Page 148 - California Diving and Surfing
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ith Mexico’s independence from cotinued expansion of the sheep ranching San Francisco hardware business that sold
W Spain in 1821, the Mexican govern- operation begun during the Castillero era equipment to miners. By the late 1880s
ment asserted its control over California. In under the supervision of the appointed Caire had acquired all of the shares of the
an effort to increase the Mexican presence,
the government began sending convicted manager John Shaw. The Civil War signifi- Santa Cruz Island Company which he and
criminals to populate many areas. Around
40 prisoners were sent to Santa Barbara cantly increased the demand for wool and his colleagues had founded in 1869. His
where, upon arrival, they were sent to Santa
Cruz Island. They lived for a short time in an by 1864 some 24,000 sheep grazed the hills sons continued a successful livestock, wine-
area now known as Prisoners Harbor. A cen-
tral valley splits the island along the Santa and valleys of Santa Cruz Island. Shaw’s making and ranching industry on the island
Cruz Island Fault, with volcanic rock on the
north and older sedimentary rock on the island sheep ranch was well known by 1869, for many years after his death in 1897.
south. This volcanic rock was heavily frac-
tured during the uplift phase that formed the year he left Santa Cruz. He imported B eginning in 1910 an extended and
the island and over a hundred large sea cattle, horses, and sheep to the island and complicated litigation was brought by
caves have been carved into the resulting erected one of the earliest wharves along
faults. One of these, Painted Cave, is among
the world’s largest. the California coast at Prisoners Harbor Caire’s two married daughters against their
T he island was purchased by William Bar- by 1869. He built corrals and houses for mother and four siblings. This resulted in
ron, a San Francisco businessman and
co-owner of the company Barron, Forbes himself and his employees and expanded the division of the island and the forced
& Co., in 1857. During the twelve years
that Barron owned the island, there was a the road system. Shaw was the first rancher sale of most of it in 1937. The litigants, who
to ship sheep to San Francisco by steamer, had instigated the legal actions led by in-
some selling at $30 per animal. When Bar- law Ambrose Gherini, retained 6,000 acres
ron sold the island in 1869 to ten investors (24 km2) on the east end of the island, on
from San Francisco for $150,000, Shaw left which they continued the sheep ranch-
for San Francisco and Los Alamos where he ing operation. To pay their legal costs,
continued ranching. At that time, the gross the majority of Caire’s descendants were
proceeds from the ranch on Santa Cruz compelled to sell the remaining 90 percent
Island were supposedly $50,000. One of of the island to Los Angeles oilman Edwin
the investors, Justinian Caire, was a French Stanton in 1937.
immigrant and founder of a successful
