Santa Cruz Trains: Railroads of the Santa Cruz Coast is in the final stretch now and I am hoping to have principal writing done by the end of July. This will give me three months to format the book, source photographs, draw maps, edit, and prepare the book for publication by November 1. That is my goal and it is beginning to seem achievable. As of the end of June 2026, all introductory chapters are… Read More »Ocean Shore vs. Southern Pacific: Fight!
History is a difficult thing to write because it requires so many sources! If only there were a helpful book that had all the sources gathered together in one place. Well, now there is! I introduce for your reading and research pleasure, Santa Cruz Trains Sourcebook: The Dream of Steam, 1854–1873, available TODAY from Amazon.com. In this little treasure are over 500 newspaper articles relating to the pre-history of railroads in Santa Cruz County, from… Read More »Sourcing Santa Cruz’s Railroad History
The second SIDETRACKED book by Derek R. Whaley reveals the history of the Santa Cruz Beach before the Boardwalk SANTA CRUZ, CA, May 17, 2024—Exactly 100 years ago, the Giant Dipper on the Santa Cruz Beach opened to an excited public. It was a groundbreaking milestone in a history that stretched 75 years into the past, to a time when California was not even a state. SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903 explores the… Read More »Press Release: SIDETRACKED: The Santa Cruz Beach to 1903
New book series Our Old Santa Cruz… by Ernest Otto unveils the captivating history of Santa Cruz in the late 1800s SANTA CRUZ, CA, November 15, 2023—Our Old Santa Cruz… is a compelling retrospective book series that gazes into the history of Santa Cruz, California, through the eyes of the late Santa Cruz Sentinel reporter Ernest F. Otto. Each book in this new series paints a vivid picture of the city’s bustling life at the… Read More »Press Release: Our Old Santa Cruz… By Ernest Otto
For the past four years, I have been working on editing and publishing Ronald G. Powell’s mostly lost manuscripts into The History of Rancho Soquel Augmentation trilogy. Throughout the course of doing this, I did not forget about my first passion: Santa Cruz Trains. Indeed, editing Parts 2 and 3 reminded me of what I had set aside to finish Powell’s work, but it also gave me inspiration to move beyond what I had originally… Read More »Out of Isolation and Into the World Beyond
![Holiday Lighting Along Main Street, Watsonville, 1920s [Santa Cruz Public Libraries]](https://zayantepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Holiday-Lighting-Along-Main-Street.jpg)