Jacobs Receives Senior Historian Award
Susan Jacobs received PVHA’s first Senior Historian Award in August. Susan is our in-house historian, who inspires and educates the volunteers. Growing up in Watsonville, she remembers much of the town’s history. Volunteers and visitors constantly go to her when they...
Memories of the Telephone Company
By Alice Sams Montgomery, February 8, 2002 The late Alice Sams Montgomery wrote this story at the request of Jane Borg, Historian at PVHA. Alice was a PVHA volunteer who was a telephone operator in 1955 at Pacific Bell in Watsonville. In 1955, I married a Hartnell...
Local Men Invent First Telephones in Watsonville
In the late 1800s, two local men invented two types of telephones, similar but different from Bells’ style, and actually hooked them up in Watsonville! In 1877, W. A. Beck invented a telephone energized by a horseshoe magnet that was practical only for short...
Christmas Displays
Displays are changed every three months thanks to Jodi Frensley and Virginia Avila and other volunteers. If you plan to come, be sure to check our holiday hours. Call or email for more information.Stunning Holiday Clothing Display: The Bockius-Orr house will be...
What’s New
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...
Marinovich Building Sign Donated to PVHA
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...
Watsonville On The Move – Literally
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...
The First Schools in Aromas
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’...
Apple Annual
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...
Peter Hauer Family and the Hauer Apple History
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...