Mission Santa Cruz was a Spanish mission founded in 1791 by the Franciscan order in present-day Santa Cruz, California, dedicated by Father Fermín de Lasuén, second president of the Alta California missions. The mission was named for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, adopting the name given to a nearby creek by the missionary priest Juan Crespi, who accompanied the explorer Gaspar de Portolá when he camped on the banks of the San Lorenzo River on October 17, 1769.
Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, in Northern California. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 62,956. Situated on the northern edge of Monterey Bay, Santa Cruz is a popular tourist destination, owing to its beaches, surf culture, and historic landmarks.
Santa Cruz County, officially the County of Santa Cruz, is a county on the Pacific coast of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 270,861. The county seat is Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz County comprises the Santa Cruz–Watsonville, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area. The county is on the California Central Coast, south of the San Francisco Bay Area region. The county forms the northern coast of the Monterey Bay, with Monterey County forming the southern coast.
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 12,224. Principal access to the city is supplied by State Route 17 that connects San Jose and Santa Cruz. The city was incorporated in 1966.
The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from the San Francisco Bay and the Santa Clara Valley, and continue south to the Central Coast, bordering Monterey Bay and ending at the Salinas Valley. The range passes through the counties of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey, with the Pajaro River forming the southern boundary.
Big Basin Redwoods State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of California, located in Santa Cruz County, about 36 km (22 mi) northwest of Santa Cruz. The park contains almost all of the Waddell Creek watershed, which was formed by the seismic uplift of its rim, and the erosion of its center by the many streams in its bowl-shaped depression.
Branciforte, originally named Villa de Branciforte, was the last of only three secular pueblos founded by the Spanish colonial government of Alta California. The pueblo was established in 1797 on the eastern bluff of the San Lorenzo River, facing Mission Santa Cruz on the west side of the river, in modern-day Santa Cruz, California. The pueblo never prospered, and the area was annexed into the city of Santa Cruz, California in 1905.
The San Lorenzo River is a 29.3 miles (47.2 km) long river whose headwaters originate in Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains and flow south by southeast through the San Lorenzo Valley before passing through Santa Cruz and emptying into Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
Thomas Fallon (1825–1885) an Irish-born Californian politician, best known for serving as 10th Mayor of San Jose. Fallon remains a controversial figure in San Jose's history, owing to his role in the American Conquest of California.
Juana Briones de Miranda was a Californio ranchera, medical practitioner, and merchant, often remembered as the "Founding Mother of San Francisco", for her noted involvement in the early development of the city of San Francisco. Later in her life, she also played an important role in developing modern Palo Alto.
The Rancho San Andrés Castro Adobe is a historically and architecturally significant house located in the Pájaro Valley, California. The two-story Rancho San Andrés Castro Adobe is a historic rancho hacienda that was built between 1848-49.
The Larkin House is a historic house at 464 Calle Principal in Monterey, California. Built in 1835 by Thomas O. Larkin, it is claimed to be the first two-story house in all of California, with a design combining Spanish Colonial building methods with New England architectural features to create the popular Monterey Colonial style of architecture. The Larkin House is both a National and a California Historical Landmark, and is a featured property of Monterey State Historic Park.
Juan Bautista Rogers Cooper was a 19th-century pioneer of California, who held British, Mexican, and finally American citizenship. Raised in Massachusetts in a maritime family, he came to the Mexican territory of Alta California as master of the ship Rover, and was a pioneer of Monterey, California, when it was the capital of the territory. He converted to Catholicism, became a Mexican citizen, married the daughter of the Mexican territorial governor, and acquired extensive land holdings in the area prior to the Mexican–American War.
Adobe Creek, historically San Antonio Creek, is a 14.2-mile-long (22.9 km) northward-flowing stream originating on Black Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It courses through the cities of Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, and Palo Alto on its way to the Palo Alto Flood Basin and thence to southwestern San Francisco Bay in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Historically, Adobe Creek was a perennial stream and hosted runs of steelhead trout entering from the Bay, but these salmonids are now blocked by numerous flood control structures, including a tidal gate at the creek's mouth and a long concretized rectangular channel culminating in an impassable drop structure at El Camino Real. The co-founders of Adobe Systems both lived on Adobe Creek.
The Lost Adobe is a location at Mission Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California. The stone foundations of an unidentified adobe on the east edge of Mission Hill in Santa Cruz was first discovered in 1978. Prior to any excavations an extensive archival research program was carried out. After no mention was found in the written record, the foundations were given the name the Lost Adobe. Archaeological excavations indicated the presence of 18+ rooms' structural foundations extending west toward the original church and cemetery. Artifacts found were a diverse collection of Spanish Mission Era/ Mexican Republic materials including glass beads, Majolica ceramic fragments and phoenix buttons. These findings suggest that the structure was used to house the neophyte community of Yokut and Ohlone families living at the Santa Cruz Mission in the 1820s and 1830s. The "Lost Adobe" collapsed during the 19th century, and no remnants remain. The area is on private property and visitors are not allowed.
The Glen Canyon Covered Bridge, near Santa Cruz, California, was a covered bridge built in 1892. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It has since been demolished.
Thomas Theodore Tidball was an American pioneer who came out west during the time of the California gold rush. He was a veteran of the American Civil War who served as a captain in the Union Army. In 1866, Tidball settled in Jolon, California where he and George Dutton purchased the Antonio Ramirez adobe Inn in 1876 and converted it into a two-story hotel and stagecoach station. Tidball went on to establish his own General Store in 1890, which is now the only standing commercial building of Jolon. The Tidball Store is a landmark, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 12, 1976.
Tidball Store or Jolon General Store is located off Jolon Road in Jolon, California, United States, 1/4 mile south of the Dutton Hotel, Stagecoach Station. The store was constructed by pioneer, Thomas Theodore Tidball, from the remains of an old adobe inn, built in 1868 by Flint & Bixby Stage Lines. Tidball supplied food, clothing, building supplies and other necessities to customers traveling through and to local ranchers and miners. The store was a major stagecoach stop on the old El Camino Real in the late 1880s. The landmark was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 12, 1976. It is the only standing commercial building of Jolon, once a major community of southern Monterey County.
Hugh White Comstock was an established designer and master builder in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. He and Michael J. Murphy were responsible for giving Carmel its unique architectural character. Comstock developed a "Fairy Tale," storybook architectural style, that has been closely identified with Carmel. Twenty-one of his cottages remain in the area today. Comstock developed a modern use of adobe in the construction of a post-adobe brick called "Bitudobe."
