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Surf Sand & Streetcars, Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California by McCaleb DJ
Surf, Sand & Streetcars, Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California by Charles S. McCaleb
Interurbans Special # 67
Hard Cover, W/Dust Jacket
118 Pages
Copyright 1977
1st Printing Fall 1977
Contents
Preface7
Part 1. Horsecar Era 9
1. Wave of Prosperity 10
2. Steam Trains and Streetcars12
3. Triumph and Tribulation 14
4. Horsecar Competition 15
5. The Opera House Episode 18
6. Demise of the 'Red Line'19
7. The Midnight Switch21
8. Laubens and Other Matters 22
9. Pierce Sells 'Yellow Line'22
10. East Santa Cruz Horse Railroad 26
11. Twin Lakes and Arana Gulch29
12. Demise of the 'Yellow Line' 30
13. Final Days for Horsecars31
Part 2. Electric Era 35
1. A Proposal 37
2. The Electric Road 38
3. Pacific Avenue Electrification 42
4. Feast, Famine, and Fire44
5. Birth of the Capitola Electric 49
6. Battle of the Five Blocks 53
7. Building the Capitola Road55
8. Granger Buys Santa Cruz Electric 61
9. Consolidation63
10. Enter the Ocean Shore66
11. Earthquake and Fire 67
12. Martin Buys Union Traction69
13. Broad-Gauging the System 70
14. Coleman Takes Charge 74
15. The Middle Years84
16. Final Days for Streetcars 94
17. Epilogue 97
Equipment Descriptions and Car Rosters 104
Brief Biographical Notes 111
Index 115
Maps
Figure 1-Santa Cruz Area Map12
Figure 2-Santa Cruz Street Railways-1875-79 23
Figure 3-Santa Cruz Street Railways-189033
Figure 4-Santa Cruz Street Railways-189234
Figure 5-Santa Cruz Street Railways-190358
Figure 6-Santa Cruz Street Railways-191586
Inside dust jacket
BEAUTIFUL SANTA CRUZ, California's legendary seaside resort, had a transportation history that was in some respects typical of small-town America and, in other respects, highly remarkable. The setting, certainly, was unique in its sylvan charm, complemented by the rustic beauty of the ocean shore, sandy beaches and those magnificent West Coast sunsets. The tracks ran beside the sea, past coves, glades and glens. The cars were picturesque, and the men who made them run were colorful.
And so although this book is primarily about streetcarsboth horse and electricit was impossible to separate the story of Santa Cruz' transportation history from that of the town itself. The reader, then, will learn of pioneers, sawmills, logging men, entrepreneurs, casinos, fun-seekers, opera houses, banking institutions, utility magnates, dreams, schemes and never-fulfilled ambitions for transportation empires encompassing the entire area from San Francisco south to Monterey. The story starts with the first tiny horsecar operation begun in 1875 and ends with the last money-losing electric car at the beginning of 1926. By that time the automobile and the motor bus had taken over in Santa Cruz, as it was beginning to do elsewhere, and the story is briefly brought up to date from then to the 1970s.
Not content to marshal statistics and mechanical facts, author Charles S. McCaleb probes the human aspects of the birth, life, and death of the rail transportation history of this typical and yet so untypical American community. The system was small, to be sure, but the cast of players in the drama of its ownership and operations included many who loomed large in California history, such as Henry E. Huntington, builder of the great Pacific Electric; John Martin, founder of today's Pacific Gas & Electric, and H.M. Byllesby, the eastern utility magnate who made the White Front Cars of San Francisco a streetcar legend. Add to that the promoters, civic leaders and local citizens who became involved and you have a truly absorbing story of 51 years in the life of a fine little American city.
This, then, is Interurban Special 67, Surf, Sand and Streetcars, a Mobile History of Santa Cruz, California.
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