Remembering (some of) the Presidents in Santa Cruz

When I was in 5th grade, one of our U.S. history assignments was to memorize the names of all of the presidents. Most students did pretty well up through the Civil War. Most people (including Santa Cruz street-namers) know Washington, Lincoln and Grant. If you know where to look, you can find Jackson Street. You’ll search in vain, however, for Jefferson (try Watsonville instead), Adams, Madison, and Monroe (look in Aptos). Then, after Jackson, there’s a 24-year local president-name gap until you get to Lincoln. You’ll have to go to San Francisco to find Van Buren, Polk, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan.

The only national political figures from that time period to be honored with a street name in Santa Cruz are President Zachary Taylor and Congressman Henry Clay. Why those two? Taylor won the presidential election of 1848 but died in office in 1850 – only 15 months into his term. During that brief tenure, however, he had one significant accomplishment - admitting California to the Union as the 31st state. Henry Clay also contributed to our statehood by crafting the “Compromise of 1850” that allowed California to enter as a free state.

Thanks to Steven Spielberg, we’ve all been reminded recently of Abraham Lincoln’s accomplishments as president, along with those of the next elected president - Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant. We’re covered in Santa Cruz for those two, with Lincoln Avenue and Grant Street. After Grant, another memory gap occurs, from 1876 through the end of the century. Quick, can you name something important that happened during the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-81)? How about Chester A. Arthur (1881-85)?

In between those two forgettable terms, however, was the too-brief presidency of James A. Garfield. Garfield, another successful Civil War general, won the 1880 election and became president in March, 1881. On July 2, 1881, less than four months later, he was shot by an assassin and died in September. Vice-president Chester Arthur took over and finished the term (Arthur got no love here, although Watsonville remembers him, unless Arthur Road was named for some other Arthur - I haven’t done any research on that question).

Garfield’s memory was honored in Santa Cruz with not one but two street names and a whole subdivision. The Westside neighborhood developed in the late 1880s and now known as “the circles” used to be called Garfield Park. More recently (1971), a new neighborhood park was given the name Garfield Park. The central street radiating out from the center of the circles to West Cliff Drive was once Garfield Avenue (now Oxford). Also remaining are the Garfield Park Library and the Garfield Park Village housing complex. 

Closer to downtown, the former Bausch Street (so-named probably because it led from Water Street toward the Bausch Brewery at the corner of Ocean and Soquel) was re-named Garfield Street. That street disappeared altogether when the County Government Center and San Lorenzo Park were developed in the 1960s. The CGC work also caused another ex-president to lose his memorial street when the block-long Harrison Street was realigned and renamed Dakota.

Changing the names of streets to honor first one luminary, then another, was a common local idiosyncrasy in the last quarter of the century. A Westside street originally named Lincoln Avenue became today’s Cleveland Avenue (presumably to honor president Grover Cleveland (1885-89).

Just to be fair, though, the man who lost to Cleveland (a Democrat), James G. Blaine, also got a street. There probably aren’t many streets named for losing presidential candidates outside of their home states, so Blaine is pretty special. Another bit of irony: Blaine Street was originally called Hayes, in honor of nearly-forgotten president Hayes. 

Note: don’t look for Blaine in Spielberg’s film - he was a first-term Lincoln supporter in the House of Representatives, but was apparently not notable enough at that time to appear in the cast.

There probably aren’t many streets named for losing presidential candidates outside of their home states, so Blaine is pretty special. Another bit of irony: Blaine Street was originally called Hayes, in honor of nearly-forgotten president Hayes.     

Naming Santa Cruz streets after national political figures mostly went out of fashion after 1900. There’s dead-end Roosevelt Terrace off Broadway, but I don’t suppose we’ll ever see a Taft Street or Coolidge Avenue. Sorry, 5th-graders, you’re on your own.