Updated March 15, 2016 with new photos from Richard Beal, author of Highway 17: The Road to Santa Cruz. Living in Santa Cruz and driving back and forth over Highway 17, I...
Welcome to what locals call the “stinky beach.” Located near the end of Almar Avenue, the smell varies depending on the day. Coincidentally, the City of Santa Cruz Wastew...
In the late 1800s you could take a street car to West Cliff Drive and then gamble, dance and stay in a hotel all right there! The top photo is a postcard circa 1920 of th...
Settlement in the area of today’s Davenport got its start in 1868 when Captain John Davenport, a sea-based whaler by trade, built a 450 foot wharf off what became t...
Most Santa Cruzan’s know the Louden Nelson Community Center. Do you know the story of Louden (London) Nelson? London Nelson was a black man born in 1800 on a North...
Today, the Swift Street Courtyard area, in combination with the adjoining businesses off of Ingalls Street, has become a nexus for locals who like fresh local products, c...
It was in Santa Cruz, in the 1950s and ’60s, that Jack O’Neill developed the modern surfing wetsuit, which helped open surfing in cold-water locations around...
We all know that lighthouses were built in the eighteen and nineteen hundreds to guide ships. But what did it take to get a lighthouse built? Did fisherman throw rotting...
There has been a harbor light and foghorn at the west jetty since the harbor opened. Prior to the current lighthouse however, the structures housing them have been fairly...
Seabright Beach used to be called Castle Beach because of the castle shaped bath house that was there between 1900 and 1967. The bath house cum castle was originally buil...
