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Health & Fitness

Names on the Signs in Santa Cruz: The Trees

Downtown Santa Cruz has quite a few streets with tree names, but where are the natives?

 

The new Town of Santa Cruz Board of Trustees got busy soon after getting organized in 1866. One of their first actions was to commission a map of the growing town. The job went to Solomon W. Foreman, a local civil engineer, and Thomas W. Wright, the County Surveyor. Wright had already created many maps for local landowners, but the Foreman & Wright map of 1866 was the first with a civic purpose.

Along with creation of the map, the name of Willow Street was officially changed to Pacific Avenue. The change may have had a connection to the grand new Pacific Ocean House Hotel (see ). Or maybe the Trustees decided that the street which had surpassed Main Street as the primary conduit of downtown commerce needed a more powerful name - from the humble Willow to the mighty Pacific. Whatever the reasons, the change obscured some local history and began a trend away from naming Santa Cruz streets after local native trees and other useful plants.

Willow Street had been so-named because the mission padres planted a row of willow trees marking the edge of their cultivated fields. The trees were spaced at ten-foot intervals, and strips of leather were tied between them, serving as a crude fence intended maybe to keep stray livestock out of the fields. As the only road running from downtown to the bay, Willow Street became more important as shipping traffic increased during the 1850s. Smaller lots were created along both sides of the street, which began to be filled with commercial and residential buildings. In 1861 the willow trees were cut down, their original function no longer necessary.

Did anyone lament the loss of this tribute to one of the most common yet important local trees? Apparently not, for no other Santa Cruz street has since been named Willow. In fact, of all the downtown streets named after trees, very few are local species. The transplanted north-easterners, who by 1866 formed the core of the downtown business community, were perhaps a bit homesick and chose to name streets mostly after eastern trees. Take a hike in the area and you’ll search in vain for a native cedar, locust, elm, chestnut, myrtle or spruce. There are native walnut trees in southern California where I grew up, but I haven’t seen any this far north. Maple and sycamore are better choices. Varieties of those two trees grow both locally and in the northeast. Walk along the San Lorenzo River north of the levees and you’ll find both maples and sycamores, along with alder, cottonwood and - of course - willow.

I’m suspicious of Laurel Street - although our local bay tree is a type of laurel, I doubt that it was known as a laurel in 1866. Several species of laurel are, however, very common in the northeast, where they contribute to the famous fall colors. We could pretend that Bay Street was named for our local tree, but no. Special recognition goes to UCSC for the Bay Tree Bookstore, even though it's not downtown. Even the mighty redwood gets snubbed. Instead we have the generic Evergreen Street and Evergreen Cemetery over in the Harvey West area.

When I take a walk downtown, I’d like to see more signs that are reminders of the native trees and other plants that contributed to the mid-19th-century growth of the Santa Cruz region (not to mention earlier Ohlone communities). Our town is surrounded by forests of redwood, oak, madrone and pine that provided lumber for building, fuel for the lime kilns and charcoal for the Powder Company. The tanbark oak was essential for tanning leather. Hazel, willow and alder were all used for barrel hoops in the construction of wooden barrels for lime and other export products. And, of course, the leaves of the bay tree contribute to the flavor of our native Italian cuisine. On the other hand, to be fair, there’s no reason why the 1866 Board of Trustees should have felt compelled to consider my arguments when they chose street names. Our downtown “tree streets” are instead a reminder that a substantial group of ambitious and energetic people native to the northeastern states settled in Santa Cruz and were active in their community during the later 1800s.

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