5 things you probably don’t know about Santa Cruz’s history, according to the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History

Want to learn about Santa Cruz’s history? Next time you visit Abbott Square, pay the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History — or MAH — a visit. (Or vice versa. You’ll want to check them both out, and they’re in the same place.)

The second-floor exhibition on Santa Cruz history is thoughtfully curated and provides an inclusive history of the city, from the days of the Ohlone people to Spanish colonization, the expansion of industry, the hippie movement and local LGBTQ+ activism. Here are a few things you’ll learn. Expect to be surprised.

• You know all about the Big Dipper and funnel cakes. But the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk’s origin story is charming. Founder Fred Swanton missed New York’s Coney Island so much, he took matters into his own hands and built a Santa Cruz version. In the early 1900s, he built up Santa Cruz tourism by touring the state on a train and distributing pamphlets calling his creation, “California’s most popular playground.”
• A former slave, London Nelson, helped to found the first public school in Santa Cruz. Born a slave in 1800 in North Carolina, Nelson went west in 1850 with his owner and bought his freedom in California. He bought land in Santa Cruz in 1860 and left it to the Santa Cruz School District in his will. Today, his name lives on at the London Nelson Community Center on Center Street.
• During the Gold Rush, Santa Cruz may not have attracted prospectors, but the lumber and limestone industries thrived. You can still see historic lime kilns at UC Santa Cruz, Wilder Ranch, Fall Creek and Pogonip.
• Racism affects many things, including what’s absent from a city and what has been erased. For many more decades than people realize, Chinese immigrants and Chinese-American residents lived here but were not legally permitted to own property, so their names aren’t on county deeds. Their grave markers were often made of wood, rather than stone, and have disintegrated or been destroyed over time. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Santa Cruz had four Chinatowns. The last of them was wiped out in 1955, when the San Lorenzo River flooded.
• Santa Cruz played an important role in the rise of organic farming. The California Certified Organic Farmers organization began here in 1973 and was originally run from founder Barney Bricmont’s Santa Cruz home. It became the foundation for the USDA’s National Organic program.

Details: The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History is open from noon to 6 p.m. Thursday through Sunday at 705 Front St. in Santa Cruz. Admission is $10. Learn more at www.santacruzmah.org.