Industry
Overview: Marble in California History
—The State Mineralogist Report for 1884, describing American settlement of California in the 1850s.
Postcard illustration of early lime kiln, likely in the Pogonip, undated. Throughout the late 19th century, travel guides often listed the kilns as tourist attractions. Courtesy of UCSC Special Collections.The European settlers who came to this area throughout the 18th and 19th centuries brought with them an ancient technology for converting marble and other forms of limestone into mortar. When rock composed primarily of calcium carbonate is heated to about 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit, the calcium carbonate releases carbon dioxide, leaving behind calcium oxide. When water is added to this compound, it turns into a putty strong enough to cement bricks and tiles into place.
The Spanish missionaries who established Mission Santa Cruz in 1791 quarried caliza along the area of Spring Street and turned it into quicklime to construct the floors and walls of the mission complex. It's likely that Mexican settlers also produced quicklime on a small scale in order to meet construction needs. Early maps indicate that caleras (lime kilns) may have existed on some of their ranches.
After Mexico ceded Alta California to the United States in 1848 and gold was discovered in 1849, the population of settlers in the Bay Area grew from about 1,000 to 25,000 people. New settlers typically lived in tents or rapidly constructed wooden buildings. After a series of fires ravaged these settlements, the demand for buildings constructed from mortar increased quickly.
Accordingly, marble and limestone became valuable resources. "Forty-niners" sometimes found that manufacturing quicklime was a much more profitable livelihood than gold mining. The marble found in the foothills of the Santa Cruz mountains is particularly rich in calcium carbonate and relatively free of impurities, so it produces quicklime of a particularly high quality. The quarries on campus played a major part in the growth of the Bay Area quicklime industry.
Impact on Indigenous Communities
Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers displaced the communities who had been living in the area for thousands of years. These communities, who spoke the Awaswas language, were part of a larger culturally and linguistically diverse group of people now collectively known as the Ohlone, although this designation is disputed. They primarily harvested their food from the ocean and forests, such as abalone and acorns, and they constructed their dwellings from willow branches and tule grass. As settlers brought new practices—mining, agriculture, construction, and trade—as well as new cultural attitudes about land stewardship, they strained the plant and animal resources upon which the Awaswas people had depended. The ongoing demand for natural resources—such as marble—impacted the devastation experienced by these communities.
The Spanish missionaries forced Awaswas communities, as well as other communities in the area, into agricultural labor at Mission Santa Cruz. Illustration by John Edward Borein, circa 1900.
Mining history:
Hanks, Henry. Fourth Annual Report of the State Mineralogist. Sacramento, California State Mining Bureau, 1884.
Perry, Frank, et al. Lime Kiln Legacies: The History of the Lime Industry in Santa Cruz County. Santa Cruz: The Museum of Art and History, 2007.
Indigenous history:
Cartier, Robert. "An Overview of Ohlone Culture." Excerpted from "The Santa's Village Site CA-SCr=239," 1991. Santa Cruz County History. Santa Cruz Public Library. Web. Accessed 20 Aug 2017.
Haff, Tonya, W. Breck Tyler, Martha T. Brown, eds. Natural History of the UC Santa Cruz Campus. Santa Barbara: University of California, Santa Barbara, 2008.
Johnston-Dodds, Kimberly. Early California Laws and Policies Related to California Indians. Sacramento: California Research Bureau, 2002.