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Santa Cruz County History - Articles
Browsing Local History Articles tagged "Watsonville"
Agricultural Legacy of Serbo-Croatian Community, by
Ross Eric Gibson
When the former Yugoslavia bleeds, Watsonville aches. The war is far away, in a region smaller than the state of ... [Read more]
A Brief History of the Pajaro Property Protective Society: Vigilantism in the Pajaro Valley During 19th Century, by
Phil Reader
"No arrests: for nobody cares." "Horse Stealing - Hardly a night passes in Pajaro that horse thieves do not visit ... [Read more]
A Brief History of the Pajaro Property Protective Society: Vigilantism in the Pajaro Valley During 19th Century - Part 2, by
Phil Reader
Matt Tarpy was born in 1826 to Patrick and Bridget Tarpy in the poverty-stricken bogs of County Mayo, Ireland. The ... [Read more]
A Brief History of the Pajaro Property Protective Society: Vigilantism in the Pajaro Valley During 19th Century - Part 3, by
Phil Reader
The advent of the Pajaro Property Protective Society on February 26, 1870, marked the beginning of a year long frenzy ... [Read more]
A Half-Century of Service: The Watsonville Japanese-American Citizens League, 1934-1984, by
Sandy Lydon
This short history of the Watsonville Japanese-American Citizens League has been prepared to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the organization's ... [Read more]
Harlots and Whorehouses: Fallen Angels of Front Street, Part 1, by
Phil Reader
Practitioners of the world's oldest profession have always been found on the streets of Santa Cruz County. Neither the denizens ... [Read more]
Harlots and Whorehouses: Lust in the Valley of El Pajaro, Part 1, by
Phil Reader
The town of Watsonville sits nestled in a beautiful pastoral valley alongside the meandering Pajaro River in southern Santa Cruz ... [Read more]
Harlots and Whorehouses: Lust in the Valley of El Pajaro, Part 2, by
Phil Reader
It has been said that Whiskey Hill is the spot where the residents of the Pajaro Valley went to quench ... [Read more]
Watsonville Municipal Airport is owned and operated by the City of Watsonville, and located in the northern portion of the ... [Read more]
The cultivation of strawberries, which has become such a large and extensive business here, had a very small beginning. [Read more]
The Hall that Apples Built, by
Ross Eric Gibson
At 2 1/2 million boxes of apples in 1909, the Pajaro Valley was producing and shipping more apples than any ... [Read more]
As the Pajaro Valley Fruit Exchange is, like a single American coin, but "one of many" of the institutions engaged ... [Read more]
The making of beet sugar is preeminently the industry of Watsonville. Some years ago Claus Spreckels, the famous Sugar King, ... [Read more]
Watsonville has never been, in any sense of the word, a sporting community. During the fairs that were for several ... [Read more]
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Landmark that Grew Up: Hard Childhood Served Charles Ford Well, by
Ross Eric Gibson
Many a heart was broken on Valentine's Day when the flagship Charles Ford & Co. store in Watsonville closed its ... [Read more]
James Wellesley Gally was born December 8, 1828, at Wheeling, West Virginia. He studied medicine, specializing in dentistry, which he ... [Read more]
Oscar Thomas "O.T." Jackson, by
Phil Reader
As a young man, he had cut hair for a number of years at a small barber shop in the ... [Read more]
Mintie White, Teacher, 1850-1937, by
Margaret Koch
In Watsonville there is an elementary school named for a teacher who once said, "I never knew a child I ... [Read more]
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Tanneries : The Santa Cruz County tanning industry had its start [in] 1843 when Paul Sweet built a tannery on the San Augustine Rancho in Scotts Valley. Sweet, who arrived in Monterey in 1840, was a sailor who worked for a time at Isaac Graham's sawmill. He began his ..." [More]
Excerpted from Industrial Development: Tanneries by Susan Lehmann
