and lumber yard on Summit Road. The Chases began
to cut timber and make lumber on their land, becoming the first lumber company to transport
lumber from Santa Cruz County to San Jose. After cutting a section of land they would sow hay
to help feed their working animals. The lumber business grew rapidly resulting in four mills on
various parts of the mountain.
In 1878, the Chases moved their finishing mill into San Jose and by 1885, had one of the largest
industries in the area. This mill turned out fruit boxes, drying trays, doors, sashes, and other
products of mill work.
When Stephen Chase's brother, Foster, came to California he lived on Summit Road and
engaged in farming. Foster Chase improved the Chase ranch by planting prune orchards in the
1880's and 1890's.(20:Home Coming 1959; 5; 40:12/18/1961; 34:12/1927)
William A. Young was another of the early lumber pioneers in the mountains. In 1870, he
operated a mill at the foot of Highland Way for the Chase Lumber Company. From 1873 to
1874, Young ran the mill at the future site of Wright's Station. Young also ran a mill from 1878
to 1880 at the foot of Hall Road (intersection of Summit and Skyland Roads). (40:7/28/1959,
12/18/1961)
�Below the present Stetson Road, off the San Jose-Soquel Road, Jerd Comstock built a lumber
mill in 1878. Like many of these early lumbermen, Comstock had to build his own roads in order
to reach his mill site. In 1880, Comstock moved the mill one mile up the hill, building a road one
and one-half miles long above Hester Creek. This road, still in evidence, took off from the San
Jose-Soquel stage road, across from the future site of the Hester School, and ended up threequarters of a mile below the present site of The Willows (at the intersections of Stetson,
Skyland and Long-ridge Roads on the Amaya Creek). This mill was used for two years. In 1881,
Jerd Comstock sold his mill to Charles "Mountain Charley" Henry McKieman who ran the mill
for two years before abandoning the site.(40:7/16/1959, 7/21/1959; 7/23/1959) In 1884,
Adams and McKeown operated a mill south of The Willows. William A. Young had the logging
contract for the mill. (40:8/4/1959) Smaller mills contracted out various phases of the logging
operations rather than having to employ large crews.
Hiram Morrell and his brother, Brad, owned a large ranch in the Summit area and built a mill on
the west branch of the Soquel (Laurel) Creek. They used Schultheis Road to get to the mill site.
(40:12/7/196 1)
In 1893, Franch and Miracle opened a new mill at the original Comstock site. In 1897, they
moved one mile up the hill for a second cutting. This mill worked until 1900. (40:7/16/1959)
From 1894 to 1899, William A. Young operated a box and shingle miII near the SkylandHighland area. The mill supplied fruit boxes to local farmers. In 1900, Young sold the mill to
Daniel M. Lawrence.
Daniel M. Lawrence was born on January 2, 1827, in Ohio. A veteran of the Mexican War,
Lawrence came to California in the early Gold Rush Days, becoming a gold miner and later a
hunter and trapper in the Rocky Mountains. Before coming to the Santa Cruz Mountains,
Lawrence returned to Ohio where he married and lived for several years. In 1870, he and his
wife, Lucinda, settled in the Santa Cruz Mountains. With his son, Harry F. Lawrence, he
operated the box and shingle mill near Skyland until he died on December 31, 1910. His son,
Harry, ran an advertisement to sell the mill in The Realty, in 1911, but did not sell it. Finally
about 1914, he moved the mill to Wright's where he and Tom Lindsay operated it.
(40:7/16/1959; 34:1/1911, 6/1911)
In 1880, the South Pacific Coast Railroad depot at Laurel became the most important shipping
point for lumber in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The South Pacific Coast Railroad operated a
lumber mill at Laurel during the construction of the line from 1877-1880. The mill produced
timbers for the many tunnels and railroad ties for the road bed. Laurel was also the main
storage point for firewood used to fire the steam boilers of the railroad engines.
In 1899, Fredrick A. Hihn opened a mill near Laurel. Hihn was born on August 16, 1829, at
Holzminden, Dutchy of Brunswick, Germany. As a young man he was trained as a merchant
gathering herbs for market. In April, 1849, in the company of sixty political refugees, Hihn set
sail on the brig Reform, from Bremen, around Cape Horn to California. Landing in San Francisco
�on October 12, 1849, Hihn and his fellow travelers set out for the gold country, where a storm
destroyed all the company's supplies. Hihn went into business in Sacramento, but again a storm
destroyed his holdings. He engaged in another business in Sacramento and, upon that failure,
moved to San Francisco where he opened a drug store. Again disaster struck, and it was
destroyed by a fire in 1851.
Leaving San Francisco, Hihn walked to Santa Cruz with a backpack holding all his possessions.
Entering Santa Cruz as a poor country tinker in October of 1851, Hihn quickly became a financial
success through various business interests throughout the county. By 1860, Hihn bought 404
acres of timber in the Soquel Augmentation Rancho and opened a mill at Laurel in 1899.
Hihn's steam-powered bandsaw at Laurel produced 50,000 board feet of lumber a day. Located
close to the railroad depot at Laurel, Hihn had a railroad spur track built down to the mill on the
Soquel Creek. Although a railroad engine could not pull the lumber up the steep bank of the
spur line, a steam donkey provided the necessary power, thus eliminating the need for the old
heavy lumber wagons hauling the lumber to the railroad depot.
After the 1906 earthquake, which damaged the railroad tunnels, Hihn's mill used the old
jerkline wagon teams to transport lumber from Laurel down the hill to Los Gatos where the
lumber was loaded on freight cars and shipped on to the great rebuilding effort at San
Francisco. The lumber company operated in Laurel until 1913, a year after Hihn's death. The
lumber supply had run out and the mill was closed.(38:6/10/1934; 48:126, 173, 227-228;
47:146)
In the summer of 1899, a fire destroyed a large portion of the Summit area. The home of
Josephine Clifford McCrackin, a well-known California writer and poet, was in the path of the
flames and was consumed. After the ordeal was over McCrackin, realizing that the native
redwood forests were being destroyed, not only by fire but by the many logging operations,
wrote articles published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, calling for conservation of the great forests.
She enlisted the help of Andrew P. Hill, a noted artist and photographer, who had taken
pictures of the fire's destruction. Together with many Summit residents, McCrackin and Hill
formed the Sempervirens Club. The club, dedicated to the preservation of the redwood forests,
was helped by the Native Sons and Daughters and the California Pioneer Society. They appealed
to the California State Legislature for the creation of parks to protect the redwoods. The result,
in 1902, was the creation of the first California redwood park, now known as Big Basin State
Park, located near Boulder Creek in the northern part of Santa Cruz County. (38:5/27/1934;
62:480)
In 1906, The Realty began a series of articles written by local Summit residents asking Frederick
Hihn to stop lumbering the Soquel Creek area in Laurel. (34:11/1906) Little heed was paid the
"do-gooders" by the lumbermen and they continued to log the area. Soon, however, there
were no more trees left to cut and the lumbermen were forced to close their mills and leave
the area.
�Source
Excerpted from Payne, Stephen Michael. A Howling Wilderness: a History of the Summit Road
Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906. Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Copyright 1978 Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
It is the library’s intent to provide accurate information, however, it is not possible for the library
to completely verify the accuracy of all information. If you believe that factual statements in a
local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Howling Wilderness: Felling the Giants
Felling the Giants
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Payne, Stephen
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
TEXT
Language
A language of the resource
EN
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-218
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Cruz (County)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Santa Cruz Mountains
Summit
Lumbering
Mills-Lumber
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Excerpted from: Payne, Michael. "A Howling Wilderness: A History of the Summit Road Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906." Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1978 by Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with permission of the author.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134530#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">Selected Bibliography</a>
Industries
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/55f9821c8ec7c80251c1884a1ccf3461.pdf
45d0d16db2a61e074af0fd48d4b46a64
PDF Text
Text
A Howling Wilderness:
Resorts in the Summit Road Area
By Stephen Payne
Citations in the text refer to the Selected Bibliography, Local History Article AR-219.
Hotel de Redwood, the first hotel in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains, was built in
1859, at the time that the San Jose-Soquel Road was being built. The hotel was about twelve
miles from Soquel above the later site of Redwood Lodge Road and four miles from the summit.
The original owner, a "Yankee", built his home, store and several guest rooms into live redwood
trees and stumps. Tourists came via the San Jose-Santa Cruz Stage Line to stay at the unique
hotel and take refreshment from the sulphur spring. The tourists were also able to enjoy the
excellent hunting and fishing nearby.
As the hotel was a stage stop, it also served as a post office for local residents from June 3, 1879
to October 16, 1882. With the hotel's increased popularity, the owners had to build additional
rooms and the old redwood tree gave way to a hotel with two stories and ten rooms with a
balcony. This structure burned down in 1885, one year after Myron S. Cox bought it. Cox rebuilt
the hotel to accommodate 110 people with the use of tents in the summer season. This
structure was destroyed in 1903, also by fire, after another owner, a Mr. Fitzgerald had bought
it. Fitzgerald rebuilt the hotel and Messrs. Dickey and Jay managed it. The second story was
knocked off and slid down the hill during the 1906 earthquake. With new owners, Mr. and Mrs.
A. J. Waltz, the hotel was rebuilt only to be again destroyed by fire. The hotel was rebuilt for the
last time and included a store and cottages, along with a gasoline station which was added in
the 1930's. This structure burned in 1953. Little is present on the property to indicate that a
hotel was ever on the site, save for the remains of the gasoline pumping island. (33:5/9/1874;
62:478; 40:8/6/1959; 34:6/1906, 10/1906, 6/1907, 4/1927)
About a half a mile down the San Jose-Soquel Road from the Hotel de Redwood, was the old
Terrace Grove Hotel. This establishment was first called either "Bonny Blink" or "Blink Bonny".
The unusual name derived from the vast view to Santa Cruz, Monterey, and the Pacific Ocean
�that the hotel boasted. The hotel served as an early stage stop and tourist resort. The hotel's
basement held a large barn for horses while the upper floors housed the hotel guests. During
the 1906 earthquake the hotel suffered some damage but the owner, R. S. Griffith, rebuilt it,
adding a third story and remodeling the basement. (40:8/4/1959; 62:477-478; 34:6/1906)
In 1872 Reverend James Richard Wright built the Arbor Villa Hotel, across Summit Road from
the Burrell residence, on the corner of Summit Road and Loma Prieta Avenue. The hotel served
as both the Wright's home and as a resort hotel. The hotel and residence was destroyed in the
1906 earthquake. After the Wrights rebuilt it, the new building served only as a residence as the
resort and hotel business was declining in the mountains. (62:456; 34:6/1906
In the 1880's Judge George Miller was forced to build the Hotel Miltonmont to house his many
friends when they visited from the valley. Miller's hotel was located on the Skyland ridge at the
corner of Miller Hill and Miller Cut-off Roads. Judge Miller's son, Anson, operated the resort
after his father retired until the Tre Monte Corporation purchased the property in 1930. The
new owners changed the name to Tre Monte and operated a mental hospital there for many
years. Like many other structures, the building shifted on its mudsill foundation during the 1906
earthquake, but was realigned with the use of house jacks. It is presently a private residence.
(40:8/11/1959; 34:6/1906)
The most famous resort in the Santa Cruz Mountain area was The Willows. In 1886, Donald
Beadel, a wealthy Pacific coast shipper, bought the land located at the junctions of Stetson,
Skyland, and Long Ridge Roads, from Frederic A. Hihn, the lumber czar of Santa Cruz. Beadel
built a large house and cottages on his property, surrounded by an impressive garden. A Mrs.
Hannon operated the summer resort until a Mrs. Holt bought the property. In 1904, Beadel's
son, Alex, married Mrs. Holt's daughter and started making improvements to the property.
Along with an impressive English country house and summer cabins, Alex Beadel built the
largest, privately-owned, indoor swimming pool in the United States at that time. Eastern
newspapers featured the pool, establishment, and extensive exotic gardens as the showplace of
the mountains. (38:6/10/1934; 40:7/30/1959)
In 1887, Fred Loomis, who had moved to the Summit area in 1882, built the Summit Hotel. This
hotel, sitting on the crest of the ridge, was an immediate success. Patrons traveled from the San
Francisco Bay area of the Santa Clara Valley on the train to Wright's Station where buggies
picked them up and drove them on up the mountain. Along with the usual walking trails and
gardens, the hotel boasted a croquet field. Fred Loomis sold the hotel to Mr. A. N. Nichols in
1891 after his wife's death. Nichols operated the hotel until 1910 when it was converted to a
private residence. (16:3/13/1966; 38:4/29/1934; 40:12/14/1961)
In the late 1880's Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Cotton built a hotel that catered to Califomia's literary
society. Harald Frend described the hotel as a "Bohemian Bungalow" in the Overland Monthly,
the magazine in which most of the writers and poets were published. Such notables as Jack
London, George Sterling, Ambrose Bierce, Herman Scheffauer, and Mark Twain journeyed to
Wright's Station on the railroad, then either walked or rode in a hotel buggy up the hill to
�Bohemia. The main reason that they were attracted to this hotel was it was located on Loma
Prieta Avenue and a colleague of theirs, Josephine Clifford McCrackin, lived at the end of the
avenue. The old hotel is still standing, although now abandoned. (38:5/6/1934; 34:12/1927
The remaining four hotels on the Summit were: the Jeffries Hotel, located above Bohemia (It
was just torn down in 1975.); the Woodwardia Hotel, built in 1911 by Mr. and Mrs. Rucker and
located on the Santa Cruz Highway near Summit Road (the hotel was named after the giant
ferns found growing in shaded spots all over the mountains); the Edgement, located in Patchen
and operated by Mr. and Mrs. L. N. Scott; and the Anchorage. (40:1/2/1962) An advertisement
placed in The Realty by the owners of the Anchorage, could have been referring to any of the
early hotels:
"Spend your vacation in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Anchorage is the place to rest
and recuperate. Situated midway between San Jose and Santa Cruz on the Soquel road.
Beautiful new rustic cottages, well furnished for housekeeping. Cottages stand on a fine
open plateau, surrounded by hundreds of acres of beautiful redwood, madrone and oak
timber. Splendid walks and drives through the woods. The best of spring water piped to
each cottage. Altitude 1,900 feet. Public hall and church adjoin the place. Long distance
telephone near. Hunting, fishing, croquet, tennis, shooting gallery, swimming pool and
other amusements. Branch store will be opened for benefit of guests. Butcher calls
three times a week. Rural mail delivery. Horses boarded. Magnificent camping grounds
at a nominal rental. No consumptives. Entirely new management. Trains met at Alma.
Write in advance for accomodations. Address The Anchorage, Wrights, Santa Clara Co.,
Cal. " (34:2/1905)
The Southern Pacific Railroad Company established Sunset Park at Wright's in the 1890's as a
weekend tourist attraction. To attract the weekend business the company cut the usual rate
from $5.00 to $3.00. This move increased trade and on busy weekends several trains, each
hauling ten cars with fifty people per car, would climb the mountain grade to Wright's and take
the spur siding a few hundred yards to Sunset Park. As many as 5000 tourists made the trip to
Sunset Park on the "Picnic Trains". Once at the park they were greeted with beer and such food
as French bread, cheese, salami, and barbecued lamb. The site consisted of picnic tables,
barbeque pits, cabins, and hiking trails, with electric Japanese lanterns strung overhead. Most
of the visitors came from the Bay area and included many national groups as well as fraternal
organizations, such as the Foresters, who came from all over the state.
Too much to drink often resulted in fighting, both at the park and on the train going home. The
train trip back to the Bay area resembled a small war on wheels. Windows were kicked out to
enable the drunken mob to have elbow or breathing-room.
"When the last empty flask had been hurled from the windows at whatever target
presented itself--horses, wagons, or ladies with immense bonnets-seat railings,
spittoons, chunks of wood from the stove and even doorknobs were removed and
thrown."
�People with too much to drink fell or were thrown off the train on the homeward journey.
Policemen who foolishly attempted to quell the mob "arrived at hospitals with their badges
pinned to the seats of their trousers." (48:185; 47-51; 38:5/13/1934)
From the 1880's to the early 1900's campers, going into the mountains or over to Santa Cruz on
school vacations, blocked the roads with their numerous horse-drawn vehicles. At the height of
the season as many as seventy-five teams would be waiting to travel over the grade to Santa
Cruz.
Other families would arrive in Wrights or Laurel on the Saturday train where they would be
picked up by the hotel buggies and transported to the resorts. The husbands would help the
family settle in at the resorts and then return to the Bay area on Sunday. They would return to
the mountains on the next weekend and rejoin their families. The cost per vacationing family
was $7.00 a week for board and room.
Young men from the mountains would come to the resorts in hope of finding a young lady with
whom to take a moonlit ride. Those that had access to their parents' buggy had the advantage.
Dances were held to amuse both the vacationers and the local inhabitants. Walter Young
recalled that when he was in a singing group, the group "had lots of fun, and two songs were
always good for a handout." (40:8/6/1959)
With the advent of reliable automobile travel, the resorts in the Santa Cruz Mountains no
longer drew large crowds in the tourist season. Sunset Park was closed in 1910 and the other
resorts and hotels quickly followed suit. The vacationing tourists would travel farther and
farther away--to Lake Tahoe, Yosemite, and other places even more distant.
Source
Excerpted from Payne, Stephen Michael. A Howling Wilderness: a History of the Summit Road
Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906. Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Copyright 1978 Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
It is the library’s intent to provide accurate information, however, it is not possible for the library
to completely verify the accuracy of all information. If you believe that factual statements in a
local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Howling Wilderness: Resorts in the Summit Road Area
Resorts in the Summit Road Area
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Payne, Stephen
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
TEXT
Language
A language of the resource
EN
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-216
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Cruz (County)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Santa Cruz Mountains
Summit
Hotels and Boarding Houses
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Excerpted from: Payne, Michael. "A Howling Wilderness: A History of the Summit Road Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906." Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1978 by Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with permission of the author.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134530#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">Selected Bibliography</a>
Hotels Camps Etc.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/b947beaa3e41a4340f646c225dea267e.pdf
9fc91afa2f9f15f6a6391e465301b1ee
PDF Text
Text
A Howling Wilderness:
Selected Bibliography
By Stephen Payne
Manuscript Collections
1. Colegrove, George Lewis. The Life Story of George L. Colegrove, Pioneer Californian; Stage
Driver and Railroad Man, As Told by Himself. ed. George H. Hildebrand. Original memoirs
dictated Fall 1932, edited 1974 (typewritten).
2. Hall, Mildred N. "Mountain Memories: A Brief History of Laurel." Laurel, 1966 (typewritten).
3. Pine, Larry. "Lumbering in the Santa Cruz Mountains." Santa Cruz, May 1973 (typewritten).
4. Stuart, Reginald R. ed., The Burrell Letters; Including Excerpts from Birney Burrell's Diary and
"Reminiscences of an Octogenarian. California Historical Society Quarterly vol. 28, no. 4 and vol.
29,nos. I and 2 (1949-1950); reprint ed., Oakland: By the Author,Westgate Press, 1950.
5. Winther, Oscar Osburn. "The Express and Stagecoach Business in California." Ph.D.
dissertation, Stanford University, 1934.
Documents
6. Abstract of Title of Lyman J. Burrell in and to Lot 24 of the Soquel Augmentation Rancho,
Santa Cruz, California. The copy used was copied from the original- prepared by H. E. McKinney,
County Recorder for Santa Cruz County for Mary B. Smith, who added the title search from
Santa Clara County-prepared by Samuel P. Howes. The copy was completed on March 13, 1882.
7. Fremont, John. "Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, In Illustration of his Map of
Oregon and California." Senate Misc. No. 148, 30th Cong., 1st sess., 1848; reprinted, San
Francisco: Book Club of California, 1964.
�8. Santa Clara County School Directory; 1928-1929 and 1931-1932. Directory in Santa Clara
County Schools Library.
9. Santa Cruz County Records of Marriages, vo. I, p. 2.
10."School Census Marshal's Report: Highland School District." Santa Clara County, 28 May
1892. Located in Santa Clara County Schools Office Library.
11. Scrapbook of the Santa Clara County Public Library. Located in Santa Clara County Public
Library Office.
12. Young, Walter. "History of Skyland Community Church." Los Gatos: Skyland Community
Church (mimeographed).
Journals, Newspapers, Articles
13. Addicott, James E. Santa Cruz Sentinel, 12/27/1950.
14. Alta California, 12/22/1860.
15. Baldwin, Warren. "The Santa Cruz Mountain Summit Community." News and Notes of the
Santa Cruz Historical Society, 2/1962 and I0/ 1962.
16. Barrett, Dick. San Jose Mercury News, 3 / 13 / 1966.
17. Burrell, Lyman J. "Recollections of an Octogenarian," Mountain Echoes 12/31/18814/1/1882.
18. Calloway, Henry J. "Mexican Band-Aids for Charley." The Trailblazer, Vol. XIII (Fall 1973): 3-5.
19. Collidge, Susan. Scribner's Monthly, May 1873. Quoted in Santa Cruz Sentinel, 5/10/1873.
20. Frontier Gazette, 12/21/1957; Autumn 1960; Spring 1958; Home Coming 1959.
21. Houghton, Dick. "SP's Picnic Line." Trains, Vol. VIII (7/1948): 47-51.
22. James, George Wharton. "The Romantic History of Josephine Clifford McCrackin." Out West
n.s. Vol. V (6/1913):340-351; Vol. VI (7-8/1913):30-46; Vol. VI (9 / 1913):107-110.
23. The Laurel Bulletin, 6/l/1915.
24. McCrackin, Josephine Clifford. Article published in Santa Cruz County: Resources,
Advantages, Objects of Interest. 1887. Quoted in News and Notes from the Santa Cruz Historical
Society, Vol. XXIII (IO/ 1962).
�25. The Morning Call (San Francisco), I/ 17 / 1892.
26. Mountain Echoes, 12/31/1881-11/25/1882.
27. "The Mountain Ride." Santa Cruz Sentinel, 5/16/1874.
28. Pierce, Marjorie. "Socially Yours." San Jose Mercury News, 10/14/1973; 10/21/1973.
29. The Pioneer (San Jose), 3/16/1878.
30. San Jose Mercury Herald, 4 / 22 / 1934; 6 / 10 / 1934; 8 / 25 / 1936.
31. San Jose News, 9/l/1936.
32. San Jose Weekly Mercury, 5/7/1874.
33. Santa Cruz Sentinel, 5/2/1874; 5/9/1874; 9/3/ 1881; 4/4/1884; I/ 11/1976.
34. The Skyland Mountain Realty, 2/1906; 6,7,9,10,11,12/1906; 6/1907; 5,6/1910; 1,6/1911;
6/1917; 2,5,9/1918; 5/1919; 12/1920; 1/1921; 5/1922; 11/1926; 4,12/1927.
35. Winther, Oscar Osburn. "Stage-Coach Service in Northern California, 1849-52. The Pacific
Historical Review Vol. III (6/1934): 387-399.
36. -----. "Stage-Coach Days in California: Reminiscences of H. C. Ward." California Historical
Society Quarterly Vol. XIII (9/1934): 255-261.
37. -----. "The Story of San Jose, 1777-1869." California Historical Society Quarterly Vol. XIV
(3/1936): 160-173.
38. Young, John V. "Ghost Towns of the Santa Cruz Mountains." San Jose Mercury Herald, 4/227/22/1934.
39. Young, Walter. "Short History of Roads in Loma Prieta-Skyland Area." Mountain Echo Vol. I
(5/1954): 22-23.
40. ----. "Memoirs of Walter Young," Los Gatos Times-Observer, 7/14/1959- 9 / 2 / 1959 and I I /
27 / 1961-1 / 2 / 1962.
Monographs and Special Studies
41. Bruntz, George G. The History of Los Gatos: Gem of the Foothills. Fresno: Valley Publishers,
1971.
�42. Elliott, Wallace W. History of Santa Cruz County, California. San Francisco: Wallace W. Elliott
and Company, 1879.
43. Foote, H. S. Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World or Santa Clara County, California.
Chicago: Lewis Publishing Company, 1888.
44. Francis, Phil. Beautiful Santa Cruz County. San Francisco: H. S. Crocker Company, 1896.
45. Hall, Frederic. History of San Jose and Surroundings. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft and
Company, 1871.
46. Harrison, Edward S. History of Santa Cruz County, California. San Francisco: Pacific Press
Publishing Company, 1892.
47. Koch, Margaret. Santa Cruz County: Parade of the Past. Fresno: Valley Publishers, 1973.
48. MacGregor, Bruce A. South Pacific Coast. Berkeley: Howell-North Books, 1968.
49. Martin, Edward. History of Santa Clara County. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911.
50.Munro-Fraser, J. P. History of Santa Clara County. San Francisco: Alley, Bowen and Company,
1881.
51. Patten, Phyllis Bertorelli. ed. by Elizabeth Spedding Calciano. Oh, That Reminds Me....
Felton, California: Big Trees Press, 1969.
52. Quinn, J. M. History of the State of California and Biographical Record of Coast Counties,
California. Chicago: Chapman Publishing Company, 1904.
53. Rambo, Ralph. Pioneer Blue Book of the Old Santa Clara Valley. San Jose: Rosicrucian Press,
1973.
54. Sawyer, Eugene T. History of Santa Clara County, California. Los Angeles: Historic Record
Company, 1922.
General Works
55. Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft: History of California. 7 vols.
San Francisco: The History Company, 1886-1890; reprint ed., Santa Barbara: Wallace Hubberd,
1970.
56. Bean, Walton. California: An Interpretive History. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw- Hill Book
Company, 1973.
�57. Caughey, John W. California: A Remarkable State's History, 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice-Hall Incorporated, 1970.
58. Davis, Ellis A. Davis' Commercial Encyclopedia of the Pacific Southwest. Oakland: Ellis A.
Davis, 1911-1915.
59. Fremont, John Charles. Memoirs of My Life. 2 vols. Chicago: Belford, Clarke and Company,
1887.
60. Fricksted, Walter N. compiler. A Century of California Post Offices: 1848-54. Oakland:
Philatelic Research Society Publications, 1955.
61. Harper, Franklin. ed., Who's Who on the Pacific Coast. Los Angeles: Harper Publishing
Company, 1913.
62. Hoover, Mildred Broode; Rensch, Hero Eugene; and Rensch, Ethel Grace. Historic Spots in
California. 3rd ed. Revised by William N. Abeloe. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966.
63. Melendy, H. Brett, and Gilbert, Benjamin F. The Governors of California: Peter H. Burnett to
Edmund G. Brown. Georgetown, California: The Talisman Press, 1965.
64. Shea, John G. The American Shakers and Their Furniture. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company, 1971.
65. Turrell, Charles B. Catalogue of the Products of California by the Southern Pacific Company,
at the North, Central, and South American Exposition, New Orleans, November 16th, 1885, to
April 1st 1886. New Orleans: Press of W. B. Stanbury and Company, 1886.
66. Winther, Oscar Osbum. Express and Stagecoach Days in California. Stanford: Stanford Press,
1936.
Source
Excerpted from Payne, Stephen Michael. A Howling Wilderness: a History of the Summit Road
Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906. Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Copyright 1978 Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
It is the library’s intent to provide accurate information, however, it is not possible for the library
to completely verify the accuracy of all information. If you believe that factual statements in a
local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Howling Wilderness: Selected Bibliography
Selected Bibliography
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Payne, Stephen
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
TEXT
Language
A language of the resource
EN
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-219
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Cruz (County)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Santa Cruz Mountains
Summit
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Excerpted from: Payne, Michael. "A Howling Wilderness: A History of the Summit Road Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906." Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1978 by Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with permission of the author.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/de80b293391129d77d1e511db1db9234.pdf
a85f687d0c8528b09388fc0216c683cb
PDF Text
Text
A Howling Wilderness:
Stagecoach Days in the Mountains
By Stephen Payne
Citations in the text refer to the Selected Bibliography, Local History Article AR-219.
The roads over the Santa Cruz Mountains served not only the settlers and loggers living and
working on the summit, but also provided the means by which people could travel to and from
Santa Cruz or San Jose via the stagecoach. The early organized road companies quickly saw the
benefit of stage travel and encouraged use by the various stage companies of the day.
The first stagecoach line in California was established by John Whistman in the autumn of 1849.
This line operated between San Francisco and San Jose, with the latter city serving as its
headquarters. The fare for the nine hour trip was two ounces of gold or $32.00. The line ran an
old French omnibus with mules and mustangs pulling the coach. With the first winter rain the
operation came to a halt due to the poor road conditions. During the winter the line ran from
San Jose to Alviso, where passengers caught the ferry to San Francisco. With spring weather the
line went back to full service between San Francisco and San Jose. (36:255-256; 45:236-237;
55:Vol. VII,151)
As the years progressed other entrepreneurs established lines throughout California. The first
service connecting Santa Cruz and San Jose was established in 1854. The line ran from Santa
Cruz to San Juan Bautista, then on to San Jose. Passengers going on to San Francisco stayed
overnight before continuing on to the steamboat landing at Alviso. This line soon had an
opposition line running from Santa Cruz to Soquel, then to Watsonville and over the Pajaro
Turnpike mountain road into Gilroy and on to San Jose. (49:27; 62:477)
In 1855 the California Stage Company was awarded the United States mail contract between
San Jose and Santa Cruz, which paid $1,000 annually. The California Stage Company's fare was
$5.00 from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. (5:231; 66:94) The California Stage Company went out
�of business on March 1, 1855, but local employees in Santa Cruz formed the Pacific Express
Company, operating the same route from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. (66:125)
Another stage route to San Jose was established in 1857. This route started in downtown Santa
Cruz, crossed the San Lorenzo River at the Water Street Bridge and went up Graham Grade,
past where the Pasatiempo Golf Course is now located, to Abraham Hendricks' stage stop in
Scotts Valley. At Hendricks' two horses were added to the four-horse team for the journey up
the mountain grade to Station Ranch, owned by Charles Christopher Martin, and then on up the
mountain to Mountain Charley's stage stop, owned by Charles McKiernan. (62:477) From
Mountain Charley's the route went down the mountain to Patchen, Alma, Lexington (where the
two additional horses were left off), Los Gatos, and on to San Jose.
In 1858 Frederic A. Hihn joined together with other Santa Cruz businessmen to form a joint
stock stage company. The new stage route went from Santa Cruz to Soquel, then up the San
Jose-Soquel Road to "Bonny Blink" Hotel at Terrace Grove Road. From there the stage had
another stop less than a mile up the road at the old Hotel de Redwood. (62:477) From this point
the line went over the Morrell Cut-off to Summit Road and on to Patchen. From there it
followed the stage route to San Jose. One stage line ran daily, while the other ran tri-weekly
carrying the mail. (5:250 fn.24, 266)
A description of the early stage drivers' duties was written by Lucy Foster Sexton:
"The stages stopped at the towns with post offices, leaving the mail in boxes
between. Driving up to farmers' boxes on tall polls, the bundles were thrown in, much
as it is done on the rail road. The school children furnished the delivery."
These early stages were "gaudily painted" and pulled by four horses which were changed every
fifteen miles at a saloon or hotel, and handled by lively drivers. (37:161)
In 1850 Warren Hall and Jared B. Crandall bought out Whistman's stage line. The new owners
purchased Mud-wagons and horses from William Beeks who had brought them across the
plains. (Mudwagons were light weight coaches designed for the winter roads, not for comfort.)
(36:256) The following year Hall traveled to Concord, New Hampshire, and purchased several
Concord coaches from the Abbott-Downing Company. These new coaches were added to Hall's
and Crandall's stage line because the earlier coaches were not much more than buckboard
wagons of various sizes and descriptions. Although the Concord coaches were the latest
innovation in travel, the coaches were too heavy for winter roads, which were hardly more than
one mud hole after another. During the winter months the mud wagons were used even
though many of the mountain roads were totally impassable. The Concord coaches (For a
detailed description of these coaches see 35:392-393.) were used in the spring after the roads
dried out, and in the summer until the first autumn rains came. (36:258,260 fn. 17)
The Concord coaches seated nine passengers on the inside and eight on top. In good weather
the favored position was next to the colorful driver. Those so honored were expected to treat
�the driver with drinks and cigars on the road. At the stations the drivers drank for free, although
the drivers were seldom drunk on the road. They were considered to be sober and dependable
men. (35:392-393; 36:257,259 fn. 13)
N. C. Adams, one of the most accommodating drivers on the Santa Cruz Mountain route, while
making up for lost time one day was stopped by a lady, who, after calling to him went back into
her house. Thinking that the woman was going to fetch a package, Adams waited. After five
minutes, Adams climbed off the stage and knocked at the door, calling out,
"Madame, ain't you pretty near ready?"
Hurrying to the door the embarrassed woman replied,
"Oh, Mr. Driver, I ain't going on the stage, but I want to send a roll of butter to San
Jose and it's nearly come. Won't you wait till I finish it?"
With that, Adams swallowed a quid of tobacco to distract his own attention, and waited.
Another driver, Sid Conover, had the self-appointed duty of supplying stamps to the ladies on
his route, who "'didn't have a stamp in the house. " (44:81)
One of the most famous drivers on the mountain route was Charley Parkhurst, who drove over
the mountain roads about 1868. The story of this driver is well known. Like all stage drivers,
Parkhurst wore a heavy muffler, gloves, a buffalo skin coat and cap, and blue jeans-turned up to
reveal cuffs of an expensive pair of trousers worn under the jeans. Also, like other drivers,
Parkhurst had a sharp throaty whistle, used like a horn to warn others that the stage was just
around a sharp corner. For these reasons she was able to hide her identity until her death.
(38:6/24/1934)
The drive over the Santa Cruz Mountains was more than merely a means of conveyance from
one point to another. The ride was also a form of entertainment, similar to rafting down a river
or other dangerous sports today. The ride was described in the May 1873 issue of Scribner's
Monthly by Susan Coolidge:
"From San Jose, a day's staging over the summit of the Coast Range brings you to
Santa Cruz, the favorite watering-place of California. I would advise any one with a few
spare day's at command, to take this excursion, if only for the sake of the ride over the
mountain, which is wonderfully fine. Flower-lovers should not fail to do so, for such
roses, geraniums, jeasamines, and passion-flowers grow nowhere else as run riot in
every little garden in Santa Cruz." (19)
Another description of the mountain route appeared in the Santa Cruz Sentinel on May 16,
1874, titled "The Mountain Ride:"
�"The ride across the Santa Cruz Mountains is one of the most attractive stage trips in
California. The roads from Santa Clara to Santa Cruz command some very picturesque
views. . . . Ward & Colegrove's Concord coaches meet the morning train from San
Francisco at Santa Clara. Passengers reach Santa Cruz in time for dinner the same day.
From Santa Clara depot to the base of the Mountains at Santa Cruz Gap, the route lays
across one of the most fascinating portions of the Santa Clara Valley. . . . The passage
through Santa Cruz Gap introduces a change in the scene. . . . The Gap looks like a weird
canyon both walls of which are rocky and rugged. It is a slight grade for the coach and
the six horses have an easy thing of it climbing up the timber skirted slopes. . . . On the
summit fourteen miles from Santa Clara and just before reaching the well-known abode
of Mountain Charley, the landscape expands and stretches out to such proportions that
the eye is lost in the vastness of the scene. Far below, over the tops of the redwood
trees an enchanting view of the Bay of Monterey is obtained. It is the distant silver lining
to a cloud of forest-crowned hills. The ride now becomes exciting. Ward, a veteran
among California stage coach veterans, handles the reins over six splendid and surefooted animals. Under his skillful guidance these horses seem to fly as they whirl the
coach down steep hills, and around the shortest of curves. His partner Colegrove, drives
the stage on the alternate days, and his fame as a driver is not second to Ward's. Both
are artists in their time and with either on the box there is no danger on the
mountainous path."(27)
The coaches, horses, and drivers that traveled the Santa Cruz Mountain stage routes from the
1850's to the 1880's were part of a wild and exciting era. Two of the drivers mentioned in the
last account left memoirs, Henry C. Ward and George Lewis Colegrove. Ward's account deals
with other phases of early California staging, but Colegrove's account as both a stage driver and
later as a conductor on the South Pacific Coast Railroad offers a look back to the stagecoach
days in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A look at his life offers a generalized glimpse of what all
other stage drivers' lives were like during the stagecoach era in California.
George Lewis Colegrove was born in the Dundee area of McHenry County, Illinois, on March 29,
1843. When he was seven, George's father, John Smith Colegrove, left his family and went to
the gold fields in California. John Colegrove eventually settled near Dutch Flat, California. At
twelve, young Colegrove went to live with an uncle, Louis Holdridge, with whom he lived until
he was eighteen. Leaving his uncle's home, George traveled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he
worked in a livery stable. With the onset of the Civil War, Colegrove joined the Union Army, but
he broke his leg and was left behind when his company went off to war. In March 1863,
Colegrove drove the lead wagon in an emigrant wagon train traveling to California.
Upon reaching California, Colegrove worked as a teamster in San Francisco (1:ii-iii) until July
1869, when he hired on as a driver for the Santa Cruz and San Jose Stage Line. In the company
of the line's owner, Billy Reynolds, Colegrove first drove a stage over the Santa Cruz Mountains
on July 15, 1869. The stage left Santa Clara with four horses, stopping at Lexington where the
company had a bar, to add two more horses for the ascent of the mountain. At the Scotts
�Valley Station the additional horses were left and the stage continued on to Santa Cruz. (1:4345)
A few months later Reynolds sold his stage company to McFarlane and his son, William "Bill"
McFarlane, who ran the line for his father. The station agent, Henry Whinery (or Winnery), at
Santa Clara was too set in his ways to make changes suggested by the McFarlanes. After an
argument Whinery left. Traveling to Santa Cruz, where he had many friends, Whinery formed a
new joint stock company. The largest shareholder was Charles McKiernan, the owner of the toll
road at the summit. One of the drivers, Cambridge, who had crossed the plains with Colegrove,
quit the McFarlanes and went to work for Whinery's new company. (1:45-47)
With the new competition, McFarlane was forced to lower his fares from $2.50 down to $1.00,
and a price war ensued. Although both companies were carrying full loads of passengers, they
were both losing money. Still the fight went on. (1:47-48)
As Charles McKiernan was the largest shareholder in the opposition line he had had to pay most
of the losses during the past year. He was anxious to end the war as the only revenue he had
was what money he could make off his toll road. At first, this did not matter because the
McFarlanes were paying most of that money, since they had to use the road for their stage
operations, paying $2.00 a day. But one day McFarlane Senior had talked with McKiernan in
town and told him that it was not fair for the McFarlanes to be subsidizing the opposition.
McFarlane met with the settlers along the old San Jose-Soquel Road and together they fixed up
the road and bridges, thus abandoning McKiernan's toll road.
After a year of the price war there existed bitter feelings on both sides. During this time
Colegrove was living with the McFarlanes. One morning as the men were having breakfast
Charles McKiernan came down from his ranch to talk over the situation:
"Now, Mr. McFarlane, it has been an awful long hard fight. I think it is time we quit it.
I have a proposition that I would like to have you interested in. I would like to
consolidate these lines and make it a joint stock company. We would take one side off
and put the fare up and make it pay. We have lost money enough."
After McKiernan left the breakfast meeting, Colegrove told McFarlane Senior that he did not
feel that they should consolidate: "If you stay with it and do not consolidate with them they will
quit the business in the next month or six weeks." Colegrove then offered to work for nothing,
but, in the end, the lines were consolidated.
Shortly after the lines were consolidated the McFarlanes were forced out of the business
altogether, leaving Colegrove without a job. (1:48-5 1) After a short camping trip in the Boulder
Creek area of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Colegrove went into San Jose and talked to William
"Uncle Billy" Hall, the second operator of a stage line in California and the first to use Concord
coaches. Colegrove discussed the feasibility of starting, another opposition line to that of
Whinery and McKiernan.
�Hall, who had disapproved of Whinery and McKiernan's practice of forcing the McFarlanes out
of business, told Colegrove that he still had several horses and a Concord coach. Hall agreed to
let Colegrove use the stock and equipment for free as long as Hall's name was not mentioned.
With this, Colegrove started up an opposition line with Thomas Mann as an alternate driver.
Although Colegrove lowered the fare to $1.00 for travel on the new Pioneer Stage Line, from
San Jose to Santa Cruz, the Mountain Charley Stage Line did not follow suit. Whinery and
McKiernan felt that, since they were already established and known, they had no worry from
competition. Within a month Colegrove had to add an additional coach, and shortly after that
Colegrove bought another Concord from a man in Watsonville for $225. (1:58-78)
In the spring of 1872, having lost too much money, McKiernan talked to Santa Cruz Sheriff
Charles Lincoln about running the stage line. Lincoln told McKiernan that he would think about
the offer, then he went to see Colegrove. Posing as the new owner, Lincoln told Colegrove that
he had bought the line for $3,000 and would like to cooperate with Colegrove. The two men
agreed to each run one stage apiece. The arrangement went well until November 1872, when
business began to slacken. Lincoln decided that he did not want to run the line and gave it back
to McKiernan. This event put McKiernan in a tight spot for Colegrove now learned that he had
been deceived and was ready for another fight. In the end McKiernan decided to quit the stage
business. (1:78-83)
That winter, 1872-1873, was so wet that by the end of December Colegrove was forced to
curtail operations over the mountain route, as it had turned into a series of mud holes. In
January 1873, Colegrove, along with a new partner, Henry C. Ward---an old stage hand in
California---started an opposition line to the Watsonville Stage Line between Santa Cruz and
Watsonville. Within a few months the older Watsonville Stage Line bought Colegrove and Ward
out, rather than compete against their $.50 fare.(1:90-93)
After selling out to the Watsonville line, Colegrove and Ward met with Charles McKiernan to
discuss the reopening of the Santa Cruz to San Jose stage line. Colegrove and Ward agreed to
buy out McKiernan's stage line for $3,000; both men put up $1,000 cash and a $500 note. In
May 1873, the Pioneer Stage Line again served customers over the Santa Cruz Mountains.
(1:93-94)
On the spring morning of April 1, 1874, while backing out an eleven passenger mud-wagon
from the Pioneer Stage Line's barn in San Jose, Henry Ward ran a wheel over his foot crushing
his big toe. Unable to make the passenger and mail run from San Jose to Santa Cruz, Ward
enlisted the help of John Pursey Smith, an experienced stage driver who knew the dangers of
the Santa Cruz Mountain road. (1:65)
That afternoon, at a quarter to three, as the four horse team was walking up a hill about a half
mile from the stage stop (and United States Post Office) at Patchen, a man, his face covered by
a blue flannel mask, stepped out in front of the stage. Pointing a double-barreled shotgun at
Smith, the highwayman ordered the stage to stop and told Smith to
�"Throw out that Express box."
Looking down the barrels of the shotgun the frightened driver had the unpleasant duty of
explaining to the bandit:
"We don't carry any express box. It goes around by Watsonville."
Not believing the driver's story, the bandit again demanded the express box. As the driver tried
to repeat his explanation, a passenger, Mrs. J. M. Smith, also told the bandit that the express
box was not aboard.
"Well, give me that mail sack," the road agent demanded.
Smith quickly threw down the two mail sacks, one destined for Patchen and the other for Santa
Cruz. The bandit kicked the two bags aside saying that he guessed that there would be nothing
of interest in them and, as he had come for money, the passengers would have to do instead.
Some of the passengers had managed to hide most of their valuables when they realized what
was happening. One woman, a Mrs. Canny of San Jose, simply refused to part with her
valuables. All the bandit received was $45 from the unfortunate stage riders. After securing the
money and valuables the bandit tossed the mail sacks back to the driver and allowed the stage
to proceed on to Patchen and Santa Cruz.
After arriving in Santa Cruz, Smith immediately telegraphed the stage office in San Jose. George
Colegrove received the message and, while showing the message to Ward, asked him,
"Do you think that is right, or someone giving us an April Fool?"
"No, I think it is on the level," replied Ward.
After discussing the matter the two stage men decided not to press the issue, "because," as
Colegrove explained, "if it gets out it will hurt our travel."
But word of the robbery did get out and on his next regular run to Santa Cruz, Colegrove was
asked by a townsman,
"You have stage robbers on your route, have you?"
To which Colegrove replied, "It seems like it. It didn't amount to much." (1:65-67;
33:4/4/1884)
The rest of April went by without any further incident until the end of the month when
Colegrove's mother and brother came to San Jose from Dutch Flat, California, to visit him.
�Colegrove decided to take a few days off work to show his family around Big Basin, near
Boulder Creek. Contacting an old employer of his, Colegrove asked William (Bill) McFarlane if he
would drive the stage.
Everything started out well. Colegrove gave his mother and brother seats on top of the stage,
where they could enjoy the mountain scenery. Upon arriving in Santa Cruz Colegrove turned
the operation over to McFarlane. On the next day McFarlane took the stage over the mountains
to San Jose on an uneventful trip.
On April 28, McFarlane was driving the stage back over the mountains to Santa Cruz. At twenty
minutes to two in the afternoon the stage was five miles above Lexington on an uphill grade
that forced the horses to walk. As the stage was passing a long pile of cord wood beside the
road, out stepped two armed highwaymen. One of the road agents blocked the rear of the
stage and the other stood in front of the horses. Both men were carrying double-barreled
shotguns and both had Bowie knives dangling from their wrists on leather thongs. The robbers
had masks of knitted cloth over their heads with slits cut out for eyes and mouths.
The highwayman in front of the stage called to the driver,
"Didn't I tell you to stop. Now stop or I'll-"
"Oh, did you, if its 'stop' here goes---Whoa!" replied McFarlane as he reined up the
leading horses.
As the bandit in front kept his shotgun trained on McFarlane and the passenger riding on top,
the other bandit appeared at the window,
"Now hand out your wallets dam'd (sic) quick," he demanded, taping the window
ledge with his shotgun for emphasis.
Thrusting his hand with the dangling knife attached into the coach,the robber took the
valuables and money from the frightened passengers.
The passengers were reluctant to part with their wallets, giving instead their pocket change.
Seeing this, the road agent snapped at them,
"That won't do. Pass out your wallets."
Collecting the wallets, the bandit again made a demand, "Now let's have your
watches."
While this was going on inside the coach, the passenger sitting on top managed to hide $60
under the cushioned seat. To divert attention McFarlane remarked,
�"Boys, this is pretty rough on us, stopping our stage twice in one month."
Receiving no response from the highwaymen, McFarlane continued,
"This is the first time I've been stopped."
"Well then, it's a stand-off between us," replied the masked man at the front, "This is
the first time we've ever stopped anyone."
After finishing with the inside passengers, the other bandit turned his attention to the man
sitting with the driver.
"Pass down your coin, sir," he demanded.
But getting only seventy-five cents did not satisfy him.
"Oh, you've got more money than this. Get down from there, so that I can go through you."
As the passenger stood up the robber caught sight of a valuable gold English watch (worth over
$100). After taking the watch the bandit again demanded that the passenger step down, but at
this point McFarlane had had enough and told the highwaymen,
"Boys, it's getting late and I'm behind time."
As the horses started to move, one of the road agents said, "Well, I guess you'd better go on."
By the time the passengers disembarked from the stage in Santa Cruz, Sheriff Robert Orton had
arrived at the stage stop. Discussing the situation with Colegrove, who had been waiting for the
stage with his family, Orton asked Colegrove,
"I guess we will have to get out and get them or they will drive the travel all off the
road. What do you think we had better do about it?"
"I think we ought to start out tonight to look for them and cover all these roads by
Soquel and by the stage road, by Mt. Charley's and the Saratoga road. If we don't they
will work their way into some town and, after they get into some town, it is all off. You
can't get them. If you get them before they get to town they will have some of the
things on them."
The Sheriff quickly formed a posse and by that evening three groups set out from Santa Cruz to
look for the highwaymen. Deputy Sheriff Jackson Sylva and Frank Curtis went to Felton and
then up the Zayante Creek toward the Summit. Remington Getchel and John Acorn (or Aiken)
traveled to Soquel and then up the old San Jose-Soquel Road to the Summit. Sheriff Orton and
Colegrove took the main stage route through Scotts Valley and up to Mountain Charley's.
�Before leaving Santa Cruz, Sheriff Orton telegraphed San Jose and advised Sheriff John H.
Adams of the situation, arranging to meet with Adams' posse at Patchen.
Colegrove and Orton arrived at Mountain Charley's toll gate at eleven o'clock that night and, as
Colegrove got off the buggy to open the gate, he asked the Sheriff,
"Do you think we had better wake them up?"
"I don't know," the Sheriff replied, "I don't think I would disturb them."
As Orton and Colegrove had the shortest distance to travel, they reached Patchen first and
proceeded to search the cabins on the road to Lexington. At a cabin owned by James Bryant the
Sheriff arrested two men, but later released them.
When Getchel and Acorn traveling from Soquel arrived, they reported to Sheriff Orton that they
had seen nothing of the bandits. One of the local Patchen residents said that a friend living on
the Los Gatos Creek had seen two men with shotguns in the area. Within a few minutes Sheriff
Adams and the Santa Clara posse arrived and reported that someone else had reported two
men by the creek area.
Feeling sure that these men might be the robbers, the posse set out for the Los Gatos Canyon,
about three miles northeast of Patchen. Stopping at a wood-cutters camp near Forest Grove at
three or four in the morning, Colegrove asked if they had seen the bandits.
"Why there were two men by here just about sundown. Both of them had shotguns. Maybe
they are the ones-" replied the wood-cutter.
Before setting out the posse rested and had some breakfast. After eating, the posse went as far
up the creek as they could with the buggy and then continued up the canyon on foot. Coming
onto a cabin, Sheriff Orton had his men surround the place. Just then a man came out of the
cabin. Seeing Colegrove and Sheriff Adams the startled man turned toward the cabin; but with
the rest of the posse in position all around his place the outnumbered man gave up.
Under questioning, the man shook like a leaf, but denied any part in the robbery or to having
seen anyone during the day. Although Colegrove thought that the man was telling the truth,
especially since the only weapon found in the cabin was an old rusty six-shooter, to be certain,
the posse took him with them back to Patchen, where he could be identified by local residents.
During this time Deputy Sheriff Sylva and Frank Curtis had traveled to Felton where George
Newell joined them. The posse was joined by a Californio named Martin further up the Zayante
Canyon. Martin acted as their guide for the rest of the trip. Traveling farther up the mountain,
the posse questioned several people before arriving at Mountain Charley's at three-thirty in the
morning. Waking up McKiernan, the men learned that he had seen two men shooting at a
�squirrel on his ranch earlier that day. When McKiernan had called out to them, he received no
reply as the men rode on.
Upon hearing this account, Sylva's posse, along with McKiernan, went after the squirrelshooters. Tracking the men through the mountains to Jones' Creek, four miles from Saratoga,
the posse sent Martin down to the toll gate on the Saratoga-Boulder Creek Road to see if their
prey had escaped into the valley. Learning that the men at the toll gate had seen no one, the
posse continued in its search and soon arrived at an old cabin. The dilapidated cabin had last
been used as a cattle barn.
Suspecting that the robbers might be in the cabin, the posse surrounded the place. As they
were getting into position, one of the highwaymen saw what was happening and shot at the
posse with a pistol. The posse returned the fire but did no damage. Charles McKiernan, who
had brought his old Henry hunting rifle with him, circled around to a part of the cabin that was
missing some boards and called in at the bandits,
"Hello, fellows, what are you doing there? Come out here."
"We are not coming out," was the reply.
"Come out, or I will shoot," McKiernan warned.
At this point, the men jumped up and one of them went for his gun. McKiernan again ordered
them to stop, but the road agents were intent on a shootout and McKiernan shot. The ball
grazed the cheek of one of the highwaymen and lodged itself in the other one's shoulder. With
that the fight was over and the men gave up.
The posse marched the highwaymen back to McKiernan's ranch. After arriving at the ranch and
while they were waiting for Sheriff Adams to arrive from Patchen, one of the bandits boasted,
"Yes, a hell of a lot of heroes you are. I would like to be turned loose and I would
make short work of you. That cockeyed fellow with the rifle was the only one I was
afraid of."
The bandit was still defiant a few days later when a reporter from the San Jose Weekly Mercury
interviewed him in the Santa Clara County Jail:
"We wouldn't have surrendered had it not been for that blasted Henry rifle which that
one-eyed chap "Mountain Charley" carried. I was raising my gun to fire, when he let fly
with his rifle. . . Had it not been for that we would have made a break, and they never
would have taken us. I didn't care a continental for the pistols as long as we had our
shot guns, and we would have made it warm for them. As it was we acted sensibly, and
'chucked over our chips.'"
�The bandit who did most of the talking was Albert P. Hamilton, known in San Francisco as a
burglar who had served time in San Quentin. Hamilton made the remark that he would get
McKiernan for capturing him. After a trial, Hamilton, along with Peter Carr, the other bandit,
was sentenced to ten years in San Quentin, but, after only six or seven months, Hamilton
escaped prison with two murderers.
When Charles McKiernan learned of Hamilton's unexpected freedom he was understandably
uneasy, especially since it was known that Hamilton had a girlfriend in nearby Saratoga. Six
months later the San Francisco police captured Hamilton in San Francisco after he returned on a
ship from Seattle, Washington, and McKiernan's worries were over.
The other bandit, Peter Carr, was instrumental in fighting a fire at San Quentin and due to this
action and his general good behavior Carr received a reprieve by Governor William Irwin. (1:6774; 33:5/2/1874; 32;29)
These two men were the only road agents active in the Santa Cruz Mountains. But, although
the highwaymen were captured, the regular troubles of the stage line were not over. On the
day after the capture of the bandits, while the team hitched to the stagecoach was being
watered by the driver at the Lexington stage stop, one of the horses bit another horse and the
whole team ran away towing the stage. The passengers sitting inside managed to jump to
safety, but a woman sitting on top kept her seat too long and when she finally jumped off the
stage she suffered a broken leg. The team kept going until the coach was overturned and all
came to a dusty, grinding, crushing stop. (33:5 / 2 /1874)
During the winter of 1874, Ward and Colegrove decided to phase out the large Concord
coaches and purchase new Yosemite wagons made in San Francisco. The new coaches seated
thirteen passengers, all facing forward, and had a "sunshine top," a canvas that could be rolled
back. The passengers enjoyed the new coaches, as they could see the scenery better. (1: 102104)
In 1874 Ward left the stage business to join a Wild West show, but two months later he
returned to San Jose. Shortly after Ward returned the Pioneer Stage Line was broken up, as
Colegrove was peeved at Ward for leaving. Ward stored one of the Concord coaches at William
Hall's barn. Fifty years later it was discovered and given to the Wells-Fargo Museum at San
Francisco. On that occasion George Colegrove drove the stage into the museum. (1: 104-105)
During the spring of 1878, as the new narrow-gauge railroad from Alameda to Santa Cruz was
nearing completion as far as Los Gatos, Colegrove met with Alfred E. "Hog" Davis, the president
of the South Pacific Coast Railroad. Davis asked Colegrove to run a "jumper service" from
Wright's tunnel over the mountains to Felton. This arrangement was to last until the tunneling
was completed through the mountains.(1: 106-107)
Colegrove agreed to work for Davis and ran the "jumper service" for a year before Davis again
met with him in April 1879. At this meeting Davis asked Colegrove to work as a conductor on
�the railroad. On August 22, 1879, Colegrove started to work for the railroad, although he still
owned the stage line, which was run by John Dowd and Chris Coffin.
On May 1, 1880, the South Pacific Coast Railroad began direct service from Alameda to Santa
Cruz. Although the first run ended in disaster as the train ran off the track near Rincon, it
signaled the end of the stagecoach era in the Santa Cruz Mountains. (1: 110, 110 fn. 10)
Source
Excerpted from Payne, Stephen Michael. A Howling Wilderness: a History of the Summit Road
Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906. Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Copyright 1978 Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with the permission of the author.
It is the library’s intent to provide accurate information, however, it is not possible for the library
to completely verify the accuracy of all information. If you believe that factual statements in a
local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
A Howling Wilderness: Stagecoach Days in the Mountains
Stagecoach Days in the Mountains
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Payne, Stephen
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1978
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
TEXT
Language
A language of the resource
EN
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-217
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Cruz (County)
Subject
The topic of the resource
Santa Cruz Mountains
Summit
Colegrove, George
McKiernan, Charles
Stagecoaches
Crime and Criminals-Burglary, Robbery, Larceny
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Excerpted from: Payne, Michael. "A Howling Wilderness: A History of the Summit Road Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906." Santa Cruz, CA: Loma Prieta Publishing, 1978.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1978 by Stephen Michael Payne. Reproduced with permission of the author.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134530#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">Selected Bibliography</a>
Transportation
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Local News Index
Description
An account of the resource
An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.
It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the <em>Santa Cruz Sentinel</em>, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.<br /><br />Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.<br /><br /> In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from <em>The Mountain Echo.</em> The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134957#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">The Mountain Echo</a>.
Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/contact/">Ask Us.<br /><br /></a>
<p></p>
While there is some overlap between this index and <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/historic_newspaper_index/">the Historic Newspaper Index</a><a> (approximately 1856-1960), they are different databases and are searched separately.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LN-23521
Title
A name given to the resource
Board sues Santa Clara County for losses from Santa Cruz Gap Turnpike
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1881-11-19
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>Santa Cruz Sentinel</i> 1881-11-19: page 3 column 4
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1880s
Language
A language of the resource
en
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
NEWS
DOCUMENT
Subject
The topic of the resource
Roads and Streets-Toll
Roads and Streets
Summit
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Local News Index
Description
An account of the resource
An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.
It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the <em>Santa Cruz Sentinel</em>, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.<br /><br />Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.<br /><br /> In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from <em>The Mountain Echo.</em> The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134957#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">The Mountain Echo</a>.
Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/contact/">Ask Us.<br /><br /></a>
<p></p>
While there is some overlap between this index and <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/historic_newspaper_index/">the Historic Newspaper Index</a><a> (approximately 1856-1960), they are different databases and are searched separately.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LN-23507
Title
A name given to the resource
Condition of Mt. Charlie
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1867-06-08
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>Santa Cruz Sentinel</i> 1867-06-08: page 2 column 5
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1860s
Language
A language of the resource
en
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
NEWS
DOCUMENT
Subject
The topic of the resource
Roads and Streets
Summit
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Local News Index
Description
An account of the resource
An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.
It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the <em>Santa Cruz Sentinel</em>, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.<br /><br />Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.<br /><br /> In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from <em>The Mountain Echo.</em> The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134957#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">The Mountain Echo</a>.
Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/contact/">Ask Us.<br /><br /></a>
<p></p>
While there is some overlap between this index and <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/historic_newspaper_index/">the Historic Newspaper Index</a><a> (approximately 1856-1960), they are different databases and are searched separately.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LN-22870
Title
A name given to the resource
Description and residents of
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1884-01-12
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>Santa Cruz Sentinel</i> 1884-01-12: page 5 column 6
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1880s
Language
A language of the resource
en
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
NEWS
DOCUMENT
Subject
The topic of the resource
Historic Houses
Summit
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Local News Index
Description
An account of the resource
An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.
It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the <em>Santa Cruz Sentinel</em>, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.<br /><br />Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.<br /><br /> In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from <em>The Mountain Echo.</em> The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134957#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">The Mountain Echo</a>.
Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/contact/">Ask Us.<br /><br /></a>
<p></p>
While there is some overlap between this index and <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/historic_newspaper_index/">the Historic Newspaper Index</a><a> (approximately 1856-1960), they are different databases and are searched separately.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LN-13705
Title
A name given to the resource
Description of Summit
Description
An account of the resource
Description of Highland
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1892-03-12
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>Santa Cruz Daily Surf</i> 1892-03-12: page 6 column 4
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1890s
Language
A language of the resource
en
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
NEWS
DOCUMENT
Subject
The topic of the resource
Summit
Highland
-
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Local News Index
Description
An account of the resource
An index to newspaper and periodical articles from a variety of Santa Cruz publications.
It is a collection of over 87,000 articles, primarily from the <em>Santa Cruz Sentinel</em>, that have been clipped and filed in subject folders. While these articles of local interest range in date from the early 1900's to the present, most of the collection and clipped articles are after roughly 1960. There is an ongoing project to scan the complete articles and include them in this collection.<br /><br />Also included are more than 350 full-text local newspaper articles on films and movie-making and on the Japanese-American internment.<br /><br /> In addition, this is an online index for births, deaths, and personal names from <em>The Mountain Echo.</em> The complete print index is available at the library. For more information see <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134957#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0">The Mountain Echo</a>.
Most of the indexed articles are available on microfilm in the Californiana Room or in the clipping files in the Local History Room at the Downtown branch. Copies of individual articles may be available by contacting the Reference Department - <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/contact/">Ask Us.<br /><br /></a>
<p></p>
While there is some overlap between this index and <a href="https://www.santacruzpl.org/historic_newspaper_index/">the Historic Newspaper Index</a><a> (approximately 1856-1960), they are different databases and are searched separately.</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Notes
Additional notes
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
LN-16085
Title
A name given to the resource
Description of Summit area
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1890-05-01
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>Santa Cruz Daily Surf</i> 1890-05-01: page 3 column 5
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1890s
Language
A language of the resource
en
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
NEWS
DOCUMENT
Subject
The topic of the resource
Summit
Highland