Marianne’s Ice Cream at 1020 Ocean Street in Santa Cruz, California. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

Their red building is easy to spot, not far from where Ocean Street leads onto Highway 17 in Santa Cruz, California. That’s only part of what has made Marianne’s Ice Cream tourists’ last stop on their way out of town and the local’s favorite family ice cream parlor for nearly 70 years. After serving several generations of customers, they’ve earned fervent loyalty. Some customers consider themselves aficionados of the distinctive flavors of the locally made ice cream and will gladly tell you which ones are their favorites.

A Blast from the Past

Marianne’s Ice Cream was founded back in 1947 by Tom and Lenore Becker. The building at 1020 Ocean Street was built that year, and the couple were the first tenants to occupy the space. Decades later, in the same location, the store still looks like it jumped out of the 1950s – frozen in time.

Founding the ice cream parlor was all about family for the Beckers, because they opened the storefront to send their two oldest children to college. The name also had family ties, too, because it was named after Tom and Lenore’s two daughters, Mary and Anne.

Tom and Lenore Becker in front of Marianne’s Ice Cream shop
circa 1947. Image: Charlie Wilcox.

Tom Becker worked another job during the week and was home only on weekends. That left running the business mostly to Lenore. She made the ice cream and ran the storefront, which boasted 13 homemade flavors at the time. The Beckers owned Marianne’s for the next 11 years until they couldn’t keep up with the business any longer.

The Guy Who Created the Flavors: Sam Lieberman

In April of 1958, Sam Lieberman and his wife Dorothy bought the ice cream shop and continued to build the Marianne’s reputation as a Santa Cruz classic. At the time, the storefront was half the size it is today. The ice cream was produced in the back of the shop, with a small counter facing the front windows for customers to order from. Sam, excited by the endless possibilities of his newly acquired trade, began to experiment with new flavors. Throughout half a century of ownership, he came up with more than 250 recipes.

Sam Lieberman behind the counter at Marianne’s Ice Cream. Photo: Charlie Wilcox

Lieberman claims to have been the first to dye bubblegum ice cream blue. He also had his hand in creating several of Marianne’s innovative and unique flavors, including “1020” Marianne’s street address number, Highway 17 Rocky Road and the Alice B Toklas Fudge Brownie. (Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s companion, was the woman who was first credited with including cannabis brownies in her cookbook back in 1954.) Sam was a huge fan of the 1968 film “I Love You, Alice B. Toklas,” in which the lead characters eat pot brownies and antics ensue.

One popular flavor inspiration came to Sam in the middle of the night. While in the midst of experimenting with ice cream flavors during the day, Sam woke up abruptly at 2 in the morning with the urge to make an ice cream with fudge and blackberry swirls. The next day he created the “2 am Truffle.”

Today, Marianne’s offers a whopping 75 flavors daily, all thanks to Sam.

Three of Sam Leiberman’s famous flavors, clockwise from top-left: Highway 17 Rocky Road, 1020, and Alice B. Toklas Fudge Brownie. The author’s personal favorite is 1020. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

With the production of ice cream growing, Lieberman expanded the storefront to include the property next door, a former beauty parlor. The newly acquired space became a larger production area for the ice cream until the early ’70s when Sam began to expand his wholesale accounts in the area. The production of the ice cream was then moved from the 1020 storefront to a plant near Harbor High School on the east side of Santa Cruz. The Marianne’s wholesale business continued to grow. After another shift to the neighboring town of Aptos, the Marianne’s ice cream plant moved to the west side of Santa Cruz off of Delaware Avenue, where it is today.

Marianne’s Ice Cream plant off of Delaware Avenue on the west side of Santa Cruz. Photo: Stefanie Mistry

After the initial shift to offsite production, Lieberman found himself with more space in the storefront and decided to move the customer counter to the center of the shop. To this day, Marianne’s employees serve ice cream from behind the counter on the raised platform from which the ice cream was previously produced.

Home of the Dancing Cow

The “dancing cow” wallpaper that lines the shop’s interior was introduced in the shop around 1987. Lieberman had sold the shop but was unhappy with the new owners, because he felt they were neglecting the upkeep. After a year and a half, he bought the ice cream shop back and started a remodeling project to get it shipshape again. The cows were chosen by a group of women who were on the remodel team. The ’80s era cows were a big hit and generated enough positive feedback over the years that they have become part of Marianne’s iconic charm.

The ’80s style “dancing cows” that line the interior of Marianne’s Ice Cream. Photo:
Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The wallpaper is not sold in stores anymore, so in a renovation of the storefront in December 2015, it had to be specially produced so they could patch up some of the wear and tear on the walls.

Carrying on a Tradition

The Liebermans owned Marianne’s Ice Cream for 54 years. When it came time to retire, Sam wanted to take the time and care to find the right successors. He chose Kelly Dillon and Charlie Wilcox. They bought Marianne’s Ice Cream in 2012 and have continued the longstanding tradition of quality and passion for ice cream.

Article author Stefanie Mistry (center) and Ashley Perez working at Marianne’s. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

Besides keeping up with Marianne’s standards of locally made products, the duo has expanded the business by opening a second location in the Seacliff neighborhood in Aptos, California. This location, like its older counterpart, shares a warm and inviting atmosphere that echoes the aesthetic of an old ice cream parlor.

Marianne’s Ice Cream and Market in Seacliff. Photo: Stefanie Mistry

Marianne’s Ice Cream is a Santa Cruz staple. The same family-oriented ethics that began the small business are still present, as are the same ice cream making methods and locally made products. It’s no wonder locals and tourists alike flock to the shop on warm days to enjoy the fun local flavors and maybe even dance with the cows.

Thank You

We thank Stefanie Mistry who works at Marianne’s Ice Cream and wrote this story as part of a local history summer course at the University of California, Santa Cruz. We also thank Marianne’s Ice Cream owners, Kelly Dillon and Charlie Wilcox for supporting Stefanie in this project and providing her with information and historic photos.

The Marianne’s neon sign has been around since the late 1940s. Photo: TJ Roy

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app, start with an ice cream at Marianne’s Ice Cream, then head out on Highway 17 with your self-guided mobile tour leading the way!

1. Sources

2. Personal communication with Charlie Wilcox, owner of Marianne’s Ice Cream, Santa Cruz, August 2016.

Gail Loyd, Hollywood movie star, helps advertise mountain cabins at Redwood Estates (Cabinland magazine). Image: Modified from original provided by Richard Beal

And this air! There’s nothing like it anywhere in the world! And the crystal-clear spring water, so cool and sparkling! And—just think!—it’s supplied, abundantly and freely, to every cabin! Why, just to be here makes a person feel like a happy, frisky child of ten! This is the place to come for vacation. This is the place to live!

Redwood Estates Then

This 1927 promotional video for Redwood Estates, put on YouTube by the California Pioneers of Santa Clara County, takes you back to that time:

Lots in the development ranged from $100 to $1,000, and the Redwood Estate company offered cabin plans for quick and easy building. There was a large community center with a pool, free water, ready electrical hook-up, and, if you owned a car, passable roads.

Apparently, many visitors stopped at the Dutch windmill, built strategically just in front of the sales office, and then become land owners in the Redwood estates development. Before the windmill was built in 1927, they used a large wooden bear to attract attention.

Redwood Estates entrance. The Dutch windmill was built to catch the attention of passing motorists and attract them to the sales office located  behind the windmill. (Bruce Kennedy Collection) Photo: Courtesy of Richard Beal

Redwood Estates Now

Evidence of the original subdivision is subtle. Today, the housing is certainly no bargain and is primarily permanent, not vacation homes. Although the US Census Bureau classifies the area as part of Lexington Hills, the name of the local post office is still Redwood Estates. Given the power of the post to define and shape towns throughout US history, I am gonna bet that Redwood Estates will be the name that endures.

The Redwood Estates post office in 2006. Photo: David Jordon

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

Four Winds Christmas Tree Farm in Los Gatos, CA dusted with snow. Photo courtesy of Four Winds Christmas Trees.

Every December my Dad and I would drive the ten minutes up the road to trudge uphill in the snow through wavering lines of spruce, fir and pine. Dad and I would search tirelessly for the perfect Christmas tree: about 6-8 feet tall, the branches growing in evenly spaced whorls at a slight upward angle with just enough room between each one to hang ornaments but not too much so as to appear sparse. (This was a serious endeavor!)

When we found the one, Dad would begin sawing away at its slender silver trunk, the needles quivering with every pass of the jagged blade. Finally, the chosen tree’s top would begin to sway earthwards and with a loud CReeEAAak! this symbol of Christmas would fall to the ground. Soon the chosen evergreen would be covered in lights and generations worth of ornaments, creating a feeling of holiday cheer throughout the house.

Why Your Christmas Tree is Pagan

The tradition of cutting your own tree has been around since the 16th century but up until the 1850s in the United States, displaying a Christmas tree in your living room was viewed as a pagan act. Ancient peoples brought evergreen boughs into the home after the winter solstice to celebrate the new life that was soon to come with the spring. Puritans in New England went so far as to outlaw decorating and caroling because there was no Scriptural basis for the holiday.

The Christmas Tree, by Albert Chevallier Tayler, 1911. A Christmas tree before the days of electricity.

The Christmas tree tradition began in Germany and also started as an homage to the coming spring. The freshly cut trees were decorated with apples and nuts rather than candy canes and multi-colored lights. A German Protestant reformer was the first to adorn his tree with lit candles, emulating stars twinkling through the treetops in a forest. It was, not surprisingly, a family of German settlers in Pennsylvania who first introduced the decorated tree to America in 1830. Still, it wasn’t until a few years after 1846, when Queen Victoria’s husband Albert displayed a Christmas tree in their palace, that it became commonplace for American families to eschew Puritan rules and display their own trees.

The First Christmas Tree Farm

As you can imagine, the Christmas tree farm didn’t exist in the 1800s and neither did plastic trees covered in fake snow. If you wanted your own tannenbaum, you put on your snow boots and heavy jacket and took a walk through the woods. The problem was the seemingly endless acres of forest weren’t so endless. By the year 1900, the evergreens were few and far between, but families still wanted their fresh cut tree.

The first Christmas tree farm sprung up in 1901 in New Jersey and soon others followed suit. Families could now pick out a pre-cut tree brought conveniently to town for them. But most families still chose to hike out into the wild woods and cut down their own tree, probably because they loved the tradition, and the pre-cut trees were often dry and looked rather, well, dead.

There are almost 15,000 Christmas tree farms covering 350,000 acres in the U.S.
Photo courtesy of Four Winds Christmas Trees in Los Gatos, CA.

The Birth of ‘Choose and Cut’ on Skyline Ridge

In the early 1950s, a man named Julius Ducca decided to replant his Christmas tree farm on the Skyline Ridge above the Santa Clara Valley in California. He planned to do what he’d always done: harvest the trees and haul them to town. Instead, when a man stopped by the farm and offered to pay Ducca for a chance to cut down his own tree, the entrepreneur decided to try the first “choose and cut” model within easy access to Santa Clara Valley. His farm was such a success, that miles of cars lined Skyline Boulevard, inching along for the chance to cut their own tree.

A long line of families waiting to cut fresh Christmas trees at Skyline Ranch in 1965. Photograph courtesy of Hans Johsens.

After enjoying success for many years, Ducca convinced the owner of Skyline Ranch, William Wasserman, to convert his open grasslands (then used for grain production and cattle grazing) to a Christmas tree farm. Planted in 1960, Skyline Ranch became the largest choose and cut tree farm in California at 200 acres. Families came from miles around to choose from 50,000 Douglas firs, white firs, Monterey pines, Scotch pines and sequoias. Now a part of the Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve, Skyline Ranch Tree Farm remains the largest farm in the area that still welcomes families to walk among its pines and firs on their tireless quest for the perfect tree.

Christmas trees on top the spine of the San Francisco Bay peninsula in 2005. Photo by Peter Kaminski.

The orchard at Whalens’ Castle Rock Ranch before it was converted to a Christmas Tree Plantation, December 1936. Photo from the collection of Janet Schwind.
Photographer unknown.

To help you on your quest to find the perfect tree, below is a list of just a few of the Christmas tree farms still active around the Santa Clara Valley today.

For a full list of all the Christmas tree farms in California, visit:

http://www.cachristmas.com/real-tree-choose-cut.html

Not in California?

Visit the National Christmas Tree Association website to search for tree farms in your area.

Tree farms on Skyline Ridge:

Skyline Ranch:  http://www.bayareachristmastreefarms.com/skyline.asp
Four Winds Christmas Trees:  http://www.four-winds-ranch.com/
Frosty’s Christmas Tree Farm:  http://www.frostyschristmastreefarm.com/
JS Tabacco Ranch:   http://www.jstabaccoranch.com/
McKenzie Ranch:  http://mckenzietreefarm.com/

Other Tree Farms in Santa Clara County:

Battaglia Ranch:  http://www.battagliaranch.com/
Black Road Christmas Tree Farms:  http://www.christmas-tree-farms.com/index.html
Peacock Tree Farm:  http://www.peacocktreefarm.com/
Patchen California:  http://www.patchencalifornia.com/
Lone Star Tree Farm:  http://www.bayareachristmastreefarms.com/lonestar.asp
Summit Tree Farm:  http://www.summittreefarm.com/

Tree Farms in Santa Cruz County

Crest Ranch:  http://www.crestranch.com/
Ward Ranch:  http://www.ward-ranch.com/

Further Resources

The history of the Skyline Ridge Tree farms came from a great new book about the Skyline region of the Santa Cruz Mountains, California called The South Skyline Story by Janet Schwind and the Skyline Historical Society, 2014. It is a well written, fun and informative read from the Native Americans, through the early loggers and ranchers, commune dwellers, wine makers, conservationists and homebuilders. You can get a copy at Alice’s Restaurant in Skylonda (the junction of Highways 35 and 84) or by contacting Skyline History President Chuck Schoppe, email: chuck_sch@hotmail.com or phone: 408-867-9229.

Holy City circa 1920s. Photo courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

For several decades in the 1900s eight Santa Claus statues welcomed motorists driving along the Old Santa Cruz Highway to a mysterious place called Holy City. The “city” — a tiny town that took five minutes to walk from one end to another — was established in 1918 by Father William E. Riker, also known as “The Emancipator,” “The Comforter,” “The King, ”and “The Professor.” This eccentric individual, like many cult leaders, has a muddied past of manipulation, showmanship, and morally questionable choices.

William and Lucile Riker. [Betty Lewis Collection] Photo: Courtesy of Richard Beal.

Before establishing Holy City in 1918, Riker earned his nickname “The Professor” from reading palms. He also travelled the country performing a mind reading act before he was arrested for bigamy in San Francisco. Leaving his two wives behind, Riker fled to Canada, where he developed the “Perfect Christian Divine Way.” To follow this new way required total celibacy, abstinence from alcohol, hard-core white supremacy, and communal living. Obviously, not the life for everyone, and yet at its peak in the 1930s, Father Riker had 300 devoted disciples.

The Cult’s Beginnings

In 1918, Riker purchased 30 acres just south of Los Gatos for only $10 that became “Holy City” according to Betty’s Lewis’s account in Holy City: Riker’s Roadside Attraction in the Santa Cruz Mountains. His following began with 30, mostly elderly, disciples who gave him all their money so they could focus on their new “religion.” Some called the group a religious cult but the only place of “worship” in the City was a redwood grove where Father Riker gave sermons that were more like philosophical lectures.

Riker himself actually referred to his group as a cult in the Rules and Regulations for Members:

Holy City in the early 1930s. [WIlliam A. Wulf Collection] Photo: Courtesy of Richard Beal.

Early in his new career as a spiritual leader of sorts, Riker first incensed one of his disciples by straying from his own strict rules and taking a wife. His disciple tried unsuccessfully to sue Riker. Instead of losing face (and the money he’d taken from his elderly follower), he soon began making $100,000 annually from his religious enterprise which included a restaurant, a service station, an observatory (10 cents to view the moon and stars through a telescope), and a mineral water business he ran on the side. By 1929, Holy City had a weekly newspaper and a radio station (KFQU). The radio station lasted two years until its license was revoked because Riker kept using other station’s frequencies.

Santa Claus Statues and Strange Signs Draw Tourists

By the 1930s Holy City had become a popular tourist spot for curious motorists traveling along the Old Santa Cruz Highway. Eight shoulder-height Santa Claus statues beckoned you onto the property. Several signs at the entrance boasted bold statements:

Riker’s idea of perfection, it seems, was an entirely white population (another one of his controversial, and in this case downright offensive, signs read “Asians and Negroes keep out of Holy City until you’ve learned your place”) and one where everyone except for Father Riker had to follow a strict set of rules and live without money or worldly possessions.

One of the buildings in Holy City, 1968. Photo courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

Riker was a man full of contradictions. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Adolf Hitler and yet he was overly friendly to Jews and welcomed them with open arms into his flock. He preached celibacy and yet he was a bigamist before founding Holy City and took a wife after establishing his strict ideology. He also preached sobriety and yet encouraged the man leasing the restaurant on his property to add a bar to the establishment. (He then later made him shut it down because too many of his disciples were frequenting it.)

“To My People I am God”

Despite his blatant hypocrisy, Riker’s cult-like group persisted through the Depression. He was quoted saying, “My people will do anything I tell them to do. To them I am God.” The Holy City fared well for a while, profiting from both dedicated followers and curious tourists. A variety of businesses attracted drivers to pull off the Old Santa Cruz Highway: There was a gas station, post office, grocery and meat market, restaurant, barber shop (the disciples had to borrow money from Riker to get a haircut), print shop, lecture hall, zoo, motion pictures, and ballroom with a sign reading:

“The Emancipator” (as Riker liked to call himself) also had grand plans for an amphitheater that would seat 17,000 people and host shows where he would miraculously “cure” people posing as blind, deaf or crippled.

The Fall of Riker’s Kingdom

The popularity of the cult finally fizzled as Riker’s followers began to see their leader as the manipulative and deceitful man he really was. Riker wouldn’t allow spouses to live together in Holy City yet rumors spread that the leader slept with all his female disciples. By 1938, only 75 men and 4 women lived at the site.

An old building in Holy City.

The opening of Highway 17 (which bypassed Holy City) in 1940 and gas rationing with the start of World War II, led to a sharp decline in tourists. In 1942 the FBI charged Riker with sedition for letters he wrote to Hitler showing his open support and his anti-semitic, British, Filipino, and Chinese propaganda. He avoided jail but had to give up his pamphlets and paid a large sum of $15,000 in legal fees by the end of the trial.

Father Riker still held on after the trial and after losing most of his land in a bad real estate transaction in 1959. That same year a series of mysterious fires burned most of the City’s buildings to the ground. Still, a handful of followers remained with Riker even after the 94-year-old cult leader converted to Catholicism in 1966. He died three years later with three loyal disciples still residing in Holy City.

A building in the Holy City of 2015.

Today, all that remains of Holy City is one modern building and the narrow road that bears its name. The old buildings have disappeared except for a derelict shack that may or may not have been a part of Father Riker’s small empire. A shop with a dayglo sign reading “Holy City Art Glass Holy City, California” reminds those few who drive by that a tract of 30 acres here in the Santa Cruz Mountains was once bustling with loyal disciples and curious tourists.

The Art Glass shop is the only remaining business in Holy City, 2015.

Holy City Road will take you up to Highway 17.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

North America: Three grizzly-bears in a forest next to a carcass. Coloured lithograph.
Image from Wikimedia Commons via Welcome Images.

“Mountain Charley” McKiernan had finally met his match. Face to face with a 1,000 pound grizzly bear, standing almost ten feet tall on her haunches, McKiernan was acutely aware of his mortality. Her paws were raised in preparation for a deadly bear hug, and she was so close he could feel and smell her hot, fishy breath.

Two painfully long seconds passed and McKiernan raised his gun, aiming and firing shakily at the bear’s chest. The bullet found its mark but the bear was only momentarily stunned. Without enough time to reload his rifle, McKiernan beat the bear over the head with it until it broke, but this only enraged her. Lunging at McKiernan, she sunk her teeth into his skull. When the bear released her grip, he reached up to cover his face with his hands and the mother bear’s massive mouth closed around both his arms.

McKiernan’s 26 years flashed before his eyes and then the bear turned and left, as quickly as it appeared, lumbering quickly toward her cubs who were being attacked by the dogs of McKiernan’s hunting partner, Taylor. McKiernan was somehow still conscious but couldn’t move his legs. There was nothing for him to do but to sit and wait for help.

Mountain Charley McKiernan’s legendary fight with a California grizzly bear in 1854 made his name famous throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains. McKiernan was already respected for his bear hunting skills, and even though he lost this fight, it was said that after this encounter the grizzlies let him pass through their territory in peace.

Mountain Charley, presumably before his legendary bear fight. Photo: Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

Patched up with Pesos

Charley might have survived the bear attack, but he was left disfigured. The bear’s teeth chewed away his skull above the left eye up to the top of the frontal bone. The doctor hammered together two Mexican pesos to make a silver plate used to fill in the gap in his skull where the bear had exposed his brain. The makeshift plate began to corrode within three weeks and had to be replaced. McKiernan suffered through both procedures without anesthetics which were not yet readily available.

After suffering severe headaches, the second plate was removed two years later. McKiernan was put under with chloroform, the first known use of the new anesthetic in that region, and the doctors removed an abscess that had formed around a wad of hair left in the wound. His pounding headaches subsided after the surgery and the wound properly healed, but he began to always wear a hat low over his left eye to hide the disfigurement.

When a grizzly chewed off part of Mountain Charley’s skull, two pesos were hammered together to make a plate to fill in the hole.

The First House in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Besides the bear fight, McKiernan was known as the first white man to permanently settle in the Santa Cruz Mountains. A plaque on the summit at Mt Charlie Road off the Old Santa Cruz Highway still marks the site of his simple log cabin. In the 1850s and ’60s, it was a popular place for stagecoach passengers travelling from Santa Cruz to Santa Clara to stop for dinner. It was also a county landmark for many years until it burned down in 1899.

This is most likely the replica of Mountain Charley’s cabin that was rebuilt after the original burnt down in 1899. Exact date unknown. Photo: Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

What brought “Mountain Charley” McKiernan to the Santa Cruz Mountains in the first place? Born in Ireland in 1825, McKiernan traveled to Australia and New Zealand as a quartermaster in the British Army before coming to California in 1848 when he caught wind of the gold strike. He worked in the mines, somewhere near San Francisco, for $20 a day. McKiernan had never dreamed of making so much back home in Ireland where mining wages were $20 a year.

After saving up his wages for a year, McKiernan ventured into the Santa Cruz Mountains, where land was plentiful, to look for a place to stake his claim. He found it up on the summit at a spot once popular with the area’s native peoples. He began building his cabin on a site littered with mortars, pestles, and flint arrowheads. He later built some of the first roads through theses mountains, including Mt Charlie Road, several miles of which are still in use today.

Mountain Charley built some of the first roads through the Santa Cruz Mountains, including one that still bears his name.

When Lions, Bears, and Wildcats Ruled the Summit

Back in the 1800s, the land was still wild up on the summit. McKiernan soon found out the hard way that raising sheep on land shared by mountain lions, wildcats, and grizzly bears was not such a profitable business venture. Spanish explorers in the mid-1700s made the first written accounts of the area and one padre beautifully captured its rugged wilderness (misspellings are in the original text):

“The adjecent mountains were wild and rugged, the canyons deep and dark with the shadows of the forest. Coyotes broke the stillness with their dismal howls, and herds of deer slacked their thirst in the clear waters of the San Lorenzo. Grizzly bears were numerous, prowling about in herds, like hogs on a farm.”

McKiernan lived alone in these wild mountains for three years. He gave up on sheep and, instead, raised long-horned steer and hunted grizzlies and wild deer. It is said that the deer were still so unaccustomed to humans that one could be shot while grazing in the middle of a herd and the rest of the deer would only raise their heads for a moment before continuing their deliberate munching.

“A rough and tumble with a grizzly,” by H. Bullock Webster, ca. 1874 – 1880. Image: University of British Columbia

Near Death by Grizzly: Just Another Day in the Life of a Santa Cruz Mountain Settler

The mountain man had his first neighbors, the Burrell family, in 1853. This family and other settlers also had frightening encounters with grizzlies.

While out building a fence for his pigs, Lyman Burrell heard his pigs making strange noises so he went over to investigate. There on the trail was a mother bear and her cub running straight towards him. Burrell began to run as fast as he could but he tripped and fell flat on the ground. The mother bear came upon Burrell and took his leg in her jaws, biting down with her huge incisors. Luckily, she only took one bite and then continued running down the trail with her cub. Burrell survived and his leg healed after six months.

A Frenchman living in the nearby town of Lexington was not so lucky.

The Frenchman encountered a bear while out hunting and when he missed his shot, the bear bit his left hand and then took his left arm in its paws. With his free right hand, the Frenchman began pummeling the bear with his fists, eventually hassling the bear enough to cause it to let go and lumber off. He lost his left arm but, as the story goes, the bear was found dead in the woods from the man’s mighty blows.

Grizzly Cubs Make Poor Pets

It’s difficult to say how true these tales are, but what is certain is that grizzlies were a common sight in the 1800s. Sadly, the large number of settlers drawn to California by the promise of gold led to the extinction of the California grizzly by 1924.

McKiernan certainly played his part in the bear’s extinction. He was one of the best-known bear hunters in the Santa Cruz mountains although there’s no record of how many bears died by his hand. Another one of his encounters with a California grizzly bear ended in the mother bear’s death, leaving behind two cubs. McKiernan took the cubs home and kept them for a while until they killed one too many hogs and had to be destroyed.

Mountain Charley’s cabin burned down in 1899 but you can visit this historic marker on Mt Charlie road off the Old Santa Cruz Highway. The marker says he “…settled near here in 1850.”

Mountain Charley lived the exciting life of a homesteader and bear hunter in the Santa Cruz Mountains until his death in 1892 at age 67. His close calls with grizzly bears (and those of his neighbors) are reminders of how truly wild these mountains once were.

Further Information

Please note that Mountain Charley is not to be confused with Charlie Parkhurst, another famous character from the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

Tight curves like this one, just north of Summit Road overpass, cause most accidents on Highway 17. In 2010 almost 90% of all accidents on 17 occurred at the notorious Laurel Curve. Photo: Courtesy of Stan Shebs, March 2004

The narrow lanes and dangerously tight curves of California’s Highway 17 have earned it ominous nicknames like “Killer 17” and “Blood Alley”. In the mid-60s philanthropist Harvey West tried to slow down drivers by erecting shocking billboards with ghastly red coffins and skeletons along this stretch of highway connecting San Jose to Santa Cruz. He organized pickets to stand along the highway’s narrow shoulder displaying signs warning commuters of their imminent death. There’s no doubt this is a dangerous, mountainous route — but does the whole highway deserve to be vilified or is it just one particularly tight curve that is to blame?

Laurel Curve is responsible for more deaths than any other section of this twisting highway. From 2004-2010 there were 2,092 crashes on the Santa Cruz county side of Highway 17 and 26 percent of them were at Laurel Curve. Even more chilling is that for this same seven year span, 73% of all fatal accidents on the entire length of Highway 17 occurred at Laurel Curve. In addition to vehicle collisions, Laurel Curve is also a high collision site for mountain lions, endangering both drivers and the big cats.

According to a study in 2006, about 20,000 cars per day drive Highway 17. America’s deadliest highway, I-95, sees on average 72,000. Photo: Courtesy of Richard Masoned, April 2009

The Town Between Two Tunnels

The route through the Santa Cruz Mountains has been dangerous since the 1800s, long before Highway 17 existed. Stagecoaches traversed the steep, narrow trail that connected Santa Clara County to Santa Cruz. Many lost control coming around a tight bend, passengers saying their prayers as the wagon toppled over, horses flailing to keep from tumbling down the mountain side.

Postcard of downtown Laurel, circa 1905. Photo: Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

The construction of the South Pacific Railroad in 1876 made the commute much easier and safer. Today’s deadly Laurel Curve was once the site of an old railroad station and a peaceful town named Laurel. The town thrived due to its location between Glenwood Tunnel and the infamous Wright’s Tunnel — then the second-longest railroad tunnel in California and a horrific death trap for close to 50 Chinese laborers. During construction of the two tunnels in the late 1800s, Laurel became a bustling supply depot and camp for the workers. Years later, redwood from the town’s lumber mill owned and operated by the prosperous entrepreneur Frederick Hihn, was used to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Laurel lasted as a railroad town until the giant storm of 1940 closed the railroad line.

Over 70 years later, Highway 17 has now made this spot famous not for rebuilding lives as it did in 1906, but for taking them.

Almost a 14 Lane Freeway

In 1965, shortly after Harvey West’s protests, the state poured money into multiple safety projects on Highway 17. Laurel Curve was a top priority and received new guard rails as well as a $4,500 left turn lane. In 1971 the mountainous road came close to advancing from a four lane highway to an eight lane freeway, with the intent of increasing to 14 lanes if needed. Santa Cruz residents disliked the idea to say the least, but the final vote by the Board of Supervisors was close: 3 to 2 in opposition to the additional lanes.

Traffic Congestion Increases and so do the Accidents

From 1981 to 1991, traffic congestion on Highway 17 increased more than 50% and with more cars, usually comes more accidents. The Safe on 17 Task Force came together in 1998 with the goal of reducing collisions through increased enforcement, road improvements and public education. More than 23.5 million was spent on the Santa Cruz county side alone to build retaining walls, improve drainage, widen road shoulders and replace guard rails. This money appeared to be well spent: From 1996-1998 the average yearly rate of injury/fatality crashes on Highway 17 was 249. From 2000 to 2013 the average was 147.

Data Source: SAFE ON 17, Highway 17 Safety Corridor, 2013 Annual Report Prepared by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission.

Data Source: SAFE ON 17, Highway 17 Safety Corridor, 2013 Annual Report Prepared by the Santa Cruz County Regional Transportation Commission. Note: 2011 had zero fatal accidents.

Until 2012, Laurel Curve had a break in the cement barrier to allow left hand turns and this break was a well known danger. In 2010 about 150 crashes took place on this barrier-less stretch by the month of September — almost 90% of all crashes that year on the entire highway.

In March of 2012 the driver of a Nissan Altima lost control on the wet pavement and swerved into oncoming traffic. This fatal two car accident resulted in the loss of one man’s life and pushed Caltrans to install a temporary median barrier within days at Laurel Curve and a high-friction surface treatment within four months. Over two years later, no more crossover deaths have occurred. Laurel Curve was revamped in 2015 and the left turns are permanently out. Hopefully this curve will not be causing so many accidents in the future.

Laurel curve looking south in 2016. Until 2012, you could make a left at about where the white van is. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

Where Does Highway 17 Rank in the 100 Deadliest U.S. Highways?

Highway 17 is obviously a dangerous road and when driving around Laurel Curve you should not be tempting the gods. And yet … a ranking of the 100 deadliest highways in America includes six in California but Highway 17 isn’t one of them. When you look at the fatal number of accidents per mile (calculated using stats from 2004-2008), the deadliest is I-95 in Florida at 1.73; the other top 99 are all above 0.45 accidents per mile. Highway 17?  Using the same methods, it comes in at 0.1 accidents per mile. And that’s the number before the installation of the barrier at Laurel Curve. Of course the number of drivers plays a role — average daily traffic on I-95 is 72,000 vehicles and can be up to 300,000 during peak hours. Highway 17 is less than half that, about 20,000 as of 2006. It still puts things in perspective and with the Safe on 17 Task Force, hopefully this highway will never make the list.

Laurel Curve looking north in 2015 after being re-engineered. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

What we think of as the traditional Thanksgiving day meal is actually not very traditional at all. Families from the 1900s had some unexpected dishes on their holiday tables like clear green turtle, oyster stew and plum pudding with rum sauce.
Photo courtesy of Ben Franske (November 2002).

How many of us can say our family serves larded tenderloin of beef or clear green turtle for Thanksgiving dinner? I’m guessing not many, but beef, turtle, duck, lamb and an assortment of other dishes filled the table of wealthy Americans in the early 1900s. As I pass the submerged Ghost Town of Alma on the drive to my parents’ house for this year’s Thanksgiving, I can’t help but salivate at the lavish feast that would have graced the table of the Tevis Estate in 1917.

At its peak, the grand Tevis Estate covered 2500 acres along Highway 17 by the Lexington Reservoir. It went through several owners but the last, Dr. Harry L. Tevis, made the largest impact on the land. During his 25 years on the estate, Dr. Tevis had up to 100 servants and ranch hands to help care for a large farm, dahlia and rose gardens, stables, and to help throw at least one extravagant Thanksgiving dinner.

So, what might Dr. Tevis have served at this feast of all feasts? If he decided to really go all out, he may have served a ten-course meal like this one from the New York Park Avenue Hotel in 1900. Keep in mind, this is not even the full menu. Each of these courses includes at least three other dishes! (See the full menu here.)

A sampling of the 1900 menu at the Park Avenue Hotel in New York

Blue Point or Cape Cod Oysters
____
Clear green turtle
____
Creamed fresh mushrooms on toast
____
Boneless smelts with anchovy butters
____
Saddle of lamb with kidney beans
____
Larded tenderloin of beef with stuffed artichoke
Potted quail with brussel sprouts
_____
Rum Punch
_____
Rhode Island Turkey with stuffed chestnuts and cranberry sauce
Suckling pig with sage stuffing
Gosling with apple sauce
____
Mashed potatoes and southern-style sweet potatoes
____
Red-head duck with currant jelly
____
English plum pudding with brandy sauce
Pumpkin pie, apple pie, assorted fancy cakes, wine jelly, frozen pudding, strawberry ice cream

And this is less than half the menu!

On most Thanksgiving menus from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s there is always some form of oysters (oyster soup, oyster sauce, oysters on the half-shell, oyster pie) which as a Californian, I’m assuming is an east-coast thing. I mean, oysters on Thanksgiving? Sounds a little fishy if you ask me.

What are some foods that you can always bet will be served at your family’s Thanksgiving dinner? Let us know in the comments below!

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

This mural of Charley Parkhurst was at the Soquel Village Post Office from 1985 to 2012. Artist Frank Hill. Image: Courtesy of Mrwrite

Driving from San Jose to Santa Cruz over Highway 17 is a pretty harrowing 40 minutes with tight twisting curves and crazy drivers. Just imagine driving a team of six horses and a stagecoach full of passengers over the same route—but on treacherous dirt roads barely more than trails. In the 1800s it was thought only a man could handle a job as dangerous as this. And yet, it was a woman in the 1860s, that became one of the most famous—and not to be messed with—stagecoach drivers between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Charley Parkhurst chose to live as a man for over 30 years, deftly handling horses and bravely fighting bandits throughout the west. It wasn’t until Parkhurst’s death that his secret was revealed.

Not to be confused with another well-known character of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Mountain Charley McKiernan, this Charley was born Charlotte Parkhurst in Lebanon, New Hampshire and grew up in an orphanage. Dressed in boy’s clothing Parkhurst left the orphanage and according to one account, met Ebenezer Balch, the owner of a livery stable in Rhode Island, who took him in as his own son. Balch taught the young child to ride horses and drive wagon teams giving him the skills needed to later drive stagecoaches throughout California. He quickly mastered the profession and made the perilous long journey all the way across the country to work as a whip (the term then for a stagecoach driver) on the Pacific Coast.

Charlotte “Charley” Parkhurst. Image: Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

One-Eyed, Bandit-Shootin’ Charley

When the almost 40-year-old Parkhurst arrived in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1850, he fit right in with the other rough and tough drivers. Known as “One-eyed Charley”, he wore a black patch over his left eye, lost when attempting to shoe a horse. His lips were stained from constant tobacco chewing and as the years wore on he talked less and less earning him another nickname, Silent Charley. When Parkhurst did speak, he didn’t hesitate to sling around swear words in a gruff voice. The only part of his appearance that was out of place was his clean-shaven face, an odd choice for a man in those days.

Parkhurst proved himself in California not only in skill with a team of up to six horses but in handling bandits. A bandit called “Sugarfoot” and his crew held up Parkhurst’s stagecoach and forced him to hand over the wagon’s strong box (used to hold all of the passenger’s valuables). He calmly acquiesced while keeping all his passengers safe, but before they left, he warned the robbers that he’d “break even with them.” Sugarfoot unwisely stopped his stagecoach again, and this time, Parkhurst shot him dead. As the story goes, Sugarfoot crawled back to a miner’s cabin and, before he died, told the miners he’d been shot by the famous driver, One-eyed Charley.

Charley Parkhurst would have driven a stagecoach similar to this one pictured at Big Basin in 1906.
Image: Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History

First Woman to Vote in America

Parkhurst took advantage of his disguise in other ways. In 1868, Parkhurst registered to vote. This was 52 years before the 19th amendment granted women the right! Although Parkhurst’s name is recorded on the official poll list for the election of 1868, it is unknown whether he actually cast his ballot. Still, there is a plaque at his grave, as well as at the Soquel Fire Station and Soquel Post Office, that commemorates him as the first woman to vote in the United States of America.

A Secret Revealed

During his 30 years as a stagecoach driver, Parkhurst became known as one of the best in California. In the late 1860s, as traveling by train began to replace the need for stagecoaches, Charley retired as a whip and tried his hand at other ventures. He is rumored to have raised cattle on Bean Creek and may have opened a stage station and saloon between Santa Cruz and Watsonville. It seems more certain that he worked as a skilled lumberjack for several years until rheumatism and cancer of the mouth forced him to stop.

Parkhurst’s secret was finally revealed upon his death in 1879. His reasons for choosing this lifestyle are unknown, but we can safely assume that Parkhurst would never have become a famous stagecoach driver as a woman. You can visit his grave today at the Pioneer Cemetery at 44 Main Street in Watsonville, California.

Charler Parkhurst’s grave marker.
Photo: Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.

Further Information

• Charley’s Choice: The Life and Times of Charley Parkhurst. Fern J. Hill. 2008.
• The Whip, by Karen Kondazian. Hansen Publishing Group LLC. 2012.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

This bridge was built in 1926 to connect the towns of Lexington and Alma. It was revealed in December 2008 when the reservoir was almost entirely drained for construction. Photo: Calbookaddict

The heart of Alma, a ghost town of California’s past, lies submerged and mostly forgotten in the basin of the Lexington Reservoir along Highway 17, near Silicon Valley. The outskirts of the town are now filled in with forest and bisected by the highway, but this town once boasted a grand hotel that served grizzly bear meat, an estate with trout lakes, botanical gardens with rare plants, and, arguably, the world’s largest madrone tree.

Established in 1871, the bustling town of 200 was a welcome rest stop for stage coach drivers and a lovely getaway for San Franciscans in search of an adventurous weekend of hunting the elusive grizzly or fishing for trout in Los Gatos Creek. It was the mellow counterpart to its infamous neighbor, Lexington. For a time, it flourished.

Parts of the Old Santa Cruz Highway are clearly visible due to the low water level when this photo was taken in October 2014.

A Taste of Grizzly at the Forest House

Although Lexington was best-known for a brutal murder, Alma was known and once named for a large hotel and stage station called the Forest House. Inside was everything a weary traveler needed: beds, a dining room filled with tasty homemade fare, and of course a saloon for those in need of a strong drink before braving the treacherous road that then wound through the Santa Cruz Mountains. Those with adventurous culinary tastes could even pay a pretty penny for a bite of exotic grizzly bear meat. The locals knew better, however, and never ate the tough, stringy meat with a flavor that was best described as “rancid fish.”

Forest House was rebuilt in the 1930s and became the largest hostelry between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz. It later became the town post office and remained in operation until flooded by the Lexington Reservoir in 1952.

Alma was also known for the grandiose Tevis Estate, located just outside of town. Starting at 49 acres, it began as a failed attempt at a commercial trout farm and ended as a 2500-acre estate, complete with a 40-room house and several other buildings, an experimental farm, massive gardens filled with a staggering number of rare flowers, and a private water system large enough for a small city. The last owner of the estate, Dr. Tevis, was a retired San Francisco physician with a generous heart. After the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed most of the city, he transformed his estate into an earthquake refugee camp for the entire San Francisco grand opera company until they could return home.

Lexington Reservoir modified to show the locations of the two submerged ghost towns, Lexington and Alma. Photo by Ernest McGray, Jr.

The estate also claimed to have the largest madrone tree in the world growing on its acreage, visible from Bear Creek Road. It probably stood for a couple of hundred years before it fell in the 1950s. Its canopy reached 100 feet across (about half the length of the Lincoln Memorial), and its trunk circumference was an astounding 32 feet 10 inches. Today, Highway 17 runs through the old location of the estate. Its gardens were reclaimed by the forest years ago.

When the Fate of a Town Hinged on Railroads

Alma owed its prosperity almost entirely to the railroad that once ran through town and brought welcome visitors and economic growth. The original route, however, would have spelled Alma’s demise and decreased the popularity of Santa Cruz as well.

The railroad’s first plans went from Saratoga up to the present day junction of Big Basin Road and Highway 9, following the San Lorenzo River through Boulder Creek to Felton. If that had remained the route, Los Gatos, Santa Cruz, and certainly the small town of Alma, would have been too far off the beaten tracks to bother visiting, and few would have known of their existence.

Photo: Richard Masoner via Flickr

That original plan changed, though. In 1876 (just five years after the establishment of the town of Alma), railroad tracks were laid from Santa Clara to Los Gatos and Alma, and then on to several other towns close to Highway 17 before reaching Santa Cruz and finally Felton. The train remained the most popular mode of travel in the area until the tracks were badly damaged by winter storms in 1940. This gave automobiles the final push needed to replace the train, and soon most folks chose to drive over Highway 17 instead. Cars drove right past Alma, and the town quietly faded before being snuffed completely by the Lexington Reservoir’s rising waters.

The Ruins of Alma

Pieces of Alma remain but are rarely visible. Back in 2008 during renovation on the dam, the Lexington Reservoir was drained to just 5% of its capacity, revealing the old Alma bridge. Built in 1926, the bridge once spanned the Los Gatos Creek between Alma and Lexington and is almost always submerged. Even if this bridge can’t be seen, a different bridge and other parts of Alma’s past come into view when water levels are low. Foundations, eroding stairs, a stretch of the old Santa Cruz Highway (known as Glenwood Highway when first built in the early 1900s), and sections of the old railroad are again exposed to the light of day.

There are two bridges that were flooded with the filling of the reservoir. One bridge can be seen in this photo from November 1, 2014. It is at the south end of the reservoir near the present-day intersection of the Old Santa Cruz Highway and Wrights Drive.

Old stairs in the vicinity of Alma, July 2014. Photo: Pauly Kiezel

During long spells of drought, the waters are currently plenty low to see many of these relics, beckoning history buffs, and the curious to explore this piece of California’s past. Eventually though, the reservoir will refill and the ghost town of Alma will again disappear beneath the water.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

Lexington Reservoir in 2014. Photo: Courtesy of Levy Media Works

Post Updated on April 13, 2016
Thanks to the plentiful El Niño rains, in early April, Lexington Reservoir was at 69% capacity. That’s compared to 23% in February of this year. At current levels, the entire ghost town of Lexington is submerged beneath the reservoir’s surface. Nonetheless, the rich history has stayed afloat.

Original Post October 31, 2014
As you drive over Highway 17 past the Lexington Reservoir, the water level reminds you whether it’s been a particularly wet or dry year but probably not of the two towns that disappeared with the rising waters. In the third year of a statewide drought, the water is currently low enough to reveal the flooded remains of the ghost towns of Lexington and Alma. An old bridge. The stone foundations of family homes. The cement ribbon of the old Santa Cruz Highway. Today’s reservoir was named after one of these towns, which was a stage coach stop en route to Santa Cruz. The town of Lexington burned bright for a short while, profiting from the logging industry and achieving infamy from a brutal murder.

Home to the first sawmill in Santa Clara County, the town of Lexington (first called Jones’ Mill) was established in 1857. By the year 1867, Lexington was the main commerce center between San Jose and Santa Cruz. Los Gatos, then called Forbes Mill, was just a small crossroads in its large shadow. Lexington profited from heavy logging of the virgin redwood forests that grew thickly throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains and from high-quality leather and tan bark that was in high demand at the tanneries in Santa Cruz County. Pack mules delivered the tan bark through the mountains to Santa Cruz, and, although less than 25 miles, the trip in those days was a far cry from today’s 30-minute drive.

A stretch of old Highway 17 (which was rerouted before the reservoir was filled) surfaces above the waters of Lexington Reservoir in October 2014. Notice the white lines. That’s the original paint! Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

Before the 1850s, there were no roads between Santa Clara and Santa Cruz County. It took three long, grueling days to travel between what is now Los Gatos and the summit (less than 15 miles), bushwhacking through thick brush on steep terrain either by foot or on horseback. By Lexington’s heyday in 1867, a group of Santa Cruz County residents had constructed the Santa Cruz Turnpike. This was a huge improvement to the first dirt road that was so steep and narrow that wagons had to lighten their loads and take several trips, and the cattle, horses, and oxen were always in danger of a fatal slip off the road’s edge.

The Santa Cruz Turnpike was eight feet wide, built largely by hand, and a much easier passage for horses and wagons. Still, many accidents occurred and  it was not an easy road. Through one section, the highway crossed Soquel Creek 25 times without any bridges. The first toll house was located in Lexington. The toll for a wagon and two horses or oxen to pass was 50 cents.

Saloons as Prevalent as Starbucks

The Lexington House Hotel and saloons were busy with tourists, commuters, bandits, and gamblers before the roads were rerouted to bypass the town. In the 1890s, when alcohol was illegal in Los Gatos, 12 saloons lined the road between Lexington and its neighboring town, Alma.

The foundation of an old Lexington building is revealed by the low water. October, 2014. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

A Murderous Past

It was a tumultuous period for Santa Clara County. Besides the ghosts of bandits and gamblers, the victims of a brutal murder and their killers haunt the reservoir’s waters.

In 1883, saloon-keeper Lloyd L Majors of Los Gatos sent rancher John Showers and painter Joseph Jewell with a pistol and a pair of pliers to the mountain cabin of the well-liked William Renowden. Rumored to have $20,000 in gold stashed throughout his cabin, Renowden and his partner Archibald McIntyre met an unlucky fate that day. The pliers were brought as a torture device to pull off Renowden’s fingernails one by one until he revealed where he hid his gold. Whether or not the pliers were used is unclear, but either way, two good men lost their lives for the sake of greed.

Showers and Jewell shot Renowden and McIntyre, lit a match, and set fire to the house before fleeing with the gold. Both bodies were found in the smoldering remains of the cabin. The story ends with the violent deaths of all three murderers: Jewell was executed by hanging at San Quentin, Showers was stabbed to death in a prison fight, and the plotting Majors died in a prison break at Folsom Prison.

The murder trial received national coverage and made Lexington infamous for a while, but infamy lasts only so long.

Lexington’s Demise

After Lexington lumber mills had clear-cut all the virgin redwoods in the area, the mills moved to Los Gatos, which depleted the town’s economy. The post office was then moved to the neighboring town of Alma in 1873, partly due to complaints from church-goers that women and children had to pass through the rowdy Lexington saloon to reach the post office located in the back. Then in 1880, the new railroad bypassed Lexington completely, favoring Alma instead. Most of Lexington’s families moved to Alma soon after, and the town dwindled and quieted to a mere whisper of what it once was.

The town hung on, with fewer than a dozen families still residing there, until the construction of the dam in 1952. Even then, an old woman refused to leave her home, preferring to hold her ground even as her house was lifted from its foundation and carted away.

Today, when the water level of Lexington Reservoir dips low enough, you can walk the same ground as the ghosts of Lexington, searching for remnants of a time gone by.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

The famous “cats” guarding the road to Poet’s Canyon in 1925. The automobile is a Ford Model T (notice the spare inner tube for the tires). Photo: William A. Wulf Collection, Courtesy of Richard Beal.

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 always thought the Cats Restaurant and the two cat statues just a few hundred feet south of it derived their inspiration from the nearby town of Los Gatos (the cats in Spanish). But this is apparently not true.

The eight feet tall cats, Leo and Leona, have kept watch over the entrance to “Poets Canyon” since 1922. They were commissioned by writer Colonel Charles Erskine Scott Wood and poet, suffragist Sara Bard Field to mark the entrance to their 34 acres; their safe haven and place to philosophize and write poetry.  They built a house, planted a vineyard and put big wine casks out along the road as a way to protest prohibition. The property was a hang out for artists, writers and musicians of the day. Sara wrote well known poems while living there: The Pale Woman, Barrabas, and A Darkling Plain. Charlie Chaplin, John Steinbeck and even First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visited the place.

Colonel (Ret.) Charles Erskine Scott Wood. Wood died at age 92 in his much loved “castle in the sky.” [Courtesy Horace Bristol] Photo: Courtesy of Richard Beal.

The statues were originally modeled in clay and then made in concrete. Created by sculptor Robert Paine, he lived on the property for the year it took him to make them and accepted only a small payment. According to Richard A. Beal, author of “Highway 17: The Road to Santa Cruz,” Charles and Sara conceived of their cat statues not  because of neighboring “Los Gatos” but because they just liked cats. Los Gatos was named in the 1840s after the wildcats in the area and Leo and Leona don’t look completely like mountain lions or bobcats, so it could be!

Wood died at age 92 in early 1944, his last years in failing health. Field, who had married Wood in 1938, continued to own the property until 1955, when she sold it to an oil executive, Fred G. Hampton.

The estate was owned by the Ogilvie family from 1960 until it sold in Nov. 2013. Eva “Diane” Ogilvie, was an entrepreneurial Los Gatos woman who apparently persuaded Hampton to sell to her. It remained in the Ogilvie family, largely unseen by the public. The Ogilvies expanded the property to 75 acres, with a total of nine parcels. Diane’s husband Bruce died in 2003 and when Diane died in 2011, the family decided to sell. Artisan Sothbys International listed the property for sale in late 2013 for $8.95 million. It sold and the new owner says the historic aspects of the site will be preserved.

“The Cats” entry to the former estate of Charles Erskine Scott Wood and Sara Bard Field in Los Gatos, California, March, 2006. Photo: Matthew A. Voorsanger.

Todays Cats Restaurant and Tavern was a stop on the old stage line from Santa Cruz to San Jose. It was a raucous social gathering place and in the 1920s was a speakeasy and bordello. In the 50s and 60s it was variably a realty office, gun shop and sporting goods store. It became a restaurant again in 1967. The Ogilvie Family bought the restaurant in 1977 and ran it until 2006. It stood closed until 2011, when new owners opened it on New Years Eve. Diane Ogilvie died on Oct 3, 2011 and was hoping to support the new owners by eating there when it opened. Unfortunately, she did not make it.

In October 2013, the Museum of Los Gatos Art and History ran a six month long exhibit “American Bohemia:  The Cats Estate in Los Gatos” it explored the lives of Wood and Field.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the Highway 17 Tour. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.