In early 1910, the local newspapers were abuzz and the paparazzi were sharpening their pencils in anticipation of the arrival of the great philanthropist and Steel King, Andrew Carnegie, in Santa Barbara. Carnegie had left Pittsburgh on February 15 in the company of his wife Louise, daughter Margaret, his associate Charles Lewis Taylor, and four […]
In December 1922, Edward A. Johnson, president of the California Theater Company that owned most of the movie houses in Santa Barbara, announced plans to build a theater and eight-story office building on State Street. Despite touches of Spanish design, many felt the tall rectangular structure did not suit Santa Barbara’s emerging Mediterranean style. Nevertheless, […]
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In July 1909, much to the alarm of the Santa Barbara populace, the Morning Press announced that the venerable Covarrubias Adobe was to be razed and replaced by a modern apartment building. Without notice, Nicolas Covarrubias had sold it out from under his aging siblings, Camillo and Amelia. The first they heard of the sale […]
In January 1904, the Santa Barbara Independent informed the public that a “very notable art exhibit” had opened at 1212 State St. in the building that recently housed the Chamber of Commerce. For 25 cents, visitors could see the much-lauded oil paintings of the 21 missions of California by Edwin Deakin. “Each of the 21 […]
Upon the death of beloved local artist Dudley Saltonstall Carpenter in 1955, the newspaper expressed the esteem in which he was held and commented that he had continued to paint to the end of his full and creative life. And what a life that was. Born into a military family in 1870 in Nashville, Tennessee, […]
I couldn’t believe they made a movie about Barbie. Seriously? The doll whose body gave three generations of prepubescent girls inferiority complexes and set a standard so high some became devotees of augmentation surgery? Then I read Josef Woodard’s movie review, one which doesn’t end in a resounding nay or yay, but with – “…the […]
Celebrating the 99th anniversary of its founding this year, Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta was established in August 1924. Civic celebrations commemorating Santa Barbara’s old Spanish days, however, date back to the December 1886 fiesta celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of Mission Santa Barbara. The purpose of that four-day celebration was to […]
In Colonial Jamestown, having survived the starving time and learned how to work thanks to Captain John Smith’s edict of “no work, no food,” the male colonists wanted women. Not just for the delights of the fairer sex, but to share the work. Among her housewifery chores, a woman in Colonial America spun the wool, […]
In the 1920s, American Santa Barbarans, enthralled with the mystique of Santa Barbara’s romantic Spanish past, set about preserving the rapidly-disappearing adobes. Ester Hammond purchased and paid for the preservation of the Hill/Carrillo Adobe, architect Louise McVhay completely renovated the Gonzalez/Ramirez adobe to reflect her vision of a romantic ranch house, and Irene and Bernhard […]
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The quest for the right way to live, the right way to be, and the search for a satisfying and happy life has spanned millennia; just ask Socrates. Between 1663 and 1820 in the United States, besides being a stimulus for emigration from the “old world,” this quest led to the establishment of over 32 […]
In 1854, Pope Pius IX consecrated Thaddeus Amat y Brusi as bishop of Monterey. The reluctant prelate (he had tried to ditch the papal appointment) moved the headquarters of the diocese to Santa Barbara where he planned to build a cathedral for the relics of the newly beatified Saint Viviana. Arriving in December 1855, the […]
In 1886, the Santa Barbara waterfront was connected to three, often odiferous, esteros and littered with dilapidated shacks and the detritus of the hide and tallow industry. Despite the fact that there were several crude wooden bathhouses, the area was generally a “wild waste of sand, tin cans, and dead animals,” according to historian C.W. […]
Above the riparian corridor of Arroyo Hondo, a bleak Daliesque landscape reveals the aftermath of October’s Alisal Fire. Chaparral that hadn’t burned in too many years fed the wind-driven fire into the canyon from the east. Despite the grazing program of sheep and cattle on the hills flanking both sides of the lower canyon, the […]
In mid-September, my husband Michael and I hit the road and traveled to Kellogg, Idaho, to ride the rails. Our locomotion, however, was pedal-powered and the iron rails had long been torn out, leaving behind two rail corridors: one of the Union Pacific Railroad and the other of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific […]
