Early
"Surf
City"
References to Santa
Cruz, CA
The
"Original Surf City"
20th
Century References from the Google
Newspaper Archive
|
Period
|
Date
|
.
Publication - "quotation"
|
|
1990s
|
-
|
128 References to Santa Cruz
|
|
1980s
|
-
|
33 References to Santa Cruz
|
|
Jun. 3, 1982
|
Earliest
Reference to "Surf City USA"
Los Angeles Times - "the
place is Manhattan Beach"
|
|
1970s
|
Mar. 28, 1974
|
Valley News (Van Nuys) - "visited the Surf City
club"
|
|
Sep. 13, 1970
|
Earliest
Reference to Huntington Beach as "Surf
City"
Los Angeles Times - "to talk
about Surf City"
|
|
1960s
|
Jun. 28, 1960
|
San Mateo Times - "surround the Surf City
setting"
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|
1950s
|
-
|
|
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Apr. 17, 1959
|
Fresno Bee Republican - "Surf City Realty"
|
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Feb. 20, 1959
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Fresno Bee Republican - "Surf City Realty"
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Jan. 5, 1958
|
Tri-City Herald (Pasco) - "the Surf City is
winning fame"
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May 20, 1956
|
Oakland Tribune - "surround the Surf City
setting"
|
|
1940s
|
-
|
|
|
June 2, 1940
|
Fresno Bee Republican - "recognition of this
Surf City"
|
|
1930s
|
-
|
|
|
1938
|
Henry
Mayo - Santa Cruz Surf
Pioneer
- S.C. Public
Library
|
|
|
1936
|
History
of the Santa Cruz Surfing
Club
- S.C. Public
Library
|
|
|
Jun. 27, 1936
|
San Mateo Times - "the trip to the Surf City"
|
|
|
Jun. 23, 1930
|
Oakland Tribune - "250 from the Surf City"
|
|
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Jan. 18, 1930
|
Oakland Tribune - "tangles in the Surf City"
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|
1920s
|
-
|
|
|
Mar. 24, 1929
|
Oakland Tribune - "the Surf City ever boasted"
|
|
|
Nov. 13, 1927
|
1927 - from the Santa
Cruz Boardwalk
|
|
|
July 20, 1926
|
1926 - from the Santa
Cruz Boardwalk
|
|
|
Jun. 12, 1926
|
San Mateo Times - "Surf City stars line up"
|
|
|
Oct. 23, 1923
|
1923 - from the Santa
Cruz Boardwalk
|
|
|
Aug. 28, 1921
|
Oakland Tribune - "into Santa Cruz, the Surf
City"
|
|
|
Jul. 14, 1921
|
Oakland Tribune - "reaching the Surf City by"
|
|
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Jul. 8, 1921
|
Oakland Tribune - "northeast of the Surf City"
|
|
|
Apr. 9, 1921
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
(I don't have access)
|
|
10
|
Jun. 13, 1920
|
Oakland Tribune - "The Surf City lads"
|
|
|
Apr. 18, 1920
|
Oakland Tribune - "good road to the Surf City"
|
|
1910s
|
-
|
|
|
Jun. 16, 1918
|
Oakland Tribune - "from the Surf City last
Sunday"
|
|
|
Sept, 16, 1916
|
Modesto Evening News - "the Surf City
authorities"
|
|
|
Jun. 5, 1915
|
Oakland Tribune - "Surf City now is to go"
|
|
|
Jan. 24, 1915
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
(I don't have access)
|
|
|
Apr. 5, 1914
|
Oakland Tribune - "Kissel to the Surf City"
|
|
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Apr. 4, 1914
|
Oakland Tribune - "of the Surf City is doomed"
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|
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Oct. 10, 1913
|
Oakland Tribune - "greetings of the surf city"
|
|
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Apr. 3, 1913
|
Oakland Tribune - "Surf City Wheelmen"
|
|
|
Jul. 27, 1912
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
(I don't have access)
|
|
20
|
Jul. 17, 1912
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
(I don't have access)
|
|
|
Jul. 13, 1912
|
Oakland Tribune - "associated with the Surf
City"
|
|
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Jul. 10, 1912
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
(I don't have access)
|
|
|
Jul. 6, 1912
|
Oakland Tribune - "associated with the Surf
City"
|
|
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Jun. 15, 1912
|
Modesto News - "low rates to the Surf City"
|
|
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Jun. 13, 1912
|
Oakland Tribune - "associated with the Surf
City"
|
|
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Jul. 19, 1910
|
Oakland Tribune - "their way to the Surf City"
|
top
of page
|
Period
|
Date
|
Publication
- "quotation"
|
|
1900s
|
-
|
|
|
Aug. 30, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "Surf City Paper Says Tenor"
|
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Jul. 14, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "to the Surf City to the"
|
|
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Jul. 12, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "withdraw the Surf City club"
|
|
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Jul. 9, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "the latter winning the Surf
City"
|
|
30
|
Jul. 7, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - " the first half, the Surf
City"
|
|
|
Jun. 28, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "...???..."
|
|
|
Jun. 21, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "this week in the Surf City"
|
|
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Jun. 18, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "teammates at the Surf City"
|
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Jun. 9, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "left for the Surf City"
|
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May 22, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "heavy slickers from the Surf
City"
|
|
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May 17, 1909
|
Oakland Tribune - "from the Surf City bear"
|
|
|
-
|
-
|
|
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Mar. 18, 1908
|
Oakland Tribune - "in the Surf City this summer"
|
|
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Feb. 24, 1908
|
Oakland Tribune - "has settled with Surf City"
|
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Feb. 20, 1908
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Oakland Tribune - "witnessed in the Surf City"
|
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Feb. 8, 1908
|
Oakland Tribune - "venture at the Surf City"
|
|
|
-
|
-
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|
40
|
Dec. 26, 1907
|
Oakland Tribune - "secured at Surf City hotels"
|
|
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Dec. 8, 1907
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
|
|
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Sept. 8, 1907
|
Oakland Tribune - "celebration in the surf city"
|
|
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Aug. 8, 1907
|
Oakland Tribune - "an advantage to the Surf
City"
|
|
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Jun. 3, 1907
|
Oakland Tribune - "summer months at the Surf
City"
|
|
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Apr. 8, 1907
|
Oakland Tribune - "Surf City and is the son"
|
|
|
-
|
-
|
|
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Nov. 12, 1906
|
Oakland Tribune - "the Surf City, where they
will"
|
|
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Oct. 7, 1906
|
Oakland Tribune - "...?..."
|
|
|
Apr. 19, 1906
|
1906 - from the Santa
Cruz Boardwalk
|
|
|
Feb. 12, 1906
|
Oakland Tribune - "stated that the Surf City had
blind"
|
|
|
Jan. 13, 1906
|
Nevada State Journal - "two weeks at the Surf
City"
|
|
|
-
|
-
|
|
|
Oct. 28, 1905
|
Oakland Tribune - "received from Surf City that"
|
|
50
|
Jul. 4,
1904
|
Oakland Tribune - "19 by the
Surf City players"
|
|
|
1903 -
1904
|
Ross
Eric Gibson: SC's 'Surf City' tag
fits
Santa Cruz Sentinel - Dec 26, 2004
"There are two versions of
how "Surf City" was first applied to Santa Cruz. In
1883, the weekly "Courier-Item" newspaper came out
with a promotional summer ... " . . . and? .
. . and? . . . and?
What a teaser line! The Sentinel has
removed the article, and cast us adrift. Where is
respected, prolific Historian Gibson today? I can't
find this "Courier-Item" reference anywhere else.
Anyone?
I went to the central library
twice, and
printed out the
article (easy read -
216k)
printed
out the article (file with date -
256k)
from the microfilm archive. It is great stuff and
should STILL be online. I will take it down if so
instructed. However, there is no reference to any
1883 publication using the words "Surf City". So,
1904 remains the earliest PRINTED reference, that I
can find.
Here is one sentence from the article:
"To improve the waterfront, Swanton built the 1903
Cottage City and 1904 boardwalk, and promoted them
with statewide train and caravan tours, inviting
people to visit "the Surf City."
Can YOU find anything earlier?
In the article, Ross also notes -
"The 1948 'Surfing in the Santa Cruz Way' is the
FIRST known mainland surf song." And the last
sentence - "Santa Cruz could really bug them by
trademarking the nickname "The Original Surf City."
Amen.
|
|
|
Jul. 3, 1896
|
Legendary Surfers presents this insight -
"The
boys who go in swimming in the surf at Seabright
beach use surfboard to ride the breakers like the
Hawaiians." - The Daily Surf and also Here
(see #21).
|
|
|
Jul. 20, 1885
|
1885 - from the Santa
Cruz Boardwalk
|
|
There are 50
references to Santa Cruz as Surf City in the
Oakland Tribune alone.
Bear in mind that the references above are only
from ARCHIVED newspapers.
Many other references exist that have NOT been
archived for retrieval.
Examples of 5 of these are shown
below.
|
top
of page
A Few
Original Surf City References with Graphic
Proof
|
#
|
Year
|
.
Event
|
|
1
|
1927
|
Hoover
Company Convention - San
Jose Mercury Herald
|
|
2
|
1926
|
Dog Show at the Casa Del
Rey - San Jose Mercury Herald
|
|
3
|
1923
|
Poultry Congress Prize
Winners - SJ Mercury Herald
|
|
4
|
1906
|
Earthquake Damage Report -
San Jose Mercury and Herald
|
|
|
San Jose is much closer to
Santa Cruz than Oakland. I therefore guess that
there were FAR MORE references to Surf City in the
San Jose Mercury and Herald, than ever occurred in
the Oakland Tribune, from which I have documented
50. They just aren't archived for public
consumption.
There is NO INDEX to the early San Jose Mercury and
Herald. The 4 references above were found "by
accident" by Diana Stickler, News Research, for the
San Jose Mercury News, while she was looking for
other information. Thank you Diana, and thank you
Brigid.
|
|
5
|
1904
|
Cricket Team Defeated -
Oakland tribune (The race is
on - who can find an earlier reference than this to
"Surf City" Santa
Cruz?)
And 13 Others from the
Museum
of Art and History Forum
- From 1904 to 1974 - From Steve Williams, Santa
Cruz History Researcher and Software Guru
|
|
6
|
1885
|
Hawaiian Princes'
Exhibition (earliest California surfing)
(not a Surf City reference - Kawananakoa
brothers)
|
#1
Hoover Company Convention
At Surf City - San Jose
Mercury Herald - Nov. 13, 1927
"Salesmen Praise Santa Cruz"
"Managers of Pacific Coast Hoover Company who adjourned
yesterday after a five-day convention at Surf City,
where they came to attend school of instruction." Say, isn't
that your grandpa there in the back row?
#2
"Surf City Dog
Show A Success, Declare
Experts" - San Jose Mercury
Herald - July 20, 1926
"The biggest collection of famous canines ever assembled
at a Santa Cruz dog show in the bench exhibition just closed
on the Casa Del Rey tennis courts." Woof, woof.
#3
"Prize Winners At
Surf City" - San Jose
Mercury Herald - Oct. 23, 1923
"Miss Yetta Tabor, better known as "Miss Santa Cruz", is
seen holding the new R. L. Williams sanitary baby chick
crate which won first honors at the recent poultry congress
at Santa Cruz. Williams, the inventor, received a blue
ribbon from the state farm bureau for his device." I like
Yetta. It looks like she is trying out some big, new kind of
accordian.
#4
"Many Buildings
Are In Ruins at The Surf
City" - San Jose Mercury
and Herald - April 19, 1906
"Court House and Other Large
Structures Are Almost Completely Wrecked."
#5
"Alameda Wins At
Cricket." - Oakland Tribune
- July 4, 1904
"Santa Cruz Team Fares Badly At Hands
of the Visitors."
"The cricket team at Santa Cruz yesterday, between the
eleven from that place and the representatives of the
Alameda Cricket Club resulted in a total of 180 runs by the
Alameda team to 19 by the Surf City players." Yikes,
what a shellacking! Thank you again Steve
Williams.
From the 19th Century, a
reference to "surf-board swimming" in Santa Cruz -
#6
Hawaiian
Princes' Surf-swimming Exhibition in Santa
Cruz - The Daily Surf -
July 20, 1885
"The young Hawaiian princes were in the water, enjoying
it hugely and giving interesting exhibitions of surf-board
swimming as practiced in their native islands." (above is a
reprint copy - I have an original copy - Thank you
Brigid.)
Prince
Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Piikoi
("Cupid") - 1871-1922
Prince David Laamea Kawananakoa Kahalepouli Piikoi ("Koa") -
1868-1908
Prince Edward Abnel Keliiahonui Piikoi - 1869-1897
________
Many thanks to Brigid Fuller,
Publicist for the Santa
Cruz Beach Boardwalk, for the
above 5 graphics files which she provided. In each case, the
references above are reduced-size JPEGs. The original JPEGs
are multi-megabyte files, which are too large to be
referenced here. For instance, reference #4 is an excerpt
from the entire front page of the "San Jose Mercury and
Herald" on April 19, 1906.
top
of page
|
|
Incorporation
Dates of the "Big 4" of USA Mainland "Surf Cities"
-
1866 - Santa
Cruz, CA - Santa Cruz, the
Original Surf City, predates Huntington Beach by 43
years.
1894 - Surf City, NJ
1909 - Huntington
Beach, CA
1949 - Surf City, NC
Multiple Santa Cruz Surf City references predate the
existence of the city of Huntington Beach.
1904, 1905, 1906 (4), 1907 (6), 1908 (4), etc.
Author's Opinion: The Huntington Beach Convention and
Visitor's Bureau cannot produce any references as early as
these, which refer to Huntington Beach as "Surf City". They
cannot produce any "Surf City" references from the 1910's,
or the 1920's, 1930's, 1940's or 1950's, when Huntington
Beach was known as "Oil
City". Here is an old view of
the Huntington
Beach Pier. Count the oil
wells. Count the surfers.
Return to the
Main Surf City Santa Cruz
webpage.
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