Special Event!
Benefit for Tsunami Relief
Sponsored by the City of Capitola

The Best of the Worst!
The Top 10 Disasters, Catastrophes and Calamities
in the History of Santa Cruz County

A slide-illustrated lecture by Sandy Lydon, the History Dude

Santa Cruz has had a bunch of disastrous fires over the years, but do any of them qualify in my top ten? The April 1894 fire burned over a full city block of buildings, including the Santa Cruz County Court House and Chinatown along Front Street. This photograph was taken looking north, and with Pacific Avenue on the left and Front Street on the right. Was this fire bad enough? Did it have long term repercussions?

Santa Cruz County’s history is filled with floods, fires, earthquakes, droughts, storms, lightning strikes, explosions, epidemics, shipwrecks, trainwrecks, traffic accidents, gunfights, lynchings, mass murders, corruption, malfeasance and stupid decisions made by public officials and private citizens. After thirty-five years of researching, writing and teaching the county’s history, Sandy Lydon has, for the first time, assembled his top ten list of calamitous events, their impact on the county and how the residents of Santa Cruz County overcame them, if ever.

Can the election of a single person be termed a catastrophe? In 1954 Santa Cruz County voters elected Charles Moore as District Attorney. At that time he was the youngest person ever elected as DA in any county in California. He ran on a platform of cleaning up gambling and other corruption in Santa Cruz County. In this picture taken in early 1955 he is eyeing a machine used for gambling. Alas, Charles Moore was found to be in cahoots with the very gamblers he vowed to eliminate, and he resigned in disgrace. Does his career in county government rate high enough to make my top ten?

One might think that this tiny county has an orderly history marked by progress and civility. On the contrary, Sandy Lydon has found that long before it was founded in 1850, the area we now call Santa Cruz County was rife with tragedy and bad judgment. And once it was officially formed on February 18, 1850, Santa Cruz County and its residents staggered through history running into things, tripping and falling and acting foolishly. It’s a miracle the place is still here.

Santa Cruz was beset with floods beginning with the first winter following the foundation of the mission in 1791. Certainly at least one flood year will make the top ten list, won’t it? Will it be the Christmastime flood of 1955 (often called the Big One) pictured here? Note the ferocity with which the San Lorenzo River is flowing down Front Street. Which flood will make the top ten?

If you find yourself shouting out loud at the newspaper or the local evening news, this presentation will provide you with some comfort and solace. Sandy Lydon will demonstrate that craziness, stupidity and disaster have been steering the place all along. He will cure your longing for the good old days, because they weren’t, necessarily, good.

Did you miss this event?
Not to worry as you can purchase an edited copy of the evening that is being produced by Community Television. See the information below. Meanwhile, here is an abbreviated version of the Top Ten Disasters by the History Dude.

The Best of the Worst: The Top Ten Disasters in Santa Cruz County

On February 19, 2005, the History Dude presented the world premiere of his picks for the top ten disasters in the history of Santa Cruz County.

The were, in ascending order from 10th to 1st:

The Top Ten Disasters – February 19, 2005 – Sandy Lydon

#10 – Weather – Drought 1862-1864
Drought is a recurring theme in the county and the region. The four most significant droughts between 1850 and 1900 were those in 1856-1857; 1862-1864; 1875-1877, and 1897-1898. I selected the 1862-1864 drought, as it was incredibly hard on the Californios who were trying to hang on to their pastoral culture. Many California historians have written that the 1862-1864 drought ended the Californio culture forever, and that is certainly the case in Santa Cruz County. Each of the above droughts also saw increased violence against the Spanish-speaking along with vigilantism. The double D’s of drought and depression often brought an upsurge of racism and violence to Santa Cruz County.

# 9 - Racism - Removal of Japanese – 1942
As noted above, the cycles of racism and violence sometimes followed the weather and economy in the 19th century. The sequence of anti-movements began with the anti-California Indian period, anti-Irish and Catholic in the 1840s-1850s, the anti-Chinese movement beginning in the late 1860s through the 1890s, the anti-Japanese from the 1890s through the 1950s, the anti-Filipino beginning in the late ‘teens through World War II, the anti-Mexican which began in the 1930s and carried through to the present, the anti-Okie period of the 1930s and 1940s, and the more recent anti-Latino surges in the 1980s and 1990s.
I selected the removal of the Japanese in 1942, not only because the night of the talk was the 62nd anniversary of the signing of Executive Order 9066 by Franklin Roosevelt that set the removal wheels in motion, but because it was an unmitigated disaster not only for the Japanese (and the Germans and Italians who had to move off the coast), but also for the United States Constitution.

# 8 - Murder and Mayhem – Mass Murders – 1970-1973
There is a theme of violence in Santa Cruz County from the very origins of the county. The cruelty of Father Andres Quintana and the crushing of his testicles by the mission Indians and the first execution in American-occupied California in 1846 are just further examples of a deep-running strain of violence in the place.
Beginning with slaughter of the family of Dr. Victor Ohta in the fall of 1970 by John Linley Frazier, Santa Cruz County endured a string of 27 murders over a span of 30 months, and became known as the “Murder Capital of the World.” I believe that the murders, the capture and conviction of the three men responsible brought Santa Cruz County kicking and screaming into the late 20th century.

# 7 - Fire – Downtown Santa Cruz burns – April 1894
Wildfires, though sometimes serious, do not have nearly the size nor impact in Santa Cruz County as they do in Monterey County. Of course, there have been dozens of major structural fires in Santa Cruz History from the showy and famous burning of the beachfront Casino in June of 1906 to the Aptos Beach Hotel’s destruction in 1963. But the most influential and destructive of all the fires was the huge downtown fire in Santa Cruz in April 1894 that destroyed the county courthouse and most of the business district between Front and Pacific Avenue, including Chinatown on the east side of Front Street. The fire not only helped shift the final focus to Pacific Avenue (Front had been Santa Cruz’s “main” street in the 1850s and 1860s), but caused the Santa Cruz city government to adopt new buildings codes requiring that buildings in that area be constructed out of brick. Of course, earthquakes eat bricks, and the results of that ordinance change will be manifested in the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes.

# 6 - Wrecks, Industrial Accidents, Explosions
South Pacific Coast Railroad – 1879-1880
Tunnel Explosions – February 12, 1879; November 17, 1879
Train Wreck – May 23, 1880
There are numerous wrecks and explosions in Santa Cruz County’s history, probably the most infamous being the numerous explosions at the California Powder Works. But the most influential explosions and wrecks occurred at the final stages of the construction of the South Pacific Coast Railroad in 1879. Two massive tunnel explosions killed a total of 37 Chinese railroad workers (the account of these can be found in my book [italics] Chinese Gold [end italics]. And the third element of this horrific period came when an excursion train – going too fast – derailed killing 15 and injuring 50 on May 23, 1880. This train wreck cast a pall of gloom over Santa Cruz’s burgeoning tourist industry, and less than two weeks later the Hotel Del Monte opened in Monterey. Monterey never looked back.

#5 - Epidemics – Flu Epidemic 1918-1919
Beginning with smallpox and measles during the mission era, Santa Cruz County endured a series of epidemics including the infamous smallpox epidemic of 1868, the polio epidemic of the 1940s and 1950s, and the AIDs epidemic of the 1990s. However, the one that killed the most and left the most enduring memory was the flu epidemic of 1918. Known as the “Spanish Influenza” the flu was brought to the US by soldiers coming home from World War I, and this pandemic killed more people than the war itself. It arrived in Santa Cruz County in October of 1918, and public health officials attempted to respond to this invisible killed. The most obvious of the public health measures was the adoption of ordinances requiring everyone to wear a gauze mask while out in public. The masks did little to stop the spread of the flu and before it was over in the spring of 1919, hundreds of people had died. The cemeteries have clusters of 1918 flu death burials, including in some instances entire families.

#4 - Floods – Shaping Santa Cruz – January 1862/December 1955
Floods were a regular wintertime occurrence in Santa Cruz County into the late 1950s. Beginning with the first winter after the mission Santa Cruz was located on the flood plain at the foot of present-day Mission Hill, residents of Santa Cruz County have had to contend with floods. Though Watsonville and Soquel were impacted by floods as well, I selected the 1862 and 1955 floods along the San Lorenzo because they had the most impact on the history of the city. The flood of 1862 inspired the business people who had foolishly located their buildings on the flood plain to organize, incorporate and band together to DO something about the flood. The 1955 Christmastime flood inspired the city to cooperate with the Army Corps of Engineers to construct the levee system that is currently in place. The city of Santa Cruz is a child of the San Lorenzo River, literally.

#3 - Earthquakes – Pair O’Quakes – April, 1906/October 1989
Just as floods were a common occurrence in Santa Cruz County, earthquakes were also frequent and sometimes damaging. The two that had the greatest impact on the county were the April 18, 1906 quake that destroyed most of San Francisco, and the Loma Prieta Earthquake of October 17, 1989 whose epicenter was located in Santa Cruz County. The 1906 earthquake killed nine people in the county, while the 1989 earthquake killed 7. However, both left indelible imprints in the memories of those who lived through them. Though other than the memorial located in front of Watsonville’s City Hall, you will find no official commemoration of either event.

#2 - Flood w/Landslide – January, 1982 and Love Creek
Heavy rainfall events that produced floods were usually accompanied by landslides throughout the county. But that deadly combination was most serious during the January 3-4, 1982 flood event and the landslide at Love Creek. By the time it was all over, twenty people died in the event, and some of the bodies remain beneath the tons of earth and trees that came tumbling down.

#1 - Stupidest Thing Ever Done – County Boundary in Pajaro River, February 1850
Without question, the dumbest thing ever done by humans in this region was placing the boundary between Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties down the middle of the Pajaro River. On February 18, 1850, after a legislative committee from the state legislature meeting in San Jose proposed it, the full legislature created the two counties. From that moment forward, the residents of the Pajaro Valley have been orphans in their respective counties, outvoted and ill considered by their fellow county residents. The later creation of San Benito County in 1874 further complicated matters so that today, the Pajaro River watershed stretches across four counties (Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito) that have great difficulty agreeing on what day it is, let alone making consensus decisions about the river, flood control, water and other river-related matters. In the ensuing 155 years, there have been dozens of efforts to form new counties, move the boundary and otherwise correct the mistake of the 1850 legislature, but to no avail. The responsibility for this dumb-ass mistake lies with the state legislators who were members of what has become affectionately known as the “legislature of 1000 drinks.”

How to Order a DVD or VHS of the February 19 presentation:
You can make a “special dub request” of Community Television of Santa Cruz County, and they will make a duplicate of the edited presentation and send it to you.
The cost of the duplicate is $35.00 each with $15.00 going toward Tsunami Relief.

Contact: Community Television of Santa Cruz County
816 Pacific Ave.
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Telephone: 831-425-8848

Be sure to indicate whether you want a DVD or VHS copy. All duplication requests must be prepaid, and there is an extra charge of $3.00 for each copy beyond one that you order for postage. Postage is included in the $35.00 cost of the first copy.

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