The Reign of the Lumber Barons: Part Two of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation

THEY CAME WITH AXES.
THEY CAME WITH OXEN.
THEY CAME WITH GREED.

In the forests along Aptos, Valencia, Corralitos, and Soquel Creeks in Santa Cruz County, California, miles of wilderness sat untouched by humans, a relic of Mexican land grants long neglected. But entrepreneurial and ambitious men saw in the endless tracts of coast redwood something valuable and ripe for exploitation. From the 1860s, they sent legions of fallers, peelers, sawyers, and lumberjacks into the hills above Aptos. Skid...