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The Shadow of Loma Prieta: Part Three of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation
LOMA PRIETA—the dark heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains on the Central Coast of California. Once a verdant wilderness barely touched by humans, it took only forty years for opportunistic lumber barons to deprive its redwood-studded southern flanks of millennia of growth. By 1900, the Aptos Forest was a desolation of stumps, and lumber crews were hungrily moving into the sprawling Soquel Forest. But as the cost of milling rose and the value of lumber steadily decreased, investors sought new opportunities. Some looked into cheaper means of harvesting timber, others envisioned thriving residential communities, and a few delved deep in search of oil. Yet all their efforts came to nothing. Eventually, the Marks family of Salinas and the Pelican Timber Company, tired of years of financial loss, sold their vast properties to form The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park and the Soquel Demonstration State Forest. This conclusion to Ronald G. Powell’s monumental History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation explores the final evolution of Martina Castro’s former Mexican land grant from an industrial wasteland into a bastion of conservation and sustainability.
442 pages, Paperback
Published October 23, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 3, 2023
The final book about Rancho Soquel has author Powell's voice, to this writer's ear, at its strongest, and reportedly its contents are least in need of adjustment by editor Whaley. Every page packed with fascinating history, it cruises to the mid-twentieth century to tell how the family of Nissen or Nacene or Nisene Marks came to conserve the Aptos and Soquel Creeks' land in what is now the state park holier than Jerusalem to this writer.
The book begins with a western-film adversary in the person of Hinckley Gulch itself, antagonist of the book's first third, whose body twists in multiple floods and the 1906 earthquake, swallowing people, resorts and trains, and who finally releases its unwitting loggers from torment only around 1920. Powell's personal experience with the ground, as well as reports from historic persons, make a vivid struggle with that untamable piece of land.
Besides the exploitative grifters of the previous 2 books such as Thomas Fallon and Frederick Hihn, this book has heroes of the conservation movement beside Nisene Marks, such as Ormsbee (like Ormsby Cutoff way up top of Watsonville), whose proposal to make a state park of the entire Loma Prieta from Mount Madonna to Umunhum was turned down THREE TIMES by the trash State of California. Trash!!! And hundreds of acres at a whack are still for sale to white trash weed growers and condo builders up top of Eureka Canyon as I type this.
Powell keeps his eye always on the tracts divided from Rancho Soquel through the course of the story, but also reminds us, as he does so well in the other 2 books, of how everything in history is always connected so simply. For example, Rispin (I always forget about his abandoned house down there in the Soquel hole) was connected with Huntington and all those oil barons, and Nisene Marks herself moved her family from Arizona to California to get away from the gunfights in THE Tombstone, like from the movies!
Niche details abound, such as how an earthquake can "churn" one's cistern, making one's water temporarily unpotable, how an entire locomotive legendarily vanished somewhere above Aptos Creek, how the crap Canfields (see your nearest "parking only for Seaside Company employees" sign) have been strangling Santa Cruz since at least 1915, how the Aptos Creek stood in for Canada in 1919 movie One-Way Trail, how 35/Skyline/Highland/Loma Prieta were basically a gift from the WPA, and how German squatters kept logging alive in the 1930s before turning Olive Springs over to 1950s floods that isolated upper Soquel and made it the paradise for heshers and junkies that we know it is today.
My only question is: that one time my band drove way tf up past Olive Springs over two creeks in my 1985 Honda "Commie car" (sacrificing an axle shaft boot) to play that outdoor show at the weed spot in 2007, where those necks were shooting redwood branches down with a shotgun and running Suzuki Samurais down the back hill, was that flattened spot connected to the dreaded 1900 mill on Santa Rosalía Ridge? There was no running water, generator power for the bands, I'm pretty sure we played a Jefferson Airplane song punk-style, stoned as fuck, but I couldn't tell you which song now.
One thing this book MUST be used for is to advocate for indigenizing the state parks, as the first chapter has a stunning report that a high spot in Nisene Marks has a grinding rock. The original Californians' path to the South Bay! We need to protect Juristac and it needs to connect to Nisene Marks and Mt Madonna.
Can't say enough about how important this project is, and how awesome it is that Derek Whaley took the time to put Ron Powell's work into three beautiful books that will serve both deep study and motivate general California history buffage for years to come. Yes, I read every word of all 3 books, and I can't wait to do it again.
The book begins with a western-film adversary in the person of Hinckley Gulch itself, antagonist of the book's first third, whose body twists in multiple floods and the 1906 earthquake, swallowing people, resorts and trains, and who finally releases its unwitting loggers from torment only around 1920. Powell's personal experience with the ground, as well as reports from historic persons, make a vivid struggle with that untamable piece of land.
Besides the exploitative grifters of the previous 2 books such as Thomas Fallon and Frederick Hihn, this book has heroes of the conservation movement beside Nisene Marks, such as Ormsbee (like Ormsby Cutoff way up top of Watsonville), whose proposal to make a state park of the entire Loma Prieta from Mount Madonna to Umunhum was turned down THREE TIMES by the trash State of California. Trash!!! And hundreds of acres at a whack are still for sale to white trash weed growers and condo builders up top of Eureka Canyon as I type this.
Powell keeps his eye always on the tracts divided from Rancho Soquel through the course of the story, but also reminds us, as he does so well in the other 2 books, of how everything in history is always connected so simply. For example, Rispin (I always forget about his abandoned house down there in the Soquel hole) was connected with Huntington and all those oil barons, and Nisene Marks herself moved her family from Arizona to California to get away from the gunfights in THE Tombstone, like from the movies!
Niche details abound, such as how an earthquake can "churn" one's cistern, making one's water temporarily unpotable, how an entire locomotive legendarily vanished somewhere above Aptos Creek, how the crap Canfields (see your nearest "parking only for Seaside Company employees" sign) have been strangling Santa Cruz since at least 1915, how the Aptos Creek stood in for Canada in 1919 movie One-Way Trail, how 35/Skyline/Highland/Loma Prieta were basically a gift from the WPA, and how German squatters kept logging alive in the 1930s before turning Olive Springs over to 1950s floods that isolated upper Soquel and made it the paradise for heshers and junkies that we know it is today.
My only question is: that one time my band drove way tf up past Olive Springs over two creeks in my 1985 Honda "Commie car" (sacrificing an axle shaft boot) to play that outdoor show at the weed spot in 2007, where those necks were shooting redwood branches down with a shotgun and running Suzuki Samurais down the back hill, was that flattened spot connected to the dreaded 1900 mill on Santa Rosalía Ridge? There was no running water, generator power for the bands, I'm pretty sure we played a Jefferson Airplane song punk-style, stoned as fuck, but I couldn't tell you which song now.
One thing this book MUST be used for is to advocate for indigenizing the state parks, as the first chapter has a stunning report that a high spot in Nisene Marks has a grinding rock. The original Californians' path to the South Bay! We need to protect Juristac and it needs to connect to Nisene Marks and Mt Madonna.
Can't say enough about how important this project is, and how awesome it is that Derek Whaley took the time to put Ron Powell's work into three beautiful books that will serve both deep study and motivate general California history buffage for years to come. Yes, I read every word of all 3 books, and I can't wait to do it again.
March 9, 2025
Finally finished all 3 volumes 👏🏼👏🏼
Very rewarding experience, brought back memories. Remembering that area as a young boy before Santa Cruz, Soquel, Capitola & Aptos were one continuous sprawl. There were fields & countryside in between. Aptos & Capitola were still lil resort/villages then .
I remember the storms mentioned in the book as well.
It’s very heartwarming & enriching reading about the history of an area I’ve walked through many times throughout my life
Makes me wanna go back & visit
Very rewarding experience, brought back memories. Remembering that area as a young boy before Santa Cruz, Soquel, Capitola & Aptos were one continuous sprawl. There were fields & countryside in between. Aptos & Capitola were still lil resort/villages then .
I remember the storms mentioned in the book as well.
It’s very heartwarming & enriching reading about the history of an area I’ve walked through many times throughout my life
Makes me wanna go back & visit
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews