by Bill Beecher | Apr 25, 2024 | News
We have been busy at the Archive and have added and improved several areas. Over the years we have accumulated many maps. Over the last year we have completed digitizing all of the collection, now consisting of over 850 maps, the earliest from 1857. Watsonville...
by Georg Romero | Apr 24, 2024 | News
The Marinovich Building, constructed in 1899, graced the Peck Street / Union Street corner of the downtown square for many years, providing a human-scale presence that charmed with its bowed bay windows and architectural scrollwork. Sadly, the building was demolished...
by Georg Romero | Apr 23, 2024 | News
When Watsonville was growing beyond its early existence as a small town, downtown space was at a premium, for building the new commercial and industrial edifices that reflected the town’s growth. To make room for that growth, there were many houses, built on those...
by Claudia Mize | Apr 23, 2024 | News
Above: First schoolhouse in Aromas In the 1870s with the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad, pioneer farmers began settling in Aromas. With more families moving to Aromas, the Aromas School District was formed in 1889. The first classes were held on the Weeks’...
by pvha | Nov 30, 2023 | News
By Elijah Ezeji-Okoye For a short time in Watsonville’s earlier history, autumn was marked by the coming of the Apple Annual. In the early 1900s, the city’s apple industry burgeoned, with new orchards, packinghouses, and shipping centers cropping up across the...
by pvha | Nov 30, 2023 | News
By Claire Etienne (Peter Hauer’s great niece and daughter of Muriel Hauer Etienne) Peter Hauer created the Hauer apple around 1900 in Pleasant Valley, near Watsonville. The Hauer apple is an “antique apple.” It is one of only two varieties said to have originated in...
