Tag Archives: History

Santa Barbara Shore Whaling (1870-93)

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Jack Elliott

A cold drizzle falls steadily from a heavy marine layer blanketing the coast, as six men heave a ragged plank rowboat across dampened sand to the water’s edge. With rough, cracked and calloused hands sucked dry of moisture by constant … Continue reading →

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Laguna Blanca Lake

Posted on October 1, 2011 by Jack Elliott

Laguna Blanca lake surrounded by the sprawling green fairways of La Cumbre Country Club. The shifting of earth’s crust along nearby fault lines created the depression known as Laguna Blanca Basin in Hope Ranch, an unincorporated suburb in Santa Barbara … Continue reading →

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Santa Barbara Seen Through A Sailor’s Eyes (1835)

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Jack Elliott

In the following passage taken from his acclaimed travel narrative, Two Years Before the Mast (1841), Richard Henry Dana, Jr. describes landing on the beach at Santa Barbara on January 14, 1835 after a five month voyage from Boston. Dana … Continue reading →

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Native Steelhead of Yore

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Jack Elliott

Claude M. Kreider fly fishing for steelhead trout on the Santa Ynez River in 1942. “And here—only one hundred and fifty miles from the great Los Angeles metropolitan area—flows the Santa Ynez, the most productive of all the little steelhead … Continue reading →

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John Muir Writes of Davy Brown

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Jack Elliott

“In Calaveras County they wrote that Brown bagged ten grizzlies during one week in 1849. John Muir referred to Brown as the most famous bear hunter in the Sierras in his book, ‘Our National Parks,’ and a meadow in the … Continue reading →

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