Early Mining on Campus

In Jordan Gulch, just west of the Amphitheater, lie the ruins of three lime kilns—remnants of the earliest industrial activity to transform this site. Court records and other historical documents indicate that the kilns were likely built in the early 1850s by American settlers. At that time, the land, known as Rancho Cañada del Rincon en el Rio San Lorenzo, belonged to Pierre “Don Pedro” Sainsevain, a French settler who had received a 5,827-acre land grant from the Mexican government in 1846. As with other Mexican landowners, however, it took several years for the United States government to approve his claim to the land.

In the meantime, American settlers flocked to his land to look for gold. They didn't find gold, but perhaps someone did find the large deposits of marble that lay beneath the land. Sainsevain did not discover the kilns until the property was finally granted to him in 1855.

Meanwhile, two gold seekers in San Francisco—Isaac Davis and Albion Jordan—heard about the high-quality marble on Sainsevain's land. They leased a small parcel of Rancho Rincon at the corner of High and Bay Street and developed a lime production complex consisting of four lime kilns, a cooperage, a ranch house, and other structures. When they purchased all of Rancho Rincon in 1859, they expanded quarrying operations northward along the ravine, into the Lower Quarry. They also built a a tramway to connect the Lower Quarry and several small “pocket” quarries to the kilns. In 1865, Henry Cowell, a merchant, bought Jordan's share of the company, and it became the Davis and Cowell Lime Company.

“In 1853, there was some excitement about gold on the ranch of Don Pedro Sainsevain. A number of Americans went thither.”
—John S. Hittell, Mining of the Pacific States of North America, 1862

Survey map of Rancho Rincon marking three lime kilns, 1855. Courtesy of UCSC Special Collections.

Map showing location of Davis and Jordan's lime works and other industries on Rancho Rincon, 1855. Courtesy of UCSC Special Collections.

Davis and Cowell's lime works at Bay Street, then called Lime Kiln Road. Photographer unknown, undated. Courtesy of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History.

Sources:
Hittel, John S. Mining of the Pacific States of North America. New York: John Wiley, 1862.
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.