Map of Channel Islands
The north coast of Santa Cruz Island
in August.
NASA satellite image of Santa Cruz
Island.
Santa Cruz Island was the largest privately owned
island off the
continental
United States, but is currently part-owned by the National Park
service (NPS owns 24%, and the
Nature Conservancy owns 76%).
The
island, located off the coast of California
, is long and from wide. It is part of the
northern group of the Channel Islands of California
, and at or 96.507 sq mi) is the largest of the
eight islands in the chain. Santa Cruz Island is located within
Santa Barbara
County, California
. The coastline has steep cliffs, gigantic
sea caves,
coves, and
sandy beaches. Defined by the
United States Census Bureau as
Block 3000, Block Group 3,
Census Tract
29.10 of Santa Barbara County, the
2000 census showed an official
population of two persons. Highest peak is Devils Peak, at 2450+
feet (747+ m).
A central valley splits the island along the
Santa Cruz Island Fault, with
volcanic rock on the north and older sedimentary rock on the
south.
Santa Cruz is the only place where the
Island Scrub Jay is found.
History
Early history
Archaeological investigations indicate that Santa Cruz Island has
been occupied for at least 9,000 years. The island was home to the
largest population of island
Chumash
and developed a highly complex society dependent on marine harvest,
craft specialization and trade with mainland groups. The Santa Cruz
Island Chumash produced shell beads that they used for currency,
which formed an important part of the overall Chumash economy.
Native villagers had no known contact with outsiders until the 16th
and early 17th centuries.
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, who is
credited with the first European exploration of the California
coast, observed at least six villages, though he and his crew never
stopped at the island. Cabrillo named the island
San
Lucas, although the Chumash called it
Limuw.
In 1602,
Sebastián
Vizcaíno led the last Spanish expedition to California. His map
named Santa Cruz Island the
Isla de Gente Barbuda (island
of the bearded people). Between 1602 and 1769 there was no recorded
European contact with the island. Finally, in 1769, the
land-and-sea expedition of Don
Gaspar de Portolà reached Santa Cruz
Island. Traveling with him were Father
Juan González Vizcaíno and
Father
Francisco Palóu. Father
Palóu wrote of Father Vizcaíno’s visit to the Santa Cruz village of
Xaxas that the missionaries on ship went ashore and “they were well
received by the heathen and presented with fish, in return for
which the Indians were given some strings of beads.” The island was
considered for establishment of a Catholic
mission to serve the large
Chumash population.
When Mission San Buenaventura
was founded across the channel in 1782, it
commenced the slow religious conversion of the Santa Cruz
Chumash. In 1822, the last of the Chumash left the island
for mainland California.
With Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821, the Mexican
government asserted its control over California. In an effort to
increase the Mexican presence, the government began sending
convicted criminals to populate many areas. Around 40 prisoners
were sent to Santa Barbara where, upon arrival, they were sent to
Santa Cruz Island. They lived for a short time in an area now known
as Prisoners Harbor.
Mexican land grant
Governor
Juan Alvarado made a
Mexican land grant of the Island of
Santa Cruz to his aide Captain
Andrés Castillero in 1839. When
California became a state in 1850, the United States government,
through the
Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo, required that land previously granted by
Spanish and Mexican governments be proved before the
Board of Land Commissioners.
A claim
was filed with the Land Commission in 1852, confirmed by the
US Supreme
Court
and the grant was patented to Andrés Castillero in
1867. For twelve years Castillero’s claim to Santa Cruz
Island was disputed, even after his property had been sold. During
Castillero’s ownership, Dr.
James B.
Shaw, an English physician, acted as
manager of the island. He built the island’s first ranch house by
1855 and is thought to have brought the first French
Merino sheep to the island.
Ranching
Scorpion Ranch, 2009
Castillero sold the island to William Barron, a San Francisco
businessman and co-owner of the company Barron, Forbes & Co.,
in 1857. During the twelve years that Barron owned the island, Dr.
Shaw continued to manage it as superintendent and was charged by
Barron to expand the sheep ranching operation begun during the
Castillero era. The
Civil War
significantly increased the demand for wool and by 1864 some 24,000
sheep grazed the hills and valleys of Santa Cruz Island.
Shaw’s island sheep ranch was well known by 1869, the year he left
Santa Cruz. He imported cattle, horses, and sheep to the island and
erected one of the earliest wharves along the California coast at
Prisoners Harbor by 1869. He built corrals and houses for himself
and his employees and expanded the road system. Shaw was the first
rancher to ship sheep to San Francisco by steamer, some selling at
$30 per animal. When Barron sold the island in 1869 to ten
investors from San Francisco for $150,000, Shaw left for San
Francisco and Los Alamos where he continued ranching. At that time,
the gross proceeds from the ranch on Santa Cruz Island were
supposedly $50,000.
One of the investors,
Justinian
Caire, was a French immigrant and founder of a successful San
Francisco hardware business that sold equipment to miners. By the
late 1880s Caire had acquired all of the shares of the Santa Cruz
Island Company which he and his colleagues had founded in 1869. He
continued a successful livestock and ranching industry on the
island for many years.
An extended and complicated series of litigation among Caire family
members resulted in the division of the island and the sale of most
of it in 1937. Justinian Caire's descendents retained on the east
end of the island, on which they continued the sheep ranching
operation. Other family members sold the remaining 90 percent of
the island to Los Angeles oilman
Edwin Stanton in 1937.
Edwin Stanton’s purchase of the major part of Santa Cruz Island
brought a major shift in agricultural production on the island.
After trying for a short time to continue the sheep operation, he
decided to switch to
beef production. At the
time, the beef industry in California was growing rapidly, with
Santa Barbara County among the top ten beef producers in the
state.
Edwin Stanton’s ranch on Santa Cruz Island saw changes that
reflected the evolution of cattle ranching in a working landscape.
While retaining most of the 19th century structures dating from the
Caire period, Stanton constructed a few buildings to meet the needs
of his cattle ranch, the most notable of which is Rancho del Norte
on the isthmus. Pasture fencing and corrals were altered to suit
the cattle operation and an extensive water system was added to
provide water to the cattle.
The Gherini family, descendents of Justinian Caire, continued their
sheep ranching operations on the east end of Santa Cruz Island
until 1984, using Scorpion Ranch as their base. They managed the
island with resident managers and laborers and often worked as a
family during shearing and during the summer. Production dropped
during the 1970s and 80s and the expense of ranching on a remote
island rose. By 1984 the last ranch lessee vacated the island and a
newly formed hunting club called Island Adventures leased the
facilities from the Gherinis. The hunt club used the ranch houses
at Scorpion and Smugglers to house guests who came to hunt the
feral pigs and remaining sheep. The fight between the Gherinis and
the federal government started in 1980, when the northern Channel
Islands were designated a national park and Congress authorized the
purchase of the family's remaining acreage. But the purchase
agreement stalled for years as family members pushed the federal
government to pay what they believed was the appropriate amount for
the land. In the early 1990s, the government managed to buy the
interests of Francis Gherini's three siblings for about $4 million
apiece. But the former Oxnard attorney rejected the offer as too
low, keeping his 25% interest in the ranch and leaving the park
service with 75%.Park officials continued negotiations in recent
years, but said they were constrained by law from paying more than
fair market value. In 1995, park officials were still reviewing
appraisals of the land, hoping they could meet Gherini's price and
snatch up the last privately owned land in the national park. In
November 1996, government officials settled with Mr. Gherini for an
undisclosed amount.
With Edwin Stanton’s death in 1964, his widow and son, Carey,
re-incorporated the Santa Cruz Island Company and continued the
cattle operations on the island. Carey Stanton died unexpectedly in
1987 at the ranch and was buried in the family plot in the island
chapel yard at the Main Ranch. The real property passed to
The Nature Conservancy through a
prior agreement that Carey Stanton had established with the
non-profit organization. The Nature Conservancy rapidly liquidated
the cattle operation and ended the ranching era on the
island.
Other uses
Santa Cruz served as a base for otter hunters, fishermen, and
smugglers. Smugglers Cove, for instance,
derived its name from these illicit activities. The Channel Islands
often provided smugglers and bootleggers with convenient and
isolated hideaways in which to store their goods for a time.
George Nidever recalled hunting otter at Santa Cruz in the winter
of 1835-1836. Working from a base camp at Santa Rosa Island, he and
two others obtained 60 skins that season. Fishermen encamped on the
island, trading fish for other goods from passing boats.
The military forces of the United States took notice of Santa Cruz
Island during
World War II, and since
that time have constructed and maintained strategic installations
in the name of national security. Like all its neighbors, Santa
Cruz Island served as an early warning outpost watching for enemy
planes and ships during World War II.
The Cold War brought the communications station as a
part of the Pacific Missile Range Facility
. This station remains in operation, although
not at the levels of its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s.
Today, the island sees many tourists brought here by Island
Packers, which lands at Smugglers Cove and Scorpion Anchorage in
the National Park. Sail Channel Islands
http://www.sailchannelislands.com/ offers sailing tours of the
island that last from two to five days.
National park
In 1936 the Caire family reportedly offered their 90% of the island
for $750,000 to the state of California for use as a state or
federal park. Nothing came of this proposal and the property was
sold to Edwin Stanton. Stanton's son and heir was not interested in
a government purchase of his island and took steps to avoid such
events by forging an agreement with The Nature Conservancy and the
property was transferred to the organization upon his death.
Although Santa Cruz Island is included within the boundaries of
Channel Islands National Park, The Nature Conservancy portion of
the island does not belong to the park. A transfer of from the
Nature Conservancy to the park was completed in 2000.
Channel Islands National Park owns and operates approximately 24%
of Santa Cruz Island. The remaining land is managed by a
combination of organizations which includes The Nature Conservancy,
the University of California Field Station, and the Santa Cruz
Island Foundation.
Wildlife
Introduced and invasive species on Santa Cruz Island include:
Native species include:
Reintroduced bald eagles
Bald eagles were once numerous on
California's Channel Islands. Because of eggshell thinning caused
by
DDT and other factors, the last known
successful bald eagle nesting in the northern Channel Islands was
in 1949. By the 1960s bald eagles could no longer be found on any
of the Channel Islands.
The
Institute for
Wildlife Studies started a program in 2002 to reintroduce bald
eagles to the Channel Islands, funded by money from a $25 million
fund to deal with the lingering effects of tons of DDT dumped by
the
Montrose Chemical
Corporation into the ocean near Santa Catalina Island. Since
June 2002 46 young bald eagles have been released on Santa Cruz
Island. On
17 March 2006 wildlife biologists for the Institute announced
that for the first time in over 50 years there has been a
successful hatching on Santa Cruz Island.
In April 2007, the Nature Conservancy announced another successful
chick hatching. The chick broke free of its shell on
April 13,
2007. The parents
were one of the two nesting pairs who had returned to the island
after making history last year. Both pairs were born in captivity.
This second birth represents a turning point in the struggle to
return the eagles to their former habitat on the island.
Santa Cruz Island
References
Notes
-
http://www.nps.gov/chis/planyourvisit/santa-cruz-island.htm
-
http://www.nps.gov/chis/planyourvisit/santa-cruz-island.htm
- United States Census Bureau, 2005
- United States. District Court (California :
Southern District) Land Case 340 SD
- The United States v. Andres Castillero,
1859
- Report of the Surveyor General 1844 - 1886
- K. Folmar, 1999
- Center for Plant Conservation: Boechera
hoffmannii
- Jepson Manual Treatment: Arctostaphylos
insularis
- Jepson Manual Treatment: Arctostaphylos
viridissima
- W. Flaxington, 2005
- C.M. Hogan, 2008
- Bald Eagle Project: Santa Cruz Island
- http://www.iws.org/bald_eagles/SCZ%20bald%20eagles.html
- The Nature Conservancy in California - Santa Cruz
Island Bald Eagle Nest 2
Bibliography
- Block 3000, Block Group 3, Census Tract 29.10,
Santa Barbara County United States Census Bureau (2000)]
- C. Michael Hogan (2008) "Western fence lizard (Sceloporus
occidentalis)", Globaltwitcher, ed. Nicklas Stromberg [49730]
- Willis Linn Jepson (1993) Jepson Manual, University of
California Press, Berkeley, California
- Kate Folmar and Tracy Wilson (1999) Los Angeles
Times, Family Gets $12.7 Million for Lost Land; Courts: Jury
awards the Gherinis compensation for the 6,300 acres taken from
them to create Channel Islands National Park
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