By Lisa Robinson In 1870, Feltonite Otis Ashely complained in a letter to the Santa Cruz Sentinel: “We have a county grog-shop at the toll gate on the San Lorenzo Road. We would inquire what runs that institution? The Supervisors compel us to pay one hundred dollars a month forRead More →
by Lisa Robinson Before contact in 1769, the Ohlone people lived and managed the land here. Their total population once numbered 10,000 or more with many villages in and around Santa Cruz. Village populations ranged from 50 to 500. In the smaller seasonal villages, the villagers would take advantage ofRead More →
By Lisa Robinson Perhaps the last bears at “Big Trees” [now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park]. In 1919, film star Nell Shipman and a party of actors visited the Big Trees on their way to Seattle. She had recently starred in “God’s Country and the Woman” and “Back to God’sRead More →
By Lisa Robinson Redwoods are somewhat fire resistant and can survive, and in fact heal, after being burned. “Other trees are consumed, but the redwoods battle with the demon and conquer.” In August 1907 the Santa Cruz Sentinel asked: “Stand beside the chimney tree and ask its story. It willRead More →
By Lisa Robinson The chestnut oak, tanoak, or tan-bark oak, is so named because its flower resembles that of the chest-nut and its nut that of an acorn. It is, however, a member of the beech tree family. Its bark is high in tannic acid, and it was extensively harvestedRead More →