Santa Cruz County History - Articles

Browsing Local History Articles by "Phil Reader"

Being an account of the attempted robbery of the Wells-Fargo Express Office in Boulder Creek, and the subsequent killing of ... [Read more]

"No arrests: for nobody cares." "Horse Stealing - Hardly a night passes in Pajaro that horse thieves do not visit ... [Read more]

Matt Tarpy was born in 1826 to Patrick and Bridget Tarpy in the poverty-stricken bogs of County Mayo, Ireland. The ... [Read more]

The advent of the Pajaro Property Protective Society on February 26, 1870, marked the beginning of a year long frenzy ... [Read more]

In 1885 a reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel asked ex-sheriff Charlie Lincoln who was the most notorious character that ... [Read more]

When the grand jury convened in early February, 1860, an indictment for assault with a deadly weapon was found against ... [Read more]

Word of the killing spread quickly through Santa Cruz and before long there was a large posse in the saddle ... [Read more]

The action of the vigilantes may have put an end to Pedro Lorenzana's life, but it also effectively ended the ... [Read more]

During the year of 1864, the mountains above the village of Corralitos were a hotbed of pro-secessionist activity. Two separate ... [Read more]

The next band of Confederate guerrillas to hide out at the mountain camp among the redwoods above Corralitos was the ... [Read more]

The secessionist movement and the civil war that followed divided not only the United states, but every county, township, city, ... [Read more]

The comic opera bandit, Dick Fellows, holds a special place in the literature of California outlawry, nay, American outlawry. The ... [Read more]

"The wages of sin. Perhaps in old England a mother awaits in vain the coming of an errant daughter. Perhaps ... [Read more]

THE JUSTICE: "The officer informs me that you are beyond your husband's control. Is that true?" [Read more]

Practitioners of the world's oldest profession have always been found on the streets of Santa Cruz County. Neither the denizens ... [Read more]

Perhaps the best known brothel in the city of Santa Cruz was that which was operated by Emma Cooper and ... [Read more]

"Maria" was a tough little Irish lass who worked the saloons of Santa Cruz for a dozen years. Her free ... [Read more]

The town of Watsonville sits nestled in a beautiful pastoral valley alongside the meandering Pajaro River in southern Santa Cruz ... [Read more]

It has been said that Whiskey Hill is the spot where the residents of the Pajaro Valley went to quench ... [Read more]

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Americans of African lineage are a people whose historical legacy is of one bondage. Men and women stolen from their ... [Read more]

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Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and Bartolome Ferrelo, flying the flag of Spain, explore the west coast of North America. [Read more]

A demoralized Dave Boffman moved back to town and went to work as a day laborer. He was employed for ... [Read more]

For thirty-six years he lived quietly on a small homestead which was located atop a wooded hill at the end ... [Read more]

As a young man, he had cut hair for a number of years at a small barber shop in the ... [Read more]

I first met Cora on a dark, rainy night during the month of December, 1992, when her name jumped out ... [Read more]

Perhaps the most ignored aspect of local history has been the health history of our community. It is an important ... [Read more]

Throughout the history of Santa Cruz County and the central coast area there have been an irregularly occurring series of ... [Read more]

The following collection of "verse" appeared in the local press during the Diphtheria epidemic of the late 1870s. They were ... [Read more]

It can rightfully be said that Cora Drew was a young lady of exceptional courage and insight, and she would ... [Read more]

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