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Rancho Soquel

Molino Timber Company workers on a bridge above Hinckley Gulch
Molino Timber Company workers on a bridge above Hinckley Gulch, 1910s. [Aptos Museum]

On wrapping up a trilogy

My journey from being introduced to Ronald G. Powell’s forgotten magnum opus on the history of Rancho Soquel Augmentation in May 2019 and publishing the final book derived from it—The Shadow of Loma Prieta—this autumn has been long with many unexpected turns. When Stan Stevens sent me scans of the first-draft manuscript that Powell had donated to the UC Santa Cruz McHenry Library in the late 1990s, I almost immediately set aside the work I… Read More »On wrapping up a trilogy

Santa Cruz pioneers

Soquel and its Lumber Lords

With The Tragedy of Martina Castro now released, I have moved on to working on the next book in the series: The Reign of the Lumber Barons. Ronald Powell did not separate his story into volumes or separate stories, but the sheer breadth of information that he covered requires it to be divided. As a result, the middle book is a very different story than the first. Where the first focused on Soquel in the… Read More »Soquel and its Lumber Lords

castro cover

Press Release: Story of early Soquel baroness Martina Castro finally told

SANTA CRUZ, CA, October 26, 2020—The history of one of Santa Cruz County’s most famous women is finally revealed in the book The Tragedy of Martina Castro: Part One of the History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation by Ronald G. Powell, edited by Derek R. Whaley, a well-known Santa Cruz author and historian. In this historical chronicle, the Spanish property baroness Martina Castro acquires one of the largest land grants in Santa Cruz County before the annexation of… Read More »Press Release: Story of early Soquel baroness Martina Castro finally told