VIEWS OF THE SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS

Author's Personal Collection

The cover of this postcard packet, "Views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, California", highlights the famed Jumbo Tree at Big Trees Grove. The packet is composed of 24 images covering scenic areas throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains. It includes three other images from the Cowell's Big Trees side of the grove: the Club House, Calling Card Tree, and the luncheon pavilion/dance floor. 

In addition to Big Trees Grove and Cowell’s Big Trees, the packet features images of Big Basin, Glenwood, Boulder Creek, Brookdale, Ben Lomond, Felton, Alma and Wrights.  

The postcard packet was published by Edward H. Mitchell Company located at 225 Post Street in San Francisco. Mitchell was born in San Francisco on April 27, 1867. Once the manager of a stationery store, Mitchell entered the postcard business in 1898 when he purchased a company producing "California scenes and one set depicting Yellowstone National Park published by Albert Kayser of Oakland." An able businessman, Mitchell soon became one of the most prolific publishers of postcards of the American West. His company operated a factory on Army Street (now known as Cesar Chavez Street) where they printed postcards for both the U.S. and German markets. The publishing operation closed in 1923 when Mitchell decided to devote more attention to his oil investments. The firm’s three and a half million card inventory sold for $500. 

Sources: California Views: The Pat Hathaway Photo Collection, 2019,  http://caviews.com/EHMitchell.html; Metropostcard.com, “Publishers,” by Alan Petrulis, 2006-2018, https://www.metropostcard.com/metropcpublishers.html.

MOTOR RAMBLES

Motor car advertisement, circa 1915-1920 - Courtesy of Santa Cruz County Historic Photograph Collection, Special Collections, University of California, Santa Cruz

"Our first inquiries were for the road to this famous forest [Big Trees Grove], and we learned it was a few miles north of the town. We followed the river canyon almost due north over a shelflike road cut in the hill sides some distance above the stream. It commands a beautiful view of the wooded valley, which we might have enjoyed more had we not met numerous logging-wagons on the narrow way. The drivers, —stolid-looking Portuguese—frequently crowded us dangerously near the precipice along the road; in one instance, according to the nervous ladies in the rear seat, we escaped disaster by a hair's breadth. According to the law in California, a motorist meeting a horsedrawn vehicle on a mountain road must take the outside, even though contrary to the regular rule. The theory is that the people in the car are safer than those behind a skittish horse, though in instances such as I have just mentioned the motorist faces decidedly the greater danger. We climbed a gradual though easy grade for six or seven miles and turned sharply to the left down a steep, winding trail to the river bank."

 

"We left the car here and crossed by a high, frail looking suspension footbridge which swayed and quivered in a most alarming manner, though it probably was safe enough. The trees are at the bottom of the canyon in a deep dell shut in by towering hills on either side … They are indeed wonderful and stately, their tall, tapering shafts rising in symmetrical beauty and grace like the vast columns of some mighty edifice. Millenniums have passed over some of them and all our standards of comparison with other living things fail us. The words of William Watson on an ancient yew recur to us as we gaze on these Titans of the western world: 'What years are thine not mine to guess; The stars look youthful, thou being by,' —but our musings were cut short when we noted that the shadows were deepening in the vale. We had some miles of mountain road to traverse if we were to spend the night at San Jose and we retraced our way to Santa Cruz as fast as seemed prudent over such a road."

Source: On Sunset Highways – A Book of Motor Rambles in California, by Thos. D. Murphy, 1915.

 

UNION REPRESENTATION

James Lynch, President of the International Typographical Union - The American Guardian, July 25, 1930

"Under the big trees of the Felton grove the outing of the officers of the International Typographical Union reached its fitting climax this noon, when one of the giant redwoods was duly dedicated to James M. Lynch, president of the union. The ceremony was celebrated with all the honors."

 

On August 12, 1911 officers of the International Typographical Union, accompanied by members of the San Francisco Newspaper Publishers’ Association traveled by train from Santa Cruz to Big Trees Grove. Upon arrival local entrepreneur Fred Swanton hosted a barbecue dinner. Following the dinner President Lynch was escorted to his tree where George A. Tracy, first vice president of the union, made a "presentation speech, in which he declared that the tree was as straight and lofty as Jim Lynch."

 

Lynch, a New York native, began his career as a labor organizer by fighting for a standard wage scale for all printers. In 1901 he became president of the International Typographical Union, one of the nation’s oldest trade unions and one of the first unions to admit female members. As President of the Typographical Union in 1906, Lynch initiated strikes in many major cities in an attempt to secure an eight-hour workday. Lynch resigned in 1914 to become the New York State Commissioner of Labor. He later worked as a member of New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt’s commission to investigate the subject of old age security, resulting in passage of a 1929 old age New York State security law.

"In accepting the honor paid by the publishers, President Lynch said he hoped the tree would be typical in its life, growth and strength of age, vigor and usefulness of the International Typographical Union." 

 

One account of the event gave the general location of the new James Lynch Tree by stating that "[i]n the forest are trees named for famous warriors, statesmen, and others, both living and dead, and it was a happy thought that caused one of the finest redwoods, towering to a height of 300 feet, and named after the head of the greatest trade union in the world." 

 

Mention of the approximate location of this tree lends some credence to a 1916 article in the Santa Cruz Evening News entitled, "Our Much-Dedicated Big Trees". The author said that Lynch "... was so impressed with the honor of having this particular tree named after him that he caused a bronze plaque to be sent from the East chronicling the event. A committee came down from San Francisco under big expense to place the Lynch plaque on the tree." The account further stated that the plaque was not allowed to be attached to the tree "... for fear it might split the tree --- spoil its growth and spoil its dedication to the next celebrity that came along."

 

The article pointed out that the grove contained scarcely one tree "… but that can show a list of titles as long as the baptismal name of a prince of the blood royal." The tree named for Lynch was supposedly the same tree once dedicated to President Theodore Roosevelt (back in 1903) which was located not too far from Ingersoll's Cathedral.* According to the article, the Roosevelt Tree was reused many times for other celebrity tree dedications including ones for "… Jim Jeffries, Andrew Carnegie, George G. Radcliff, Jack Johnson, Hiram W. Johnson, Warren Porter, William J. Bryan, [and] William Randolph Hearst … We think the Japanese statesmen who came down with C.C. Moore and Mr. Torchiana [from the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition] were similarly honored, but we forget their names."

 

Author's Personal Collection

This 1916 article is the only one located to date which claims that the Roosevelt Tree was used in this manner. If this practice is true, and judging by the names of the celebrities mentioned, it appears to have occurred during the period when the grove was under the direct management of the Welch brothers after 1900. 

 

*  One story suggests that Ingersoll's Cathedral may have been given the name Cathedral Spires by Robert Ingersoll during his visit to Big Trees Grove in 1884.

 

Sources: “San Francisco Publishers As Hosts,” The Typographical Journal, Volume XXXIX, No. 3, September 1911; “Our Much-Dedicated Big Trees,” Santa Cruz Evening News, February 3,  1916; “Dedicate A Big Tree to Lynch,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 1911; “Former Chief of I.T.U. Dies,” San Pedro News Pilot, July 16, 1930.