Santa Cruz County History Digest

Looking at a dearth of accessible textbooks reflecting the diversity of Chicano/Latino/Mexican American/Latinx lives, two local professors set out to write one.

The center has been helping families in Santa Cruz County since 1933 albeit originally as the YWCA.

Like a lot of Holocaust survivors, Gitta Ryle could not talk about her experiences for several decades after World War II ended.

Santa Cruz Skateboards is marking 50 years with skate sessions at three skateparks and a concert by Dinosaur Jr.

The pandemic impacted plans to celebrate, but the 2021 wines are being released now with a 40th anniversary ribbon.

California wildfires every year emit as much carbon as almost 2 million cars, posing a threat to efforts to battle climate change.

Linda Burman-Hall, an ethnomusicologist, musician and longtime UC Santa Cruz professor who brought the annual Baroque Festival to town, died suddenly while traveling in Malaysia. She was 78.

“Every town is interesting,” said John Hibble, co-executive director of the Aptos Chamber of Commerce, “but Aptos is the cream of the crop.”

In a new study published Aug. 17 in the journal Science, fossil records at La Brea Tar Pits indicate that the disappearance of California’s sabertooth cats, dire wolves and other large mammals nearly 13,000 years ago was linked to rising temperatures and fire activity spurred by people.

Ritchie Lovejoy wrote a novel more than 80 years ago, and he was able to do it because of John Steinbeck’s faith in his talent. That novel, “Taku Wind,” finally got published last month, albeit in a very limited edition—24 copies.

Mayor Jack Dilles muses on 57 years of Scotts Valley history.

Frank “Lud” McCrary Jr., Santa Cruz County native and co-founder of family business Big Creek Lumber Co., died Sunday. He was 95.

Park Hall has roots dating back to 1908, but the establishment of a public trust that transferred ownership of the hall to the residents of Ben Lomond in 1923 proved it was here to stay.

In his latest Local History column, Ross Eric Gibson writes about Hotel Ben Lomond.

The first-in-the-nation measure to add caste to state anti-discrimination laws, which passed the state Senate, survives the Assembly judiciary committee. The bill’s author refused to water down the measure further.

Ruth Rosenheim Solomon, born on June 10, 1935, in New York City, passed away this month. She was the founder of the dance program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, which she ran until her retirement in 1995.

An obscure 1910s-era labor board once regulated everything from canneries to film sets to sheep farms. Why is California trying to bring it back now?

The Cabrillo College Board Name Exploration Subcommittee will host three forums to reveal the top five potential new names and provide an opportunity for the community to discuss.

With a conservative Supreme Court expected to rule this summer in favor of ending or restricting affirmative action in college admissions, California’s private universities are worried about the potential impact on campus diversity. College administrators are revamping admissions and doing more high school outreach, while student activists are campaigning against a potential ban.

Dick and Mac McDonald came to California to seek opportunities in the movie business and wound up owning a drive-in BBQ restaurant in San Bernardino. On May 15, 1948, they opened their revamped restaurant with a Speedee Service System featuring hamburgers.

Economic models calculate reparations to eligible Black residents to address past racial inequities. The task force also voted to recommend California apologize for “gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity and African slaves and their descendants.”

Remove by X, housed at the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, is an exhibition of flyers, newsletters, brochures, and posters archived from UC Santa Cruz’s 1965 inception to 2000. This content chronicles important campus happenings, from anti-war protests to student-run art shows.

Few assembly members have pledged their support for monetary reparations for the descendants of formerly enslaved people. Public response is split.

OP was the staple brand for the California surfer in the '70s and '80s, known for its iconic corduroy shorts. But the brand went beyond fashion.

Dominican Hospital is planning to train an inaugural class of eight residents in a program lasting three years.

For every Chinatown still standing, there are dozens that have been bled dry and paved over.

A state-appointed panel inching toward recommendations for reparations wants a new state agency to handle compensation and services to Black people.

For Santa Cruz City Councilmember Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson, the ongoing uprising in Iran is personal. She and her family fled Iran in the early 1980s, only a few years after the Islamic regime came into power.

If the town's front yard is the boardwalk and beachfront, then West Cliff Drive is its front porch, writes columnist Ross Eric Gibson.

Harry Mayo, one of the founders of the famed Santa Cruz Surfing Club in the 1930s, died Feb. 13 at Dominican Oaks.

A small white deer is the sole survivor of a once-large herd created by famed publisher William Randolph Hearst.

Sentinel columnist Gary Griggs writes that four forces combined this January to recreate the conditions of the destructive winter of 1983, now 40 years later.