Stephen Payne
The Loma Prieta Museum is thrilled to announce that local author and historian Stephen Payne has published a second printing of his historical book A Howling Wilderness: The Summit Road Area of the Santa Cruz Mountains 1850-1906. The 2024 version will include new back cover artwork and a few corrections to the text. The last edition of this book was released 46 years ago in 1978. Topics that A Howling Wilderness covers include local mountain history from 1850 to 1906 as related to transportation, culture, pioneering families, logging, farming, education, religion, journalism, and nearby communities, some of which are now ghost towns.
Meet Brian Liddicoat
History Speaker 9/20
Brian D. Liddicoat is a local trial lawyer and amateur railroad historian. He has had a lifelong interest in local railroad history and is a contributor to SantaCruzTrains.com. Trains steamed through the Santa Cruz Mountains carrying both passengers and freight between 1880 and 1940. Brian has been a good friend to the Loma Prieta Museum. In 2022, he gave a riveting presentation on the lost railroad tunnels of the Santa Cruz Mountains to a sold-out crowd. This year, Brian led a small group of LPM members on an in-person tour of the old tunnel portals, including Glenwood, Laurel, Wrights, and Summit (Burns Creek). We are hoping to visit the Zayante and Mt. Charlie tunnels in the near future. Video footage will be available for viewing on the museum website, www.lomaprietamuseum.org.
Lap steel virtuoso and vocal stylist, Patti Maxine has become a household word in Santa Cruz area as well as Hawaiian circles. A musical Swiss army knife, she handles a variety of styles with ease, sliding gracefully from Hawaiian to swing, from R&B and rock, from blues to jazz and back again. She has played with countless bands, established and up-and-coming musicians and visiting Hawaiian players. Audiences love her incredible musicianship and unique vocal interpretation along with her comfortable and fun stage presence, and undeniable oneness with her music. She always leaves 'em wanting more.
What's in a Name?
By Debra Staab
Happy summer! It’s time to have fun with the history of some local names. How many do you recognize? Do you know their origins? Browns Summit Today, the intersection of Bear Creek Road and Skyline Boulevard is known as Bear Creek Summit. Records show, however, that this junction used to be called Browns Summit. It’s likely the area was named after Gustave Brown, an immigrant from Bavaria. Brown was a fruit farmer around 1875 and was on the Santa Cruz County voter’s register in 1876. Camp Loma Camp Loma is an agriculturally oriented youth camp located just south of Highland Way in Skyland. The name derives from Loma Prieta, a nearby mountain that peaks at 3,790 feet.
The Cats Roadhouse
By Debra Staab
Located on the outskirts, just a mile south of Los Gatos town at 17533 Santa Cruz Highway, sits a rustic two-story structure covered in brown shake with brick trim along the bottom sporting multiple signs. As you enter the parking lot a large billboard tells us that this is The Cats and that it is a “BITES BUBBLY PIT STOP” with “BBQ*BAR*BEATS nite” and a “$29.95 BBQ BUFFET FRI-SUN 11-3PM”. On the roof near the center of the building, the word “CATS” is spelled out in large red capital letters. Below that, over the entrance flanked on both sides by small white cement wildcats (bobcats) mounted on brick pedestals, “THE CATS” appears in large white capital letters enclosed in tall thin cat silhouettes. Below the five second-story windows trimmed in red, we see more signs in white capitals - on the left “TAVERN” and on the right “SALOON”, “WINE”, and “SPIRIT”. Between the front brick pedestals sits one more sign that reads “WELCOME TO THE SALOON, RESTAURANT & TAVERN”.
.png)