Stations: Nuga

Out on the fringe of Watsonville Slough, 0.5 miles from the nearest road, the Santa Cruz Railroad Company established its least known and most remote stop, a place that the Southern Pacific Railroad eventually named Nuga. Yet the history of this little waypoint between Ellicott and Watsonville far off the beaten path is much more complicated than it should be.

Flood-damaged Southern Pacific Railroad tracks northwest of Nuga at the Harkins Slough bridge, 1909. [Neil Vodden, Jack Hanson]

After years of disagreement between the people of Santa Cruz and those of Watsonville, it was finally decided by Frederick A. Hihn and the other directors of the Santa Cruz Railroad Company to bypass Watsonville by nearly two miles with the intention to cross the Pajaro River closer to its outlet into the Monterey Bay. Thus, in late 1875, railroad grading crews cut across the lands of around a dozen farmers and orchardists without warning or compensation, sparking a vicious legal battle. What would become Nuga proved to be at the center of the issue, since it was here that the railroad would ultimately turn inland on a path that would have the line enter the Watsonville town limits in spring 1876.

Map of the Rancho Bolsa del Pajaro showing property boundaries and owners with the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way passing through the center, June 1889. [Santa Cruz GIS]

This land was once a part of Ranch Bolsa del Pajaro, the same Mexican land grant upon which much of Watsonville itself was situated. By 1867, the tract between Watsonville Slough and Beach Road was owned by Thomas Martin, who operated a private farm and ranch on the property. When the grading crews of the Santa Cruz Railroad passed through his property in November 1875, he was not pleased. He had not granted the right-of-way to the railroad and the railroad did not ask permission to cut down his fences, plow over his land, and grade the railroad across it. In fairness, Martin himself likely only suffered a little from the slight, since most of the land through which the railroad passed was slough, but he nonetheless joined Charles Ford and Alvin Sanborn’s lawsuit against the railroad, halting railroad construction in the process.

What precisely happened next for Martin is unclear, but county records show that he transferred a thin right of way through his land to the Santa Cruz Railroad Company on November 21, 1876, six months after the railroad itself was completed. Unlike his angry neighbors, though, Martin negotiated a station out of the deal. Martin’s Station catered not only to Martin’s farm but was also a gathering point for farmers and ranchers working near the mouth of the Pajaro River. A short road, long since removed, was built between Beach Road and the station to allow ease of travel.

Map of part of the Ranchos Bolsa del Pajaro and San Andreas belonging to John, Thomas, William, and James Martin, August 27, 1891. [Santa Cruz GIS]

For the railroad, the presence of the nearby Watsonville Slough and a shallow freshwater lagoon on Martin’s land led to the erection of a water tank for passing trains just northwest of Martin’s. Virtually nothing is known about this water tank, but it was used throughout the period that the railroad through Martin’s was narrow gauge. Public timetables printed in the Sentinel from the late 1870s include Water Tank as a passenger stop, possibly for people wishing to bathe in the lagoon or slough. The last mention of Water Tank is in September 1883, during the standard-gauging of the right-of-way to Santa Cruz, and it seems likely that the waypoint was no longer needed once standard-gauge locomotives began running on the track at the end of that year.

The purchase of the Santa Cruz Railroad by Southern Pacific in 1881 led to the renaming of Martin’s to Laguna, a reference to the adjacent Watsonville Slough. This was probably done to avoid confusion with another “Martin’s” found on the Monterey Branch and named after Thomas’s son, William H. Martin. Thomas continued to own his property off Beach Road, although he was sent to an asylum in 1889 for mental health reasons. He was released in 1897 and continued to farm until his death in February 1911. However, ownership of the trapezoidal station site was transferred at some point earlier to the railroad.

Laguna proved over the years to be a troublesome location to the railroad. For one, it was a shockingly dangerous location, with several trains derailing at the site and at least a few passengers and crew killed over the years. This may be due in part to a sinkhole that periodically made its appearance near the station, buckling tracks and misaligning the right-of-way without warning. This happened because the tracks just to the west marked the lowest point on the entire line, at just six feet above sea level as it crossed Watsonville Slough, and as such the tracks flooded regularly, knocking the tracks out of commission until flood waters receded and the right of way was cleared and repaired. In 1910, efforts were made to raise the track and install a rock wall to protect the right-of-way, although it still experienced seasonal flooding afterwards.

Aerial view showing the Southern Pacific Railroad right-of-way and facilities at Nuga (lower center), 1937. [University of California, Santa Cruz]

Nonetheless, Southern Pacific continued to support the station since it served an important purpose for the lower Pajaro Valley. By 1905, the station had a 674-foot-long siding situated on the south side of the tracks. Over the next three years, this nearly tripled in size to 1,528 feet, or 39 carlengths. Such an expansion was likely due to an aggregate quarry that opened on the north side of the tracks between the station and the slough. This was certainly operating by 1909 and supplied ballast to repair railroad bridges and culverts in the Watsonville area. The station hosted a small warehouse with freight-loading platform and telephone service, a smaller unattended passenger shelter with platform, and a packing shed.

Right of way and track map of Nuga on the Santa Cruz Branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad's Coast Division, June 30, 19[17?]. [Santa Cruz GIS]

Curiously, the name Laguna did not stick—in January 1909, the station was renamed Nuga, an inversion of the its previous Laguna that removed the first and last letters. This may have been done to avoid confusion with the Laguna Creek flag-stop on the Coast Line Railroad south of Davenport or Lagos station on the Ocean Shore Railway, also at Laguna Creek. By 1913, the station had been reduced in status, while in 1926 the siding was cut back. In the early 1940s, the siding was removed entirely even though Sidney Harold Gandrup, a local real estate developer and rancher, still used the shed beside the tracks. On October 26, 1954, all the railroad facilities at Nuga burned down when a grass burn-off on the adjacent field spread out of control. This likely saved the station from destruction in the flood of 1955, though this may have further contributed to Southern Pacific formally abandoning the station on May 20, 1957.

Oil tankers parked on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line tracks over Harkins Slough just northeast of the Nuga station site, February 2020. [Santa Cruz Sentinel]

In more recent years, the site of Nuga has been reclaimed by the adjacent farm despite still legally belonging to the railroad (now the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission). In 2018, Iowa Pacific Holdings through its Santa Cruz & Monterey Railway subsidiary parked dozens of empty oil tanker cars onto the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, including at Nuga's site. These prompted protests from Greenway and other groups, eventually resulting in their removal after Progressive Rail took over the contract to operate on the line.

The former location of Nuga on the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line, December 10, 2017. [Derek Whaley]

Public access to the site is no longer possible without trespassing on adjacent property. The location is just to the east of where Watsonville Slough runs under the Santa Cruz Branch Rail Line. No evidence of the siding or station remains at Nuga, although the area just to the south of the existing tracks remain undeveloped and wide enough for a siding. Where a farm road that continues to Beach Road meets the tracks marks the former station point. All the area between the tracks and Watsonville Slough remains an undeveloped, rocky field that may represent the short-lived quarry at the station but otherwise shows few signs of development.

Citations & Credits:

• Bender, Henry E., Jr. "SP72 (SP Santa Cruz Branch)." 2017.
• Clark, Donald T. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Second edition. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, Coast Division Employee Timetables and Officers and Agencies books. 1889–1940.
• Various articles. Santa Cruz Sentinel, Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel, Evening Pajaronian, and Register-Pajaronian. 1867–1956.

Curiosities: Santa Cruz County's Borders

What is Santa Cruz County? It is perhaps a strange question since it seems easy to answer: Santa Cruz County is an administrative division on the California coast surrounded by Monterey, San Benito, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties. But this is the status of the county today. Two of those counties did not exist when California became a state in 1850, and before statehood there were no counties at all! The development of Santa Cruz as a county and its changing borders over the past 175 years are the result of changing politics, culture, business, and many other factors. The origins of Santa Cruz County date back to the origin of Santa Cruz itself, when it was little more than a Spanish colonial outpost on the edge of a globe-spanning empire. 

"Ground plan of [Mission Santa Cruz] and surroundings kindly supplied by General Vallejo," ca 1878. [Courtesy Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley]

Santa Cruz began as Mission Santa Cruz when it was first established by a Franciscan missionary group led by Father Fermín Francisco de Lasuén on August 28, 1791. The name itself—meaning Holy Cross—was adopted by Father Juan Crespí on October 18, 1769 as the designation for a creek (now known as Majors Creek) that flowed from Trés Ojos on Mission Hill into Neary Lagoon. At the mission, the Franciscans established a small community of monks and neophytes (Native Americans forcibly removed from their villages and converted to Christianity) that encompassed the Mission Orchard and Potrero to the north, Mission Hill and the flood plain below, and the West Side. On the east side of the San Lorenzo River, meanwhile, a Spanish invalidos (retired soldiers) pueblo known as Branciforte was established by Governor Diego de Borica in 1797. This name came from Miguel de la Grua Talamanco, Marqués de Branciforte, Viceroy of New Spain. The colony had no center and sprawled to the southeast to encompass around a dozen large unrecognized private properties.

"Map of City of Santa Cruz," 1933, by the California Pacific Title Company. [Courtesy Antique Maps Inc.]

When California became a state on September 9, 1850, both Santa Cruz and Branciforte remained distinct. Santa Cruz had ceased to be a monastic community following Mexican land reforms in the 1830s and as such much of its land had been given or sold to various families. By the 1840s, the land on both sides of the river had fallen into private ownership and a crude commercial zone had emerged around the old mission on the Upper Plaza. Following statehood, the commercial district shifted to the Lower Plaza below Mission Hill near the junction of Main Street and Willow Street (now Front Street and Pacific Avenue). On the East Side, commercial and industrial progress was slower with businesses gradually arising along Ocean Street, Soquel Avenue, Water Street, and Broadway. The only notable property development in Branciforte during this period was the establishment of Camp Alhambra, later Seabright, around 1880 as a seaside resort. It was only in 1905 that the area east of the river joined the City of Santa Cruz.

Excerpt from "A Map of the United States of Mexico," 1826, by Henry Schenck Tanner. [Courtesy California State University, Monterey Bay]

For its first 59 years of existence, Santa Cruz was not a recognized political entity. Mission Santa Cruz, like all of the California missions, was a decentralized area bounded only by the vague spheres of influence expressed by the surrounding missions at San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Juan, and Carmel. California went through several different administrative arrangements in the Spanish and Mexican periods but Santa Cruz always remained a part of Alta California, or Upper California, and under whichever governorship that territory fell. Neither the government of New Spain nor Mexico established counties and most daily governance was handled by alcaldes (combination mayor and sheriff) for the pueblos and head priests for the missions. Military affairs were handled from presidios at San Francisco, Monterey, Santa Barbara, and San Diego. Not long after the Spanish government definitively fell to the Mexican government in 1821, monastic institutions were dissolved and land was granted by the governor to private individuals across Alta California. About a third of modern Santa Cruz County was divided into land grants, mostly arranged along the coast. On paper, all of these were beholden to the nearest alcalde for judicial matters but there was little enforcement in this wild northern frontier of Mexico.

Santa Cruz Fourth of July reenactment #2, ca 1875, Romanzo Wood [Courtesy California State University, Chico – colorized using MyHeritage]

Statehood changed everything for Santa Cruz. As host to both a former mission and pueblo, it had a surprisingly large pre-Gold Rush population compared to many other settlements in the state. By this point, several people of America, British, German, French, and even Russian nationality had settled in the county with many marrying into the settled Californio population. To these was added a massive influx of failed gold miners who swarmed into the county as early as 1849 and continued to increase the population over the next decade. Like all states of the United States, California chose to arrange itself by counties. As the territorial government began to organize the state, it initially planned to include Santa Cruz as part of Monterey County since the area's population was only 640 individuals at the time. A group of 19 California residents protested, citing the difficulty of travelling to Monterey from Santa Cruz and the different interest of the two areas. Thus, when the final 27 counties were agreed on February 18, 1850, Branciforte County was created separate from Monterey. Yet again people protested, arguing that the county seat was in Santa Cruz so it made no sense to name the county after the pueblo. The territorial government acceded to the request and renamed it Santa Cruz County on April 5, 1850. California formally became a state on September 9, 1850.

Skyland on the Santa Cruz–Santa Clara County line, ca 1925 [Courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

While the name was agreed upon, the boundaries of Santa Cruz County have remained a point of contention ever since. Boundaries generally follow either ridgelines or waterways, whenever possible, and for Santa Cruz County it was entirely possible since the county was isolated between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The ridgeline, therefore, made a lot of sense as the inland boundary and it was established along what is today Skyline Boulevard, Summit Road, Loma Prieta Avenue/Way, and Mt Madonna Road. But waterways as borders make less sense since the peoples on either side of the river or creek often interact regularly. Thus, a major problem quickly became apparent that was not necessarily visible on the concept maps drawn up by the territorial officials in San José: where to draw the northern and southern boundaries of the county?

Map of California, from G. W. Colton, Colton's Atlas of the World (New York: J. H. Colton & Company, 1856).

The petition made in January 1850 had requested that the southern boundary essentially begin in the Gabilan Mountains west of San Juan and continue southwest in a roughly straight line until reaching the vicinity of Moss Landing. This would have placed the entire lower Pajaro Valley, including the area south of the river encompassing modern Pajaro, Aromas, and Las Lomas—about 25,000 acres—within Santa Cruz County. For the northern boundary, the petitioners suggested Point Año Nuevo as the northern boundary, with the line following the ridge to the top of the range. The government rejected both of these boundaries. To the south, the officials illogically drew the line down the middle of the Pajaro River, a body of water that was known for its periodic course changes. To the north, they overshot Año Nuevo completely and continued all the way to San Gregorio Creek, which was followed east until reaching its shared headwaters with San Francisquito Creek (the top of modern-day Page Mill Road). This boundary and the rest of San Francisquito Creek formed the southern boundary of San Francisco County, with Santa Clara County sharing the entire border of Santa Cruz County to the east and Monterey County to the south. The northern area, therefore, encompassed Pescadero, Pigeon Point, and Año Nuevo, as well as several other small coastal and mountain communities.

"Map of the Southern Part of the Rancho Punta Del Año Nuevo, San Mateo County, California," surveyed by W.B. Treadwell and published March 1869. [Courtesy Antique Maps Inc.]

This was the state of the county for nearly two decades...and nobody at the edges liked it. To the north, the area immediately north of Waddell Creek caused endless headaches for people attempting to travel to Santa Cruz to conduct business. For many years there was no formal road here and travelers had to take the beach, which was uncrossable during high tide, storms, rain, or any other number of situations. The same slide activity that impacts that area today also made it treacherous then. In 1861, William Waddell built between his mill on Waddell Creek and the cove southeast of New Years Point, but it was expensive to maintain and not easily used in the winter months. The solution was obvious—separate the inaccessible part of Santa Cruz County and add it to another county that could more easily reach it. In 1856, San Mateo County had been formed out of the southern part of San Francisco County. Listening to petitions from Pescadero residents, the state transferred everything north of the southern border of Rancho Punto del Año Nuevo to San Mateo County on March 16, 1868, taking from Santa Cruz County approximately 90,000 acres of territory. Despite the border being quite clear legally, mapmakers for several more decades often included New Years Point within Santa Cruz County and it also remained the name of the northernmost polling station into the late 1890s.

Map of the Town of Watsonville, 1860, surveyed by James T. Stratton. [Courtesy Santa Cruz GIS]

To the south, farmers in north Monterey County were angry that they had to travel into a different county to sell their goods. While most of the arable land in the Pajaro Valley is within Santa Cruz County, a small portion along the south bank of the Pajaro River running from the vicinity of Aromas to the river mouth is also fertile land. Yet in the 1850s and 1860s, the best port in the Monterey Bay was at Santa Cruz, with additional fair-weather ports at Aptos, Soquel, and Davenport Landing. The only real alternatives for Pajaro Valley residents were Hudson's Landing, an unreliable tidal wharf near the northern headwaters of Elkhorn Slough, or the wharf at Moss Landing. Transportation across the Pajaro River could be quite difficult during the winter and spring, when high water levels made fording the river impossible. Ferries and bridges were attempted in the 1860s with the first permanent structure erected in 1868. Three years later, in 1871, the Southern Pacific Railroad reached the small settlement of Pajaro on the south side of the Pajaro River across from Watsonville.

The Santa Cruz local meets the main Coast Division commuter train at Watsonville Junction, ca 1918 [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

The arrival of the railroad in northern Monterey County occurred at the precise moment that citizens of Watsonville were agitating to move the county seat south, where the county was most accessible to the outside world via roads across Hecker Pass and through the hamlet of Chittenden, and south down the Salinas Valley. The railroad made the point even more clear that Watsonville was the gateway to Santa Cruz County. Yet to achieve their goal, they knew they needed to annex the rest of the Pajaro Valley. It was certainly not a new idea. In 1856, residents of the Pajaro Valley on both sides of the river, as well as people around Gilroy (the upper Pajaro Valley) and San Juan, petitioned the government to create a new county, with San Juan as the county seat. The legislature was unimpressed and the idea was rejected.

Southern Pacific Railroad tracks passing through Chittenden near the southeastern county line, ca 1900 [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

In the aftermath of the failed secession scheme, Santa Cruz County was more unified than ever before or after. While some still campaigned for annexation of the valley or secession to Monterey or Santa Clara County, others decided the best option was to convince the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad to extend its track to Watsonville. In 1867, wealthy men from both leading towns of the county joined forced to incorporate the California Coast Railroad, which they hoped would connect Watsonville to Gilroy, where the newly-formed Southern Pacific Railroad planned to run its first line. Indeed, in 1869 that came closer to reality when the Santa Clara & Pajaro Valley Railroad, a subsidiary, extended the track to Gilroy putting a spur of the transcontinental route within reach. Before the partners could act, though, Southern Pacific incorporated the California Southern Railroad in 1870 and began buying land along a right-of-way to Watsonville. The next year, Southern Pacific extended a branch line from its mainline to Hollister to Pajaro. The move, while welcomed, was an insult to the people of Santa Cruz County since the railroad only entered the county briefly at Chittenden before crossing into Monterey (now San Benito) County. It was for this reason that many in Santa Cruz lost faith in Southern Pacific and began organising their own railroads. But the people of Watsonville quickly decided that they did in fact have a railroad, and they had no need for a separate one to Santa Cruz.

Excerpt from "Official Map of Monterey County, California," 1898, surveyed by Lou G. Hare. [Courtesy Library of Congress]

The establishment of San Benito County from the northeastern section of Monterey County on February 12, 1874 as well as the start of construction on the Santa Cruz Railroad around the same time led to a panic among Watsonville's leading citizens. They suddenly realized that they had one last opportunity to seize the county seat from Santa Cruz and annex the rest of the Pajaro Valley, but they had to act fast. Perhaps thinking that the State Assembly was in a mood to shift county boundaries, the city fathers began circulating a petition among the residents of Watsonville and those across the river in Aromas, Pajaro, and the scattered farms south to Elkhorn Slough. At the same time, a vigorous war of letters were raged in the pages of the Santa Cruz Sentinel and Pajaronian. And as a hail mary, Charles Ford placed an injunction on the Santa Cruz Railroad hoping that the project would either go bankrupt fighting a pointless lawsuit or fail to meet the conditions of its contract with the county. None of these plans worked, though: the county boundary stayed put and the railroad continued building its route to the Southern Pacific tracks at Pajaro.

Official Map of Santa Cruz County, by Andrew Jackson Hatch, 1889. [Courtesy Library of Congress]

With one exception relating to the southeast border around Mount Madonna Park in 1976, Santa Cruz County's boundaries have not shifted since 1868, but it wasn't for lack of trying. In 1879, as the financial conditions across the United States continued to stagnate and taxation in Santa Cruz County increased as a result, editor William Richard Radcliff, editor of the Pajaronian, boldly suggested the county be annexed to Santa Clara or Monterey County as a means of reducing debt and lowering taxes. It was not as radical as an idea as it may seem. Neighboring San Mateo County was divided by the Santa Cruz Mountains with only rugged roads binding its two sides together. In 1879, Santa Cruz had a railroad line that linked its leading city to Santa Clara County, as well as several roads through the mountains. Many residents of Santa Clara County also had business interests in Santa Cruz County, with some businessmen travelling between the two counties weekly.

Ruins along upper Pacific Avenue after the April 14, 1894 fire. [Courtesy UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

This idea went nowhere, especially once the Southern Pacific Railroad took control of all of the county's railroads in 1887. By this point, Santa Cruz was well connected to the state's railroad network even if its route through the Santa Cruz Mountains was of a different gauge than the rest of Southern Pacific's system. On April 14, 1894, though, a massive fire destroyed many buildings in downtown Santa Cruz, including the county court house and other local governmental buildings. Radcliff revived his old proposal to annex the county to Santa Clara. Once more the country was in the midst of a depression and the taxes required to rebuild the destroyed county buildings would be a burden on many. Radcliff's bold plan led to weeks of debate and editorials in the Pajaronian, the Santa Cruz Sentinel, and the Santa Cruz Surf, but in the end nothing happened. Santa Cruz retained the county seat and Santa Cruz County remained separate from its neighbors.

The boundaries of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, 2024.

More proposals have come and gone over the subsequent 130 years with varying levels of public discourse but no success. Many businesses, organisations, and governmental entities now transcend the Pajaro River, showing that the county line is a little more than an administrative division. This is no more apparent than the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, a Santa Cruz County-centered district that includes two primary schools and a middle school in Monterey County. And as expected, the Pajaro River has shifted its course since 1850 and now around 175 acres of Monterey County sit on the north side of the river while about 110 acres of Santa Cruz County are on the south side. Although the boundary has barely moved since 1868, the bases for those boundaries have and will continue to shift as time moves on. And future political decisions too may lead to further re-drawings of the county line, leading to a larger or smaller county than today, or even no county at all! Only time will tell.

Citations & Credits:

• Clark, Donald T. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Second edition. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• Lydon, Sandy, "The plan to obliterate Santa Cruz County." The Pajaronian, October 12, 2022.
• Various articles from the Santa Cruz Sentinel, The Pajaronian, and the Santa Cruz Surf.

Stations: Swanton

Santa Cruz County has many towns and villages that found their footing once the railroad arrived. Most of the communities along the North Coast, though, existed in some form by the time the Ocean Shore Railway graded its ambitious route to San Francisco. The only exception was a tiny hamlet on the south bank of Scott Creek about one mile inland from the coast. Swanton, as it was known at the time, was not even on the route of the railroad until circumstances and a commercial opportunity convinced the company’s directors to extend a track from the end of the Folger wye to the community in 1908.

Ocean Shore Railroad workers posing on the station platform at Swanton with the Laurel Grove Inn in the background, circa 1918. [Roy D. Graves Collection, Bancroft Library – colorized using MyHeritage]

In its earlier days, Swanton was known as Laurel Grove after a scenic grove of laurel trees that drew the attention of travelers from the 1860s. Located two and a half hours north of Santa Cruz by stage coach, the grove was directly on the route of the Coast Road, a rugged trail that connected Santa Cruz with its one-time northernmost communities of New Year’s Point and Pescadero. By the 1870s, Laurel Grove had grown into a popular rest stop and attracted seasonal picnic parties, as well. People camped along Scott Creek and its tributaries, Little Creek and Big Creek, where they fished for trout and hunted wild game. The Santa Cruz Sentinel in 1880 gushed that Laurel Grove “is a very pretty place. The thick foliage and the delightful aroma emanating from laurel trees; the pure and sparkling waters of a little stream that flows through the grove; the bright plumaged birds with their rich musical notes, all tend to make this spot a favorite resort for persons seeking a few days’ rest from the busy toil of urban life. It is a favorite resort for Santa Cruz campers also, especially those who have a relish for fine speckled trout and healthy mountain quail.”

Gianone Hill north of Swanton, circa 1930. Photo by Harry A. Kay. [UC Santa Cruz – colorized using MyHeritage]

Despite its popularity with travelers, Laurel Grove and the Scott Creek valley were only sparsely settled. The land had originally begun as Rancho El Jarro, granted by the Mexican government to Hilario Buelna in 1839. El Jarro was likely the Spanish name for Scott Creek. Buelna lost possession of the property in 1843 and it passed to Ramón Rodriguez and Francisco Alviso under the name Rancho Agua Puerca y las Trancas. This name references the southern and northern boundaries of the property: Agua Puerca Creek just north of Davenport and Arroyo las Trancas, immediately south of Waddell Creek. Most of the population of the former rancho settled around Davenport Landing and on the coastal terraces, but the Coast Road followed the south bank of Scott Creek for several miles before crossing and ascending Gianone Hill, thereby returning to the coast. In 1867, James Archibald purchased the rancho from the Rodriguez family and set up his ranch at the bottom of Archibald Creek. He invited Ambrogio Gianone, a Swiss cheesemaker, to settle on his land around 1870 and the two turned the valley into a dairy farm. Gianone leased a large portion of the rancho into the 1890s, eventually purchased the northern third, while Archibald’s widow sold the property in 1883 to Joseph Bloom.

A large nutmeg tree in Swanton, 1955. [Santa Cruz Sentinel – colorized using MyHeritage]

Laurel Grove was included within the El Jarro School District in 1865, the only school for which was on a coastal terrace near Waddell Creek. This is where David Post established the area’s first post office, called Seaside, in 1873. Two years later, El Jarro School was renamed Seaside School. The post office shut down on June 24, 1881 and around the same time the school moved to the top of Gianone Hill, likely to make it easier for children from the Scott Creek valley to travel to school.

Big Creek Electric Power & Water Company powerhouse in Swanton, circa 1896. [The Street Railway Review – colorized using MyHeritage]

Meanwhile on Big Creek, big things were happening. Fred Swanton, who would found the Boardwalk a decade later, decided to focus his entrepreneurial efforts toward bringing electricity to Santa Cruz. He selected Big Creek as an out-of-the-way, underutilized waterway with sufficient flow to power a voltage-producing waterwheel and founded the Big Creek Electric Power & Water Company to achieve his goal. Construction began in early 1896 and a full current first ran to Santa Cruz on April 9, 1897. In its first years, electricity would be used primarily to operate sewer pumps, provide electrical street lighting, and supplement the power needed for the Santa Cruz Electric Railway, partially owned by Swanton.

Some workers posing outside the Coast Counties Gas & Electric Company powerhouse shortly after it was bought by Billing and Packard, circa 1903. [Images of America: Davenport – colorized using MyHeritage]

The activity on Big Creek led to a sudden increase in population along Scott Creek. A local stage coach driver, Pasquale Sonognini, decided it was time for the area to have a post office again and applied to create Trancas Post Office. The Post Office Department, in its usual bureaucratic indifference, accepted the proposal but rejected the name. When it approved the new office on May 28, 1897, the name attached to the branch was Swanton, after the power company’s chief promotor. The post office was situated within a new grocery store Sonognini opened beside a campground that took advantage of the eponymous laurel grove. Within the grove, he erected a large dance floor and other amenities to entertain guests in the summer months. By the summer of 1899, there was also a public hall nearby for indoor events. Swanton divested himself of the power plant in February 1900 and sold it to F. W. Billing and John Q. Packard, two wealthy Utah miners. This ended Swanton’s involvement with the community named after him three years earlier. This likely led to a drop in enrolments at Seaside School, which closed at the end of the school year.

Pasquale Sonognini, circa 1890. [Find A Grave – colorized using MyHeritage]

Swanton, still called Laurel Grove by most locals and in advertising, remained a popular tourist destination despite the drop in population. Sonognini’s campground continued to expand and attract travelers each year, prompting him to erect a small boarding house no later than summer 1904. It seems likely that this house was in fact Sonognini’s home and grocery store, expanded with the addition of guest rooms and an enlarged kitchen. This theory is further reinforced by the fact that Riccardo Mattei was granted a liquor license to operate a saloon from Sonognini’s building in Swanton in June 1905, suggesting that the structure was being used for more than just a grocery store and was Sonognini’s only building in the hamlet. Sonognini himself died while fighting a fire up Big Creek on September 6, 1904, leaving ownership of his property to his three young children and his widow, Theresa DaVico, also of Switzerland. On January 29, 1906, Mattei married the widowed Theresa.

Ocean Shore Railroad No. 4 at Swanton, circa 1918. [Images of America: Davenport – colorized using MyHeritage]

The promise of the Ocean Shore Railway, incorporated in 1905, revigorated interest in the Scott Creek valley. Company surveyors were sent along the coast searching for the best route north to Pescadero and San Francisco. Yet, the railroad did not initially venture far into the valley. In 1907, crews reached the mouth of Scott Creek and turned up it, but only far enough to reach the first large meadow, which had been subdivided and named Folger, after the coffee magnate who was also an investor in the railroad. On this field the company installed a wye to allow trains to turn around and return to Santa Cruz. The actual passenger and freight station for the valley was further south at today’s Swanton Berry Farm, where the Ocean Shore Railway intersected the Coast Road on its way up Scott Creek. Another stop near the creek mouth, Scott Junction, was where the railroad planned to continue north, though that would never happen in reality. Thus, Swanton was within reach of a railroad, but still had no direct service.

Seaside schoolhouse in Swanton, Feb 29, 1952. Photo by Paul L. Henchey. [UC Davis – colorized using MyHeritage]

In the aftermath of the San Francisco Earthquake, the Loma Prieta Lumber Company found itself unable to properly harvest timber in its Hinckley Gulch property outside Soquel. In response, it bought stumpage rights to 1,000 acres along Mill Creek, a tributary of Scott Creek located just north of Swanton. The company hoped to use the Ocean Shore Railway once a spur was extended to Swanton, but for its first two seasons, that did not happen. As a result, lumber was hauled out of Swanton to Scott or Davenport, where it was then loaded onto flatcars for shipment to the yards in Santa Cruz, Capitola, and Watsonville. This increase in activity in Swanton from mid-1907 led to the reopening of Seaside School the following year, with the schoolhouse moved for a second and final time to Schoolhouse Gulch.

An Ocean Shore Railroad train outside the Mattei's boarding house in Swanton, circa 1918. [Sandy Lydon – colorized using MyHeritage]

Everything changed in 1908 when the San Vicente Lumber Company announced its plans to harvest the massive untapped timber tracts along the headwaters of Little, Big, Archibald, and San Vicente Creeks. A cash-strapped Ocean Shore Railway could not help but support the scheme and by the end of the year, it was actively extending its track from Folger into Swanton, with a short spur to support the Loma Prieta Lumber Company’s mill and a branch railroad called the Scott Creek Railway extended up Little Creek to the site of the first San Vicente lumber camp. Between Little Creek and Archibald Creek, a small freight yard was built with several sidings to hold flatcars for the various operations in the area. Meanwhile, the Sonognini–Mattei family’s boarding house became the de facto passenger station for the railroad in Swanton, with the tracks running directly beside it.

James Gray poses with his auto buses at the Swanton House in Pescadero, circa 1918. [Mattei family collection, Santa Cruz MAH – colorized using MyHeritage]

The history of Swanton during the Ocean Shore years is very poorly recorded. Riccardo—commonly known as Richard or Dick—served as the local official in charge of capturing fish for the Brookdale Fish Hatchery from 1907. He served in this role until around 1924. He proved less proficient as a saloonkeeper when he had his license revoked in September 1909 for keeping a disorderly house. This led to Theresa taking a more active role in management of the hospitality business. Little was said of Swanton for the next five years. By the summer 1914 season, the boarding house was known as the Laurel Grove Inn, with Theresa as proprietor. Meanwhile, Riccardo took an interest in automobiles and bought a Ford touring car in July 1914. This passion was shared with his step-son-in-law, James W. Gray, who was vice president of the Ocean Shore Auto Company and who had just begun running Stanley Steamer passenger coaches between Swanton and Tunitas to fill the 26-mile gap in the Ocean Shore Railroad’s route. Gray and Elvezia M. Sonognini married on November 30, 1914.

Map of Rancho Agua Puerca y las Trancas shortly before the San Vicente Lumber Company left Swanton, March 1922. [Santa Cruz GIS]

The closure of the Ocean Shore Railroad in October 1920 and the end of logging above Swanton in 1923 led to the quick decline of the community as a population center. Industrial workers moved away and took their children with them. Automobiles, meanwhile, passed through the town but did not linger. For a shore while, Gray managed to continue his passenger service and expanded into freight following the collapse of the Ocean Shore Railroad. The last mention of the Laurel Grove Inn in newspapers is in July 1924, though the Matteis continued to host events on their property for at least a decade afterwards. The family ran the post office until December 31, 1930. Riccardo died at his home on May 11, 1932. Theresa died nine years later on September 21, 1941 at her home in Santa Cruz.

Swanton historical marker at site of Laurel Grove Inn, Jan 3, 2013. Photo by Barry Swackhamer.

In 1938, the Poletti and Morelli families had purchased much of the lower Scott Creek valley, and the United States entry into World War II three years later led to the further depopulation of the area. Farms shut down and local industry shifted to artichokes and Brussels sprouts, with cattle ranching on the side. Bereft of students, Seaside School shut down for the last time after the 1960 school year. Students afterwards were sent to Pacific School in Davenport. Albert B. Smith, a former Southern Pacific Railroad employee, bought the property that comprised much of the former hamlet in 1978 and donated it as Swanton Pacific Ranch to California Polytechnic State University, San Luís Obispo, upon his death in 1993.

Citations & Credits:

• Donald Clark, Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary, 2nd edition (Santa Cruz: Museum of Art & History, 2002).
• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways, 2nd edition (Santa Cruz: Otter B Books, 2007).
• Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene and Ethel Grace Rensch, and William N. Abeloe, Historic Spots in California, 3rd edition (Stanford: University Press, 1966).
• Charles S. McCaleb, Surf, Sand and Streetcars: A Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California, 2nd edition (Santa Cruz: Museum of Art & History, 2005).
• Ronald G. Powell, The Shadow of Loma Prieta: Part 3 of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation (Santa Cruz: Zayante Publishing, 2022).
• Jeanine Marie Scaramozzino, “Una Legua Cuadrada: Exploring the History of Swanton Pacific Ranch and Environs,” thesis submitted toward an MA in History, California Polytechnic State University, San Luís Obispo (December 2015).
• Al Smith, “The History of Swanton” (July 1990).
• Various articles from the Evening News, Sentinel, and Surf.

Stations: Tank Siding

High above Mountain Charlie Gulch only 0.4 miles from Virginia to the east and 0.6 miles from Zayante to the west sat unassuming Tank Siding. Nowhere else along the Southern Pacific Railroad line through the Santa Cruz Mountains was a station name so blunt, so obvious. Serving as the half-way point between Wright and Felton—the two other stops along the line that hosted water towers—Tank Siding was located conveniently beside a natural spring that provided a constant source of water for passing locomotives that were struggling to make it through the mountains. Although the stop never appeared on South Pacific Coast Railroad timetables, its entry in the first Southern Pacific timetable of the route in 1888 suggests it was an original, albeit undocumented, station along the line. The original water tower was gravity-fed from a holding pool up on the hillside that delivered water to the tank via a short redwood box flume. Following the upgrading of the tracks to standard gauge in 1908, the water tower and the box flume and box flume were replaced. The larger tank was fed via a pipe that was drilled directly to the water source.

March 1, 1940, Southern Pacific survey photograph showing significant sinking in the area across from the Tank Siding water tower. The eastern edge of the siding can also be seen here, which wraps around the next curve in the photo below. The station sign is visible center-right. [Bruce MacGregor]

For such a remote and seemingly straightforward stop, Tank Siding actually had multiple sidings and spurs, as well as a freight patron. Extant photographs from 1940 show a siding splitting off to the west immediately in front of the water tank, which continued for some distance. Meanwhile, a freight spur was on the other side of the water tank, terminating just before it, which originally had a 96-square-foot platform running alongside it for freight loading. The freight patron was the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company, which operated a clay quarry in the gulch. Immediately after the route between Santa Cruz and Tank Siding was cleared after the San Francisco Earthquake, around 1908, the quarry began operations, shipping loaded clay gondola cars to the cement plant in Davenport, which had opened in 1906. The company also briefly operated a lumber mill here, with accompanying support structures, although those disappear from records within a few years.

Another Southern Pacific photograph from March 1940 showing the double track just to the west of Tank Siding, curving around the sandstone hillside. [Bruce MacGregor] 

How long the Santa Cruz Portland Cement Company operated at the site is unknown, but it was no longer using the station by the 1930s. Throughout much of the station's history, it acted as an official flag stop of the line and appeared on both public and employee timetables, as well as all agency books. Abandonment records for the line in 1940 show that around 40 people still lived within the vicinity of the station and, at least hypothetically, were potential customers. However, Tank Siding's stated purpose as a fuel stop declined as locomotives became more efficient. With the upgrading of the tracks to standard gauge in 1908, the water tower there was reclassified for emergency use only. How frequently locomotives used it in either period remains unknown.

Photograph looking west from beyond the end of the double track, with a large sink area beside the tracks emphasised by Southern Pacific surveyors, March 1940.
[Bruce MacGregor]

Like the rest of the line in 1940, the station was abandoned and the water tower scrapped. Indeed, quite a lot of the damage to the line in the February storm occurred in the Tank Siding area due to the sedimentary nature of the topsoil. Sinks appeared under the tracks in multiple places and the constant run-off from the water tower certainly did not improve the situation. Southern Pacific Railroad survey crews photographed this area extensively and a number of these photographs survived to provide the images of the station above. No earlier known photographs survive—the image used on the cover of Bruce MacGregor's original South Pacific Coast book was misidentified and is, in fact, Camp Teller in Northern California. The natural spring that once fed water into the tank at the site also appears to have either dried up or been closed due to some natural event, possibly the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:

37.103˚N, 122.014˚W

The site of Tank Siding is owned by the Santa Cruz City Water District and trespassing is not allowed, although rarely enforced. There are a few relics of the railroad at the site, including a telephone pole and pipes in the hillside. Metal detectors would doubtless discover more material just beneath the surface. The site is easily identifiable by the wide clearing on either side, the creek side of which has sunken significantly.

The site of Tank Siding along the route near the end of the Santa Cruz Water District property, c. 2010. [Brian Liddicoat]

Citations & Credits:

• Clark, Donald Thomas. Santa Cruz County Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Scotts Valley, CA: Kestrel Press, 2008.
• MacGregor, Bruce A., and Richard Truesdale. South Pacific Coast: A Centennial. Boulder, CA: Pruett Publishing, 1982.
• Whaley, Derek R. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

Stations: Edric

Not all of the stops along the Southern Pacific Railroad route through the Santa Cruz Mountains were there from the beginning. Indeed, some appeared quite late. One such location was Edric, located along Burns Creek just across from the Summit Tunnel's eastern portal. The location name was a reference to Frederick A. Hihn, the local property and lumber magnate who owned most of the Upper Soquel Creek basin, including Burns and Laurel creeks.

In 1899, Hihn realized that his old lumber mill on Gold Gulch near Felton had nearly run out of viable timber. At the end of the year, he began the arduous task of relocating his machinery to the confluence of Burns and Laurel creeks with the intention of opening a new mill the following year. By November 1900, the mill was in full swing, producing 45,000 board feet of lumber per day. A cable tramway was installed in August 1901 that climbed from the mill to Laurel town along the railroad right-of-way. But for some unknown reason, this wasn't enough. A second station was required along the railroad grade.

Appearing first in the January 1902 timetable and station book, Edric was little more than a waypoint along the railroad line. It may not have even served the mill, although it was certainly named after the Hihn. The most likely explanation for the stop's sudden appearance in 1902 is that it was established in anticipation of a worker camp which would be situated nearby to upgrade the eastern portal of the Summit Tunnel. Standard-gauge tracks already reached Wright by this point and plans were in place to upgrade the tunnel as soon as possible. The stop included a 134-foot-long spur that ran up the western bank of Burns Creek a short distance. A spur this size was too small for much of anything other than parking a three narrow-gauge cars. While it is possible that Hihn used the spur to load felled trees from above Burns Creek and haul them down to the mill, there is no evidence to support this idea.

Further evidence that Edric was a temporary station designed to park tunnel repair cars comes in 1906. In that year, the San Francisco Earthquake occurred, collapsing the Summit Tunnel, thereby forcing the closure of the entire route. Repairing and upgrading the tunnel became a priority for the Southern Pacific, and the Summit Tunnel was the first item on the list. The spur at Edric was expanded to 234 feet and was probably dual-gauged at this point, meaning it could hold three full-sized flatcars. But this was the station's swan song.

The site of Edric across Burns Creek from the Summit Tunnel's eastern portal, with a tunnel repair car parked on the spur,
February 29, 1940. [Bruce MacGregor]

In October 1909, Edric was erased from timetables and station books. The spur, however, remained, as evinced by a photograph taken in 1940, after the route through the mountains had been permanently disabled by the disastrous winter of that February. The photograph shows clearly that a tunnel repair car sat on the spur, probably permanently stationed there to maintain the tunnel's integrity. No similar car was stationed near the western portal, so this single car was probably responsible for making any repairs to the line.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
37.126˚N, 121.964˚W

The location of Edric is on private property and trespassing is not allowed. Nothing remains of the site except a small portion of level grade, the remainder of which has been eroded by Burns Creek.

Citations & Credits:

• Rick Hamman, California Central Coast Railways (Santa Cruz, CA: Otter B Books, 2002).
• Southern Pacific Railroad, Officers, Agencies & Stations, 1902 to 1909.
• Southern Pacific Railroad, Coast Division Time Tables, 1902 to 1909.
• Whaley, Derek. Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Santa Cruz, CA, 2015.

YOU CAN HELP! If you have information about Edric near Laurel, leave a comment below or email author@santacruztrains.com.

Stations: Gravel Pit No. 1

A mule cart at the Logan quarry, c. 1905, demonstrating the likely gravel
quarrying operation at Gravel Pit No. 1 around the same time. [Graniterock]

The route of the Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad was punctuated by two stops simply named "Gravel Pit No. 1" and "Gravel Pit No. 2" on its main line. The northernmost of these pits, located along the Pajaro River near its outlet into the Monterey Bay, was in fact a small gravel quarry located on Trafton Road near its junction with Bluff Road. Along the railroad route, it was located 5.4 miles from the Watsonville Depot and 21.8 miles from Spreckels, near Salinas. Because of the heavy industrial nature of this site, a long 32-car spur was built that ran parallel to the main track and originally existed to the north. This spur hosted at various times hopper cars that would be filled with gravel obtained at the quarry. A second portable spur split from the track at the stop and went northeast into the quarry itself, with its route shifted periodically to access new gravel sites. Since gravel was not a necessary resource used in sugar beet refining, it can be assumed that this quarry provided much of the ballast used along the right-of-way when it was built between the Watsonville beet sugar refinery and the Spreckels refinery in the 1890s. It may also have been used when the railroad was extended from Spreckels to Alisal Canyon in 1902. Quarrying here was likely done using small horse- or mule-driven hoppers that then transferred the gravel via a dump chute into a waiting railroad hopper, such as depicted in the image above from the nearby Logan quarry.

Gravel Pit No. 1 probably went out of use when Gravel Pit No. 2 was built south of Spreckels in 1905. With this new source of gravel directly on the path of a new branch line, the need for an older, possibly depleted pit over 20 miles away to the north seems unlikely. This second gravel pit would have been responsible for the ballast needed to create the short Salinas Branch in 1908 and for later ballast replacement processes used until the line was demolished in 1930. The United States Geological Survey map for 1912 shows no spur, siding, or quarry at the site of Gravel Pit No. 1, suggesting it had gone out of use at that time and the railroad machinery there had been removed and relocated to Gravel Pit No. 2. Since it was only an industrial stop, it never appeared on railroad passenger timetables or promotional maps of the route. Unsurprisingly, no images of the pit seem to have survived.

Geo-Coordinates & Access Rights:
36.860˚N, 121.799˚W

The site of Gravel Pit No. 1 is along Trafton Road just before its end at Bluff Road. The site is clearly visible on satellite maps as a large undeveloped, overgrown quarry straddled by two large agricultural plots, its southern neighbor being Far West Fungi. The former Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad right-of-way terminates at the quarry stop, which is currently occupied by a single small home accessible via an access road that passes through the old quarry. The site is private property. Trespassing is discouraged.

Citations & Credits:

• Fabing, Horace W., and Rick Hamman. Steinbeck Country Narrow Gauge. Pruett, 1985.
• Hilton, George Woodman. American Narrow Gauge Railroads. Stanford: University Press, 1990.
• Martin, Edward. History of Santa Cruz County, California, with Biographical Sketches. Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1911.