One of the few known portraits of Henry Cowell. Photo: Courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District

Of the several dozen lime company owners in Santa Cruz County history, Henry Cowell is the only name that is well-known today. This is mostly because of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. In the mid-1950s, when Samuel Henry Cowell donated much of the land for the park, he stipulated that it be named for his father.

Savvy, Strategic Businessman

Henry Cowell was born in Wrentham, Massachusetts in 1819. Like so many other successful California industrialists of the 19th century, he arrived here during the Gold Rush. With his brother John, he developed a successful warehousing business and hauled goods between San Francisco and the gold fields.

A young woman sits among a cathedral of redwood trees, circa 1903, in what is today’s Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Photo: California Historical Society Collection

Sometime in the late 1850s or early 1860s, Cowell loaned money to the lime-producing company of Davis and Jordan. This put him in an ideal position to buy half of the business in 1865 when Jordan decided to sell.

Cowell had a reputation as a tough, savvy businessman who tried to corner as much of the lime market in central and northern California as possible. He did not hesitate to buy out competitors nor to try to drive them out of business.

Just in case the bottom fell out of the lime market, Cowell invested heavily in ranch land for grazing cattle. He also sold related building supplies, street paving material, and even owned part of a company that harvested seal pelts in Alaska.

By the time he died in 1903, he owned land in 23 counties in California. In today’s dollars, he would be worth hundreds of millions.

Henry Cowell and his wife Harriet in front of the carriage house, late 1800s. Photo: Courtesy of Special Collections, McHenry Library, University of California, Santa Cruz

Lineage and Legacy

Cowell and his wife, Harriet, had five children who lived to adulthood (sons Ernest and Samuel Henry and daughters Isabella, Sarah, and Helen). Curiously, he did not want his children to marry. His last surviving child, Samuel Henry Cowell, created the S. H. Cowell Foundation to take over the family’s vast holdings. The foundation continues today as a nonprofit philanthropic organization that assists various educational and social service programs.

The names of Cowell Beach, next to the Dream Inn, and Main Beach also derive from Henry Cowell. In 1865, he bought one-half ownership of the wharf that extended from the end of Bay Street. Although it was built by Elihu Anthony in 1849, people then called it Cowell Wharf until it collapsed in 1907 during a storm. Cowell also owned the beachfront. It was donated to the people of Santa Cruz by the Henry Cowell Lime and Cement Company in 1954.

The promontory from which Cowell Wharf came down to the beach. It is just below the Sea and Sand Inn. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The content for this blog post and the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, which owns the copyright. Much of the information is from the book titled Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County, which can be purchased at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History in person or online. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

If you take the AppTour, you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the university. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For information about how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching the history of this site.

Artichoke Industry by Henrietta Shore, 1937. The oil on canvas painting is located in a lunette at the south end of the Santa Cruz post office. Photo: Julia Gaudinski

The next time you are standing in line to mail a package or renew a passport in the downtown Santa Cruz, California post office, look at the four murals high on the walls above you. Painted by the renowned artist Henrietta Shore, the murals honor local industries: farming, fishing, and limestone quarrying. They depict the laborers as “dignified, monumental forms.”

“Artichoke Industry,” 1 of 2. Mounted in a lunette at the south end of the main lobby in 1937, above the postmaster’s office (oil on canvas, 36 x 72 inches).

“Artichoke Industry,” 2 of 2. Mounted in a lunette at the south end of the main lobby in 1937, above the postmaster’s office (oil on canvas, 36 x 72 inches).

These murals, like the post office itself, were paid for by the federal government. The post office was built in 1912 with a grant from the US Treasury Department. The murals came later when they were commissioned in 1935 by the Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP). It was in the depths of the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929, and TRAP was part of the New Deal initiated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt “to put people to work.” In this case, the people put to work were artists.

“Fishing Industry.” Mounted in a lunette at the south end of the lobby in 1937, facing the main entrance (oil on canvas, 48 x 102 inches).

“Limestone Quarries Industry.” Mounted in a lunette at the north end of the lobby in 1937, facing the main entrance (oil on canvas, 48 x 102 inches).

Henrietta Shore, of Carmel, submitted color sketches to TRAP, which commissioned the murals for the Santa Cruz post office. She was paid $233.74 for all four.

Unlike most artists who received TRAP grants, Henrietta Shore was not happy collecting welfare, which is how she saw the TRAP grant. She hated signing a document that said she was “destitute.” Presumably, she saw herself as an important artist who was reduced to begging.

Henrietta Shore painting “Limestone Quarries Industry” in her Carmel, California studio, 1936-1937. This photograph is on display in the lobby of the Santa Cruz post office. Photo: Monterey Museum of Art collection, photographer unknown

Henrietta Shore’s life as an artist

She was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1888. Her prosperous family encouraged her art, and she studied and exhibited in London, New York, and Toronto. In 1914, she moved to Los Angeles, where she exhibited at the new Los Angeles Art Museum. She won prizes at the Pan-Pacific Exposition in San Diego in 1915 and, in 1916, helped found the Los Angeles Art Society.

In 1920, she moved to New York. This was a turning point in her career. She embraced a Modernist approach, painting what she called “semi-abstractions.” Her work had always emphasized line and form. Now, according to writer Roger Aiken, it “emphasized simple line and shape to achieve an effect of sonorous rhythm.” In 1923 when she exhibited her new work, she received higher praise than Georgia O’Keefe did for her concurrent exhibit.

“Henrietta Shore in her Los Angeles studio,” c. 1915. Photo: Andrée Hollingrake Dell collection, photographer unknown

After she moved back to Los Angeles in 1927, Arthur Miller of the Los Angeles Times claimed she was “unquestionably one of the most important living painters of this century.” That same year, Reginald Poland, director of the San Diego Museum of Art, said, “She is a profound artist…. A great future awaits Henrietta Shore.”

The Carmel-based photographer Edward Weston is well known today partly through the efforts of Henrietta Shore. They met in Los Angeles, where he visited her studio and was profoundly moved by her work. She convinced Reginald Poland to exhibit Weston’s photographs at the San Diego Museum of Art. The two artists became close friends, and Weston claimed that he was awakened to shells, a frequent subject of his work, by her paintings.

“Waterfall,” an example of Henrietta Shore’s semi-abstractions, c. 1922 (oil on canvas, 26 x 26 inches). Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, Boeckman Mayer Family Fund of the Foundation for the Arts.

When Shore visited Weston in Carmel, she was delighted and inspired by the beauty of the Carmel coast. In her youth, when she studied in London, John Singer Sargent advised her to abandon school and go directly to nature for inspiration. In Carmel, she followed that advice. Her mature work showed an intense interest in nature, albeit a nature that was transcendent and mystical. One of the few statements Shore made about her work was in a letter she wrote to Weston in 1933:

“To be true to nature one must abstract. Nature does not waste her forms. If you would know the clouds, then study the rocks.”

In 1930, Shore moved to Carmel where Weston lived. She was 50 years old and wanted to settle down. Although she remained in Carmel for the rest of her working life, she had no further significant commissions nor exhibitions except for the post office murals, one exhibit in 1931 at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, and one small book of her work that was published in 1933. In 1939, Weston wrote in a Monterey newspaper, “Henrietta Shore is an artist by destiny, a figure of national importance, lost in Carmel.”

She spent her later years in poverty. In 1958, she experienced a final indignity when she was committed to a mental hospital in San Jose, even though there is no evidence that she was insane. Supposedly, a busybody neighbor went to her studio and, finding it disorganized, had her committed. She died in that hospital on May 17, 1963 at the age of 83.

In the last 30 years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Henrietta Shore’s art. Her work has appeared in numerous exhibits, she has been extolled in books and articles, and in 2015, her painting titled “Waterfall” was acquired by the Dallas Museum of Art.

See More of Henrietta Shore’s Work

Currently, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) has a small, temporary installation of Shore’s work on their second floor landing.

This blog post is a shorter version of a more in-depth article on Shore’s life and work entitled “A Gift to the City,” which can be found in Pathways to the Past: Adventures in Santa Cruz County History. The entire article is available as a downloadable pdf file on the MAH website.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Downtown Historic-Art Tour made possible Don Lauritson with the support of the Santa Cruz Historic Preservation Commission. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

Blacksmith Shop. Photo Courtesy of Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

The UC Santa Cruz campus and much of the adjacent Pogonip land was originally part of Cowell Ranch. Henry Cowell bought the land in 1865 for its extensive lime and timber resources. Ranching operations ceased in 1964 but many of the buildings in use at the time still stand at the base of campus today.

During the Cowell lime-making and ranching time period, ranch blacksmiths were essential for fashioning horseshoes and wagon parts necessary for ranch operations to run smoothly. Cowell ranching operations were largely self-contained and the ranch blacksmith did the job to fashion or fix just about anything that was made out of metal.

Blacksmithing. Photo courtesy of Scott Sandars.

By heating wrought iron or steel until it becomes pliable enough to shape, the blacksmith could then hammer, cut or bend the glowing hot metal with hand tools. At Cowell Ranch, the ranch blacksmith made stove parts, wagon parts, gate and barn door hinges, branding irons, horseshoes, and so forth.

The Cowells did not discard old tools and equipment. Everything was kept for possible re-use or for parts. In 2009 during grading for Ranch View Drive, a large supply of scrap metal was unearthed near the Blacksmith Shop.

Oxen hauling limerock to kilns. The Blacksmith Shop is visible in the background. Photo courtesy of Special Collections and Archives, University of California Santa Cruz.

Built sometime before 1910, the blacksmith shop was used as a ceramics studio during the early decades of the University. Part of the forge remains, but the chimney had to be removed following the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The original Hay Barn as it looked in 2005. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

This giant barn served several different purposes through the years. Originally, it probably held some of the 30-plus oxen kept on the ranch as draft animals. In the 1950s it stored hay for cattle that were being fattened up in an attached corral.

Interior of the original Hay Barn as it looked in 2005. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District

The original barn dated from the 1860s or 1870s and was constructed with a heavy frame of large fir timbers held together by mortise-and-tenon joints and wooden pegs. The redwood siding was attached with square-cut nails typical of the late 1800s. In 2014-2015 the original barn was dismantled and rebuilt using the same timber frame construction technique.

Reconstruction was well under way in March, 2015. The darker-colored timbers are ones salvaged from the original barn. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Although much of the original wood had badly deteriorated, some of the original timbers and siding were reused. These are darker in color and clearly visible from inside the barn. The reconstructed Hay Barn is used by the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems or CASFS (aka “The Farm”).To learn more about the raising of the hay barn click here.

The new and improved Hay Barn.

Come To The Event!

Come join us in the newly constructed Hay Barn for campus’s 50th anniversary History Fair on October 24th from noon to 4:00pm. Admission is free and open to the public however, any donation is much appreciated. You can’t beat free parking, refreshments, and learning about local history before UC Santa Cruz was established. To learn more about the event including the list of speakers and informational topics, click here.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The content for this blogpost and the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, and is © 2015 by The Friends. Much of the information is from the book, Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. The book can be purchased at the Museum of Art and History in person or on-line. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

If you take the AppTour tour you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the University. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For more information on how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching about the history of this historic site.

The Granary is made of wood, but with a limerock foundation. Photo courtesy of Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

At the base of the University of California, Santa Cruz lies the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Along High Street, right before the main campus entrance are the granary and stonehouse, that were part of Cowell Ranch. These small buildings beside harken back to the days of ranch self-sufficiency. Grain grown on the ranch was stored in sacks in the Granary. The Stonehouse was where the workers were paid and where there was a commissary.

Only Paid Once a Year!

Amazingly, back in the 1870s Henry Cowell only paid his men once a year (on January 1). The gold coins were brought down from the company headquarters in San Francisco. Pay was a dollar a day (equivalent to $13.66 today), with deductions for days missed. By the early 1900s, the workers were paid by check once a month, and earned considerably more.

Both of Henry Cowell’s sons, Ernest and S.H., valued worker loyalty. In the early 1900s, although pay was low, the company covered the cost for treatment of any injuries received during work. S.H. Cowell also aided worker families facing unexpected expenses due to the sickness or death of a family member, though this was not written into any contract. During the Great Depression, when millions of Americans lost their jobs, S.H. Cowell never laid off a regular employee.

The Stonehouse is made of local limerock. Photo courtesy of Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

In the 1950s the Stonehouse had an office with a desk and safe. On the south side was a scale for trucks. After the University took over, the building housed the campus newspaper, City On A Hill, until the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake made the building unsafe. For many years, the University used the Granary as a child care center.

History Fair at the Lime Works

On October 24th from noon to 4:00pm, Friends of the Cowell Lime Works is hosting a history fair at the newly constructed Hay Barn at UCSC. Titled “A History Fair: Cowell Ranch and the land before UCSC” will feature six short talks that focus on the pre-UCSC use of campus lands. A number of local organizations (including Mobile Ranger) will also present displays and activities that focus on local history, especially the effects of past human activity on the land. To learn more about the event including the list of speakers and informational topics, click here.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The content for this blogpost and the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, and is © 2015 by The Friends. Much of the information is from the book, Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. The book can be purchased at the Museum of Art and History in person or on-line. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

If you take the AppTour tour you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the University. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For more information on how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching about the history of this historic site.

The continuous lime kiln at UCSC. The finished lime was withdrawn from a small door at the bottom. Photo courtesy Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Near the main entrance to the University of California, Santa Cruz lies the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. We recently wrote about about the regions lime history and how giant stone kilns called pot kilns were the heart of lime-manufacturing operations. In this post we will talk about the continuous kiln that lies on the UCSC campus just up from the main entrance.

These pot kilns can be seen just to the left of the continuos kiln. Look for both kiln types on the left as you drive up the hill just past the barn theater and the Cook House. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

The continuous kiln is the oldest structure in the historic district that has been positively dated. It was built in 1861 on the eve of the Civil War. Also known as a perpetual kiln, patent kiln, or vertical shaft kiln, it was originally somewhat taller than it is now, and there was a trestle to carry ore cars filled with limerock up to the top.

As the name implies, it operated continuously—theoretically for days, weeks, or even months. There is a cylindrical shaft down through the center of the kiln and permanent fire boxes on each side. As the finished lime was removed from the tiny doorway at the bottom, the load shifted downward, exposing another batch of rock to the heat of the fire. The kiln saved energy by not cooling down and heating up again for each batch (like the pot kilns). It was a technological marvel at the time. Unfortunately, the kiln did not work as well as was hoped due to peculiarities of the local limerock. The coarse-grained stone tended to crumble during the downward movement and clog the kiln.

Diagram showing the path of limerock down through the kiln. Courtesy Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The content for the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, and is © 2015 by The Friends. Much of the information is from the book, Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. The book can be purchased at the Museum of Art and History in person or on-line. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

During this tour you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the University. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For more information on how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching about the history of this historic site.

Built over 150 years ago for the A. P. Jordan family, this historic ranch house has seen many residents through the years. Courtesy Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

The House of Lime

Today’s Cardiff House has had many occupants over its 151 year history. Except for the University, they all have had one thing in common – they were running or managing the surrounding lands for lime production. Early on, it housed the families of the most important players in local lime: Albion Jordan and Henry Cowell. Later, it housed the managers for the Cowell’s lime operations. It’s in fact the name of the last family that lived there for many years (Cardiff) that is used for the house today.

A Farmhouse

In the 1860s, this modest farmhouse was out in the country. Lime-maker Albion Paris Jordan had the house built for him, his wife, and family in 1864. Jordan was a native of Maine who had come to California during the Gold Rush. He and his business partner, Issac Elphinstone Davis, made lime in the San Francisco Bay area before moving their operations to Santa Cruz in 1853. Jordan supervised the manufacturing process in Santa Cruz, while Davis ran the warehouse and sales department in San Francisco.

The Santa Cruz Sentinel, May 14, 1865, described the construction of the house: “Mr. A. P. Jordan is building a new residence in that most delightful situation overlooking the town and the Bay of Monterey, long since selected as a sight [sic] for the building, near the lime-works of Davis and Jordan.”

The house was most likely constructed by John B. Perry, Jordan’s father-in-law. Based on tree-ring analysis, the large cypress trees along the driveway leading down to High Street were planted around the same time the house was built.

Sadly, Jordan contracted tuberculosis and lived in the house only about a year before selling and returning to Maine. He subsequently recovered, commissioned the construction of a three-masted schooner—named the A.P. Jordan— and then died on its inaugural voyage to San Francisco. He is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Santa Cruz.

Henry Cowell took over Jordan’s half of the business around July 1, 1865, and soon settled in the house with his family. The Cowells lived in Santa Cruz for about 15 years, and their children attended nearby Bay View School. The Cowells returned to San Francisco in 1879, but stayed here on visits to Santa Cruz, sometimes for extended periods.

Later this was home to Frank and Evelyn George and then George and Violet Cardiff. Both men worked as ranch managers. Mrs. Cardiff was still cooking with a wood stove into the 1950s.

The house was a provost’s residence in the early years of the University and is now the University Women’s Center.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The content for this blogpost and the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, and is © 2015 by The Friends. Much of the information is from the book, Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. The book can be purchased at the Museum of Art and History in person or on-line. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

If you take the AppTour tour you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the University. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For more information on how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching about the history of this historic site.

Today the Cook House is home to the UCSC Admissions Office. Photo Courtesy Friends of the Cowell Limeworks Historic District.

The main entrance to the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) is gateway not only to a world class institution of higher learning, but also to the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. The district encompasses 30 acres of the UCSC Campus near the main entrance and holds what was the center of the largest lime manufacturing region
in California during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Preserved are four lime kilns, the cook house, a cooperage (where barrels were made), a hay barn, The Cardiff House, several workers’ cabins, and many other structures from the 19th century.

In 2007 the Historic District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Photo Courtesy Friends of the Cowell Limeworks Historic District.

A succession of companies operated here. The first to make lime on a large scale was the firm of Isaac E. Davis and Albion P. Jordan starting in 1853. In 1865 Henry Cowell bought A. P. Jordan’s half of the business and, in 1889, Davis’s share. Cowell, and later his sons, ran lime-making operations at this and three other nearby locations in Santa Cruz County. They also made lime in the Sierra foothills and in Washington state. The last of Cowell’s Santa Cruz County kilns, beside Highway 9 in what is now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, ceased operation in 1946.

The Cook House: A Lucky Place

What is now the UCSC Admissions Office was originally where the lime workers ate their meals. The house is built of redwood and the local limerock. According to oral history, the building was constructed in the 1880s. While most buildings here were whitewashed, the Cook House was always red (considered a lucky color by Cowell’s Chinese cooks).

During peak operations in the late 1800s and early 1900s, some 40 workers lived here, many of them immigrants from the Azores (part of Portugal), and Italy. Still earlier, many were Irish. Meals were pretty basic: beans, potatoes, bread, coffee, and beef—lots of beef. Cowell kept herds of cattle on the property. Once a week they slaughtered a steer—always a tough one according to the late John Hong Dong, one of the last cooks. Indeed, old cattle bones unearthed in an archaeological dig beside the Cook House in 2008 corroborated that they ate poorer cuts of meat from older animals.

Early-Day Garbage Disposal. Waste from the kitchen was mashed up and dumped into this pig feeder to fatten the resident porkers. Photo Courtesy Friends of the Cowell Limeworks Historic District.

The University remodeled the building for use as offices in the 1960s and again in 2008.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The content for this blogpost and the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, and is © 2015 by The Friends. Much of the information is from the book, Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. The book can be purchased at the Museum of Art and History in person or on-line. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

If you take the AppTour tour you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the University. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For more information on how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching about the history of this historic site.

Each pot kiln had four doorways at the base. Originally, each doorway was fitted with a heavy iron door to control draft. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Near the main entrance to the University of California, Santa Cruz lies the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Lime was an essential building material in late 19th century California, and Santa Cruz was at that time one of the state’s most important lime-producing regions. Limerock was fired in giant kilns to convert it into lime, which was a key ingredient in mortar, plaster, whitewash, and many other industrial products.

Santa Cruz lime had a reputation for being of fine quality. It helped build San Francisco in the decades after the Gold Rush. It was also shipped to other cities up and down the California coast, inland to Sacramento and the San Joaquin Valley, north to Oregon, and even to Hawaii.

Advertisement for Davis & Cowell, 1867. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Cowell Lime Works

The Cowell Lime Works Historic District preserves the most intact 19th century lime manufacturing facility in California.

A succession of companies operated here. The first to make lime on a large scale was the firm of Isaac E. Davis and Albion P. Jordan starting in 1853. In 1865 Henry Cowell bought A. P. Jordan’s half of the business and, in 1889, Davis’s share. Cowell, and later his sons, ran lime-making operations at this and three other nearby locations in Santa Cruz County. They also made lime in the Sierra foothills and in Washington state. The last of Cowell’s Santa Cruz County kilns, beside Highway 9 in what is now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, ceased operation in 1946.

Lime Kilns (Pot Kilns)

These giant stone kilns were the heart of the lime-manufacturing operation. The three kilns on the left are pot kilns (aka batch kilns or intermittent kilns). The interior of each measures about 11 x 33 x 15 feet high. The front walls are about 6 feet thick, and each kiln has four doorways at the bottom. The kiln on the far right is a continuous kiln (see separate stop).

The kilns are lined with fire-bricks, which have partly melted from the intense heat. Company names stamped on the bricks indicate that they were imported from northern England. Photo courtesy of the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District.

Chunks of limerock were loaded into the top of each pot kiln, and the lumps of finished lime were removed through the doorways at the bottom. It took the workers approximately 2 days to load a kiln, 5 days to fire, 2 days to cool, and 2 days to unload.

The limerock had to be held at around 1,800˚F to convert it to lime. The workers had no instruments in those days to exactly measure the temperature. They had to judge by the color of the fire and the look of the rock to know when it was done. This took years of experience. If the rock was cooked too much, it turned into “dead-burnt” lime and was useless (would not mix with water). If it was not cooked enough, a core of unconverted limerock would remain hidden in the center, and customers would gripe that they were cheated.

For those of you who want to know the chemistry, the rock is made of calcium carbonate, CaCO3. The heat drives carbon dioxide, CO2, gas out of the rock, leaving calcium oxide, CaO, which is the lime.

Each kiln produced over 1,000 barrels of lime per burn. The pot kilns were incredibly inefficient, and consumed between 75 and 150 cords of split redwood as fuel for each load.

By having three kilns, each at a different stage of production, the plant could produce a near continuous supply of lime. These kilns were remodeled in the 1890s and were in operation until around 1920.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of UCSC Lime Kilns Tour by Frank Perry on behalf of The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The content for the AppTour was prepared by The Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District, University of California, Santa Cruz, and is © 2015 by The Friends. Much of the information is from the book, Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. The book can be purchased at the Museum of Art and History in person or on-line. It’s also available through Amazon.com.

During this tour you will see that some of the historic buildings have been put to modern uses by the University. Others remain unused but are gradually being restored with private gifts of funding and materials. For more information on how to help, contact the Friends of the Cowell Lime Works Historic District. This UCSC friends group is dedicated to researching, preserving, and teaching about the history of this historic site.