The Shadow of Loma Prieta: Part Three of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation (The Secret History of Santa Cruz County)

LOMA PRIETA—the dark heart of the Santa Cruz Mountains on the Central Coast of California. Once a verdant wilderness barely touched by humans, it took only forty years for opportunistic lumber barons to deprive its redwood-studded southern flanks of millennia of growth. By 1900, the Aptos Forest was a desolation of stumps, and lumber crews were hungrily moving into the sprawling Soquel Forest. But as the cost of milling rose and the value of lumber steadily decreased, investors sought new opportunities. Some looked into cheaper means of harvesting timber, others envisioned thriving residential communities, and a few delved deep in search of oil. Yet all their efforts came to nothing. Eventually, the Marks family of Salinas and the Pelican Timber Company, tired of years of financial loss, sold their vast properties to form The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park and the Soquel Demonstration State Forest. This conclusion to Ronald G. Powell’s monumental History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation explores the final evolution of Martina Castro’s former Mexican land grant from an industrial wasteland into a bastion of conservation and sustainability.