History of Felton

[garote]

From an email archive, transferred across a dozen computers. Written by my friend Jeremy:

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I was lately given the assignment to write a brief history of Felton. Many weeks passed and I've produced nothing but fifty pages of notes, so I decided to write up a few brief paragraphs which outlined the history, so I could stuff my notes into it. I was in a very bad mood this morning when I wrote it.

History of a Useless Hole in the Wall

Named After A Second-Rate Lawyer

Um. Might as well begin at the beginning.

The Portola expedition, and stuff, in 1769. They found a parrot in a valley and called it the Pajaro. Then, uh, they travelled some more.

And they crossed the river on St. Lawrence day that year, which happened to be October 17th. So they named the river the San Lorenzo. Coincidentally, this was the same day that the Loma Prieta Earthquake would strike the area, oh, let's see, 100, 200, ... Um, 89 minus 69 ... 220 years later.

So then. A bunch of crap happened in between 1769 and 1843, the upshot of which was the following: a bastard named Isaac Graham moved his sawmill to the Zayante area, at the intersection of the San Lorenzo and something else I can't remember now, because I'm not really interested in this subject.

Anyway, at some point after this, a jerk named Edward Stanly put his head together with Graham's and they set up a town plan. Stanly decided on some absurd whim to name it after his stupid lawyer, Mr. Felton, who was never much use to him otherwise.

This asshole had been all through the senate and congress and all that. He really got around like a good frickin' citizen. Who cares? I rhetorically ask. Not me. This guy, at least, was a good parent, we can surmise this from the evidence of Katharine Felton, the feminist and social worker. That's more than we can say for most second-rate lawyers.

Well, a lot of shit went down in this new town. There were lime kilns, and a railroad, and plenty logging. Mostly they fucked themselves over by the end of World War One in 1918 due to overlogging. Serve the stupid greedy fuckers right! After a period of decline, during which the town capitalized on its natural beauties to lure tourists, the town became a dump of sorts for people who had better-paying jobs in overcrowded, inhuman, smoggy,crappy, crime-ridden, disgusting San Jose, only a half hour's drive away!

Also the usual suspects cropped up: businesses and institutions like schools, a library, a coupla grocery stores and an office supply store which marked everything up by a couple thousand percent just because the people couldn't get their paper anywhere else. You know. Places which thrive everywhere people clot like tainted blood.

And that's the history of this stupid town. The End.

Comments

[zeugma92]

This is funny! I'd forgotten all about this incident. I did eventually produce an actual straight narrative for the public library's archive, as assigned, but I totally remember being bored out of my mind carrying it out. It's not a place with a very interesting history, though it was marginally more interesting than Scotts Valley.

[zeugma92]

Also I remember that office supply store that I'm bitching about! Kind of ridiculous. The last time I was in Felton, some 4 years ago, it was gone.

[olindom]

Brilliant! A sure "A"! No? A teacher didn't like it? Why, that hussy! Never mind! You did a brilliant job!

[juan_gandhi]

Good stuff! Is there any history behind the covered bridge there? It was shown to me once as a great advancement in human progress, see, no rain!

We discovered Felton when we went for a random bike ride from Scotts Valley, and we started with the mill, just wound up there somehow.

[garote]

Was it replaced by a Starbucks?? :D

[garote]

Was that narrative printed out on paper and put in a filing cabinet somewhere?
(As technology-forward as this state/region is, I can't help imagining that they just wouldn't have known what to do with it, if not that.)

I'm a bit curious to see how the last 20 or so years has changed the Santa Cruz library system. But not curious enough to actually return there and go looking around. Heh heh.

[zeugma92]

Yes, it went into the file cabinet there in the Felton Library. It had to be, what, 1997? It was pretty extensive, maybe 25 pages, way more than this snarky summary implies. I'm not sure there is anything better to do with such a document -- anybody interested in the history of such a small town would either actually live there or would be willing to travel to the library to photocopy the document out or read it right in the reading room there.

[zeugma92]

Crazy enough, it had been replaced by a pretty cool ukulele store, of all things.

[garote]

Whoah. Now that, I did not expect!

[garote]

Ahhh Scotts Valley ... rode my bike all over that place. Yes, there are several ways to get to Felton from Scotts Valley. I'm guessing you didn't take Mt Hermon road, which would have been pretty terrifying on a bicycle...

When I was a kid, going to Felton was a treat, because it was like a journey up into the forest. It usually meant going to a "little league" soccer game and stopping at the store for ice cream on the way back.

Nowadays it feels a whole lot less interesting, and a lot less remote. It's just a place to stop for gas when highway 17 is shut down and I'm taking an alternate route...

[garote]

Found this: https://www.santacruzpl.org/history/articles/19/

"Felton's covered bridge was one of the last bridges built of redwood."

[garote]

Check this out!

https://www.santacruzpl.org/history/authors/

Can't find your article though :/

[juan_gandhi]

When I worked in Borland, and my wife camped in Henry Cowell, my transportation was a bicycle (those days - a cheap one, from the local KMart).

[juan_gandhi]

Wow, so it is famous.