Capitola Beach Festival

After our 2021 comeback year ... help us reconnect and find “The Marvel of it All” at the 4th Annual Capitola Beach Festival on September 24 and 25. We offer family friendly and free events, just the right excuses to “come out and play” at Capitola Beach: Sand Sculptures, Concert in the Park, Chalk Art on the seawall, Children’s art, a Horseshoe Tournament in the sand, Scavenger Hunt, Fishing Derby and rowboat races.

Again we are partnering with Wharf to Wharf for a 3 mile Little Wharf fun run on Saturday morning. Not to be missed, the Lighted Nautical Parade Saturday evening – bringing lights, music and excitement to Soquel Creek. New events underway – but not ready at press time – for “pop up” Disc Golf Saturday on the beach and a Corn Hole bean bag toss on Sunday. Be a part of the “marvel” in Capitola Village. Dance, play in the sand, fish, row a boat, toss a bag or a disc, and watch a parade. Build a float for the Nautical Parade.

Join our volunteers and help make it all happen – capitolabeachfestival.com

What's in a street name?

By Deborah Osterberg, Capitola Historical Museum Curator Ever wonder why Capitola has a street named San Jose, and another called Stockton? Such names were not bestowed as a tribute to our fellow California towns but rather as a marketing ploy by a clever entrepreneur.

In the mid-19th century Frederick Augustus (F.A.) Hihn began buying portions of the old Soquel ranchos from the heirs of Martina Castro Lodge. Hihn constructed a wharf at what was then known as Soquel Landing. Soon Hihn owned much of the area which later became Capitola. At first, he saw the landing only as a site to export locally grown crops and the huge quantities of redwood lumber being cut on the near-by hillsides. One of Hihn’s beach side tenants, a farmer named Samuel A. Hall, gradually recognized that fellow farmers escaping the blistering heat of inland towns came each summer to pitch tents for an extended vacation on the beach.

Hall soon began providing the transients some amenities, such as outhouses, and for a small price, provided horse boarding and meals. In a May 1874 letter, Mrs. P.A. Jones wrote to her daughters in Des Moines, Iowa about her stay at a pleasant spot along the California coast known as Camp Capitola.

The spot upon which we have pitched our tents, is a sort of plateau, just above where the tide reaches. The ground is owned by the man who lives on it, who, finding tourists profitable, has made many conveniences for their use, such as sheds to eat under, providing bedding, etc. He takes all horses home and keeps them for a very reasonable compensation. After our tents were all arranged and we had partaken of some dinner, we went down to the beach to pay our address to Old Ocean.

The Iowa visitor went on to describe the merriment of her party who had all gone … in bathing and wished me to come and look on. They had rich sport, gentlemen and ladies, coming out of their tents in all sorts of grotesque costumes, the ladies all a la bloomer, straying along the beach and then such yells and screams, as the large waves meet them, and come the most venturesome, and who had a man’s arm to cling to, would let the wave go over them … While bathing, a seal or sea lion,

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as it is called, made its appearance not twenty yards distant, riding on a wave. It would disappear and then rise again still nearer. It looked very formidable but I am told they are very harmless and seem as though they wish to be sociable.”

S.A. Hall officially opened Camp Capitola with an announcement in the local newspaper on June 18, 1874. Hall successfully operated the resort until 1879. Many of Camp Capitola’s customers came from inland towns as described in the “Farm House Chat” feature of a July 1880 issue of the Pacific Rural Press.

Very likely the cool weather accounts for this, and July and August will bring the usual rush for the sea. Camp Capitola, at Soquel beach, is very nicely fitted up to accommodate camping parties and for boarding such plain people as do not care for luxurious surroundings. Whole wagon loads of farmers come there with wives and children to rest after harvesting, and have the benefit of change and sea bathing, and it costs very little more than to live at home.

After Hall’s departure, Hihn recognized the success of the resort and began to oversee its campground, rental cottages, and concessions. Shortly after Southern Pacific Railroad purchased his Santa Cruz-Watsonville Railroad in 1881, Hihn invested $5,000 in improvements to the resort including a hotel, bathhouse, and large skating rink/pavilion. The new broad gauge on the rail line quickly allowed for greater passenger service and Hihn, as always, was one to take advantage of money-making opportunities.

In 1882, Hihn began to subdivide tracts in the “flats” (now the Village) to sell for summer vacation homes. To please visitors, streets were named for the hometowns of his annual vacationers. Hihn first advertised home-lots in the Santa Clara Valley. Some of the first to respond were members of the San Jose chapter of a German American social and athletics club known as the Turn Verein. Not surprisingly, the first lots to sell were those located on San Jose Avenue. Prices started at $100 per lot, with a deed granting an easement through the resort to the beach.

Advertisements targeted to Central Valley residents frequently appeared in the Tulare Advance-Register, Fresno Morning Republic, Hanford Sentinel, Modesto News, Chico Daily-Evening Enterprise, Sacramento Bee, Oroville Daily Register, Evening Mail (Stockton), Morning Echo (Bakersfield), and Daily Delta (Visalia). Hihn also placed advertisements about the resort in all “… the store windows of nearly every small town in this part of the State.” The August 7, 1908, Fresno Morning Republican advised “[d]wellers of valleys take a summer vacation at Capitola and enjoy the invigorating surf bathing. Cast away your medicines and try the salt water cure. Your health is worth more to you than any crop harvested.” Hihn next turned to developing Capitola Park, which after the train depot was relocated upon it in 1881, became known as Depot Hill.

Hihn also commissioned paintings of Capitola to be hung in the depots of these communities. Soon Capitola Village was home to Stockton and Sacramento avenues, followed closely by Hollister, Gilroy, Livermore, and Oakland.

Hihn’s strategy to encourage visitors from inland towns proved successful, though it was not always an easy trip for the farmers. One story of a Hanford family’s trip to Capitola was recounted in an August 1895 issue of the Daily Delta published in Visalia.

A.M. Stone, wife, daughter and baby arrived here two days ago from Hanford. Mr. Stone was out of luck on the way down. One of his best horses died on the plains some sixty miles from home. Miss Stone rode to Fresno, got on the train, went to Hanford, out to the ranch, secured another horse, had the stableman drive her to Fresno, then from there led the horse to where her folks were camping. She made the trip so they were detained two days. That girl is all right, you bet. They will remain here about a month.”

The same article mentioned that several fellow Visalians and Hanfordites decided to purchase homes in Capitola. Though the initial homelot buyers were from the South Bay’s German community, others came from a wide array of cultural backgrounds: English, Irish, Scottish, French, Canadian, Australian, Italian, Portuguese, and Croatian. Hihn Company policies appealed to women since their deed agreements stipulated that in the case of a husband’s death, the widow would receive the deed free and clear. But like many subdivisions of the day, Hihn’s were restricted upon the basis of race. Deeds forbade the lease, sale, or occupation of a property “by any other than the Caucasian race” with one exception … employees. Such racial restrictions continued in Capitola through the Rispin era of the 1920s. Most Chinese, Japanese and African Americans, even many of those who worked in town, lived outside the boundaries of Capitola. It was not until 1948 that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictive covenants were not enforceable.

The Capitola Historical Museum is currently showing it’s 2022 exhibition, “Perspectives – Capitola in the Eye of the Beholder” which traces the differing perspectives of Capitola from its original Indigenous inhabitants to its current residents. The admission free museum is open every Friday through Sunday from noon until 4:00 p.m.