"The Lime Trade of Santa Cruz," "Daily Alta California," Vol. 6, No. 152, June 18,1855, pp. 1 "Among the many valuable products of the soil of California, not the least important is that of lime, which is found in various parts of the State, but particularly in the vicinity of the Mission of Santa Cruz. The time has been since the commencement of the building of San Francisco and other cities in California, when lime imported from the Eastern States would not pay for the freight and storage; and we can recall more than one instance where large quantities of the article were thrown overboard in the bay from ships rather than incur the expenses of attempting to dispose of it in any other way. That, however, was when the extraordinary enterprise lately displayed in building had not commenced. As the construction of fine brick buildings here and in Sacramento and Marysville became more general, the use of lime has increased so that from Santa Cruz alone, not counting the numerous other quarries in the State, about 700 barrels a week have been brought, though at present less than 400 barrels are got out, owing to the decline in the building business. The Santa Cruz lime quarries are situated about a mile to the eastward of the Mission of that name, upon the third of a series of plateaus or table lands running inland from the sea coast. "The lime is of such excellent quality, that although there are numerous other quarries in the State, orders are constantly received at the depot in this city from all the principal towns in California as well as from Oregon. Last year one company (Messrs. Davis & Jordan,) got out 35,000 barrels, all of which was shipped to San Francisco. There are also other companies engaged in quarrying lime in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, the result of whose labors added to the above swell the amount to over 50,000 barrels yearly. When we consider that lime is used for little else than in the construction of houses, we can form from the above some idea of the large amount of the article consumed for such purposes. The trade employs quite a fleet of schooners, each as the Odd Fellow; the A. Adams; Queen of the West and others the greater part of the time, coming to Davis & Jordan Brennan & Co. The former firm has had at one time 50 men employed in their quarries, but have now less than 30. Thus the lime business alone in California may be safely estimated as giving employment to three or four hundred persons, and the gross value of the article extracted from the various quarries in the State per year at not far from $200,000." Peggy B. Perazzo pbperazzo@comcast.net Stone Quarries and Beyond http://quarriesandbeyond.org/ All outgoing mail virus free, scanned by Norton AntiVirus <http://www.symantec.com/>http://www.symantec.com/ New additions to our web site will be listed on our Twitter or Facebook pages, which is open to the public. (You do not need to join Facebook to view the new additions. You only need to join Facebook if you want to receive automatic notifications of new additions.) http://www.facebook.com/StoneQuarriesAndBeyond https://twitter.com/pbperazzo