Ross Eric Gibson

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... After the fire, the ruins of Monte Paraiso surveyed by her husband Jackson McCracken, corruption

Albion Paris Jordan, a 23-year-old Maine native, came west in 1849 with the Gold Rush, but instead of prospecting for gold, he ferried passengers between San Francisco

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Brown Ranch lath houses made Capitola the Begonia Capital of the World. (Courtesy Ross Eric Gibson collection)

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The Loma Prieta Lumber Co., celebrating Oct. 6, 1888, when they turned 88 logs into 181,000 lineal feet of lumber in six hours. (Courtesy Ross Eric Gibson collection)

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Upton Sinclair in his 20s at the turn of the century. (Public domain)

“After the Civil War, the beachfront was becoming a tourist attraction with resort boarding houses forming a modest tourist economy,” writes columnist Ross Eric Gibson. “At the same time, downtown Santa Cruz rebuilt after…

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The 1932 Californians, members from left: Frank Leanasio, Dick Lane, Marion Little, John

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... The 1894 Cope Rowhouse as it looked in the early 1970s, a lost cause turned into a successful restoration. (Ross Eric Gibson collection)

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Harvey E. West, 1894 to 1979, made a search for meaning. (Courtesy West family)

On March 26, 1917, a train pulled under the Spanish Arches over Beach Street, pulling two special pullman sleepers and a baggage car. It carried the most celebrated troop of juvenile players in the world, founded by the Franklin Brothers,…