2170 41st Avenue
Capitola, CA  95010
Direct: 831.345.4893

About Santa Cruz, California



 


History
(per www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us)

In 1769 the Spanish explorer Don Gaspar de Portola discovered the land area which is now known as the City of Santa Cruz. When he came upon the beautiful flowing river, he named it San Lorenzo in honor of Saint Lawrence. He called the rolling hills above the river Santa Cruz, which means holy cross.

Twenty-two years later, in 1791, Father Fermin de Lasuen established a mission at Santa Cruz, the twelfth mission to be founded in California. Across the San Lorenzo River, in what is now known as East Santa Cruz, Villa de Branciforte was established. It was founded by the Spanish as one of three civil settlements or pueblos in California. The other pueblos were San Jose and Los Angeles.

Villa de Branciforte later merged with the Mission Santa Cruz community across the river. By the 1820's Mexico had assumed control of the area and within the next twenty years, Americans began to arrive in great numbers.

alifornia became a state in 1849, and Santa Cruz County was created in 1850 as one of the twenty-seven original counties.

By the turn of the century logging, lime processing, agriculture, and commercial fishing industries prospered in the area. Due to its mild climate and scenic beauty Santa Cruz also became a prominent resort community.

Santa Cruz was incorporated in 1866 as a town under the laws of the State of California and received its first charter as a city in 1876. At that time the city was governed by a Mayor and Common Council consisting of four members.

In 1907, the citizens voted for a new charter designating a Mayor as chief executive and a City Council consisting of seven members. Subsequent charters gave a Mayor and four Commissioners both executive and administrative powers. At that time the city was divided into five departments: Public Affairs, Revenue and Finance, Public Health and Safety, Public Works, and Streets and Parks.

In 1948, the City of Santa Cruz adopted a new City Charter. This charter established a Council-Manager form of government, with a Mayor and six Council members setting policy for the city and a city manager serving as the chief administrator of those policies. The Charter, with amendments, is still in existence today.

Read more history via the Santa Cruz Public Library Website

Surfing
(per www.wikipedia.org)

Santa Cruz is the reputed site of the first surfing in California in 1885, when three Hawaiian princes, Prince Edward, Prince David and Prince Jonah Kalaniana’ole, surfed on locally milled redwood boards at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River.

Santa Cruz has 11 world-class surf breaks, including the point breaks over rock bottoms near Steamer Lane and Pleasure Point, which create some of the best surfing waves in the world.

Home to the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum at Steamer Lane, which continues to be staffed by docents such as Harry Mayo and others from the Santa Cruz Surfing Club who have surfed Santa Cruz waves since the 1930s, Santa Cruz hosts several surf contests drawing international participants each year, including the O'Neill Cold Water Classic, the International Longboard Association contest, and many others.

 

General Information
(per www.ci.santa-cruz.ca.us and www.wikipedia.org)  

  • Santa Cruz is the county seat and largest city of Santa Cruz County, California, United States
  • As of the 2004, Santa Cruz had a total population of 56,300 (per CA State Dept of Finance)
  • It is located on the northern edge of the Monterey Bay, about 74 mi south of San Francisco
  • The City has of an area of 12 square miles
  • The major industries include agriculture, education (UCSC) tourism, manufacturing, food processing, and high tech firms
  • The average high temperature is 69 degrees Fahrenheit and the average low temperature is 44 degrees Fahrenheit. Rainfall averages 32 inches per year.

Area Virtual Tours

Take a virtual tour through Capitola Village, Santa Cruz, Aptos and/or Watsonville from the comfort of your home:

Capitola by the Sea       

      

 

Colleges & Universities

  • UC Santa Cruz

    UCSC was built starting in the 1960s. To date, there are ten colleges, each with a different theme and architectural framework. The UCSC campus sits among a redwood forest and overlooks Monterey Bay. Originally, UCSC did not use letter grades in evaluating student academic performance and had no organized sports teams, although both of these have now changed. There are also a number of NCAA division III sports programs, including tennis, water polo, swimming, diving, basketball, rugby, and soccer. The university mascot, the banana slug, was established by students on an informal basis, and recognizes an indigenous creature that can be found throughout the campus. The campus administration attempted to assign the sea lion as the mascot in the early 1980s. However, after a 1986 student referendum voted overwhelmingly in favor of the slug, the then-Chancellor declared the slug the official UCSC mascot.

     

  • Cabrillo College

    Cabrillo College, named after the explorer Juan Cabrillo, is a community college in Aptos, California. It is one of 109 public community colleges in the state of California. The college opened in 1959. In addition to its main campus, it includes the Watsonville Center which serves approximately 2,300 students, and the Scotts Valley Center opened for the Spring semester of 2007. Cabrillo College has an enrollment nearly 15,000 students, more than a third of whom attend full time.

     

  • Bethany University (Bethany Bible College)

    Founded in 1919 as a training center for an urban San Francisco ministry, Bethany University was the first college founded by the Assemblies of God. Today, the school is a four-year, Christian university located in Scotts Valley offering associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees in the arts and sciences and professional studies on-campus, online and in distributed locations. Our vibrant, close-knit community is located on California's Central Coast, minutes from the beaches of Santa Cruz and in close proximity to Silicon Valley, Monterey and San Francisco where students enjoy opportunities for internships, ministries and entertainment.

     

Recreation / Things to Do