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San Marcos Cold Spring Tavern

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Far back in the Santa Barbara Mountains, California, is a snug little mountain camping ground called San Marcos Cold Spring.   Above the welcome watering trough useful alike to man and beast, is a small wooden box nailed to a tree.  On it is written "Wanderers' Library".   

 

A seat by the side tempts the weary wayfarer to pause and let his horse rest and drink whilst he dismounts and sits down to enjoy the lunch he invariably carries for the long ride.  After taking a drink from the cold spring using the bright tin cup provided,  he can enjoy a feed for his mind till the horse is ready for a few more mountain miles.

 

Departure is often delayed for an hour if the news be of the latest, or of a specially interesting quality.   There was quite a variety of literature when I was there,  including a Bible and papers not a week old, and some magazines -amongst them being a Strand - from which I took my idea to send this for a Curiosity.  ~ Mrs Helen C Sexton,  Box 221,  Santa Barbara, California

The Strand Magazine, Vol. 31, 1906

There are dozens and dozens of natural cold water springs in the vicinity of  "San Marcos Cold Springs", in the mountains above the City of Santa Barbara.  Although I have never seen any evidence of the charming "Wanderers' Library", described above,  I can direct you to another treasure located there:  the  Cold Spring Tavern.

The Tavern, located just off the San Marcos Pass,  is surrounded by tall, sinuous trees, mossy paths, and sandstone boulders;  it seems there is always a mountain breeze to ruffle the chimney smoke in the afternoon.  At once, you will feel that you are in an ancient place, a place where history seems to collect and merge into the present.

 Although San Marcos Pass is now a scenic and very modern highway, it was, for thousands of years, a footpath originally created by the Chumash, Santa Barbara County's indiginous people.  Near the summit of the pass, and scattered through the vast landscape, are sites deemed as holy by the Chumash.  Painted Cave, a California State Park site located at the top of the San Marcos Pass, is one example.

In 1846,  Col John C Fremont  led hundreds of men across the storm-shrouded San Marcos Pass on a mission for the United States of America - to take Southern California from the Mexican government,  who had possession of it.   They arrived safely in Santa Barbara on Christmas Day of that year.  A treaty was signed on January 5, 1847, making California an independent republic.

California joined the United States in 1850, and with the westward expansion of the United States, came stagecoach travel.  The Pass was recognized as a very useful route in transporting travelers from the coast to the valley.

In 1868, local Chinese laborers built the San Marcos toll road to accommodate the stagecoach travelers who rode between Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley.  It was at that time that the first buildings on the Tavern site were erected.

Stage travel was a trecherous, rugged, ardous business.   The conveyance used locally was called a "mudwagon".  There was no glamour implicit or implied.  The roads were either slick with mud, the way clouded by fog and rain, or it full of dust and heat in the summer months.  Robbers and banditos were all too real - and frequently the stagecoach journey was interrupted by armed bandits. 

Stage drivers and their horses, as well as the passengers, were delighted to catch view of the little mountain retreat - the tavern that is nestled back into the mountainside, next to the creek.  It was a place of respite and comfort, a moment of ease before the journey north to the Valley, or south, to the coastline was resumed.

Eventually, the stagecoach era passed, and horses were replaced by horsepower.

With the coming of the automobile, California was discovered to be the ideal place for pleasure drives.

The scenery of Southern California, and the consistently beautiful weather created opportunities for day-long events, perfect for the tourists who began to flood into Santa Barbara County for vacation and leisure.  

 On a clear day there is no mountain trip in Southern California to give more sheer delight than a ride over San Marcos.   Turning and twisting up the steep south wall of the range,  the road rises so fast and the valley and ocean fall so sheer below,  that it is almost akin to airplaning.  

Directly below are the orchards and fields of Goleta,  eastward, Santa Barbara's roof tops shine in the sun,  and beyond is the vast and wonderful shimmering blue sheet of the Pacific,  broken only by the rugged purple peaks of the Channel Islands....

Hundreds of motorists from Los Angeles and vicinity now seek Santa Barbara as an ideal place for a week-end outing,  and hotel accommodations in Santa Barbara late on Saturday evenings are difficult to find as a rule.  When it is possible for the motorists of San Francisco and vicinity to tour down over splendid roads all the way,  Santa Barbara folks realize that they will get the benefit of a doubled travel.   And,  with El Camino Real complete from end to end,  the winter motor travel up and down its length is going to be a factor of importance that it is hard to estimate.

~ Motor West Magazine, January 1, 1918

 Time has marched forward, and San Marcos Pass is now a busy highway used by commuters, tourists, trucks, and anyone wishing to utilize the quickest route between Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez Valley. 

The Cold Spring Tavern is located on Stagecoach Road, below the San Marcos Pass.  Stagecoach Road is narrow, shoulderless, and it scissors back and forth below the sandstone peaks and lacy trees that hover over the road. 

 

The primitive road serves to transport you back in time, slowly, as you wind lower and lower into the little valley.   From the busy highway above, it seems that bits of history and time mingle and float down together, settling here in this little, secluded, shady nook.  They dust the air with magic.

The location, and the Tavern, are charming, rustic, romantic, and beautiful.  The windows of the Tavern always seem to cast a golden glow.  In the winter, the little creek rushes over tumbled sandstone boulders, where in summer,  only shadows play. 

Every Sunday, hundreds of people descend on the little log enclave, enjoying live music, cold beer, and barbequed tri-tip.  On winter days and evenings, you may have much of the Tavern to yourself as fewer people venture here in the cooler weather.

The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  In addition to traditional fare, the tavern also offers more exotic options - such as buffalo steak, venison, duck, rabbit - and Wild Game Black Bean Chili.  

 

If you want to leave the present behind and dip into an earlier time - for just an afternoon or evening - drive up San Marcos Pass, and pull off the modern highway at Stagecoach Road.  Once you leave the highway, you begin the trip into the little valley of history and romance.  It seems that not much changes at the Cold Spring Tavern.  And that is exactly how we like it.

Visit the Cold Spring Tavern website - sign up for their newsletter, check the music schedule (they have live bands this New Year's weekend), and peruse the menu, and plan your trip to Cold Spring Tavern.

Cartas - Santa Barbara Advent Calendar - December 24, 2010 - Rainy Christmas Eve, 1846

Today was a beautiful day at the top of San Marcos Pass.  Viewing the mountains and Santa Ynez Valley in the sunlight, it is hard to imagine that, before today, an entire week of rain has fallen - from a  silvery mist,  to wet, torrential downpours of gunmetal gray.  Roads have washed out, boulders fell from muddy hillisides, trees were uprooted,  small towns were evacuated.  Many roads are still closed. 

Dramatic weather occurs infrequently here, but when it arrives, it often does so with a vengence.  This past week, San Marcos Pass received more than 14 inches of rain.....

I thought about the historic events that occurred here in 1846, when the California Battalion, led by Lt Col John C Fremont, crossed the trecherous Pass during a fierce winter storm.

John C Fremont was to play a pivotal role in California's history.

Born in 1813, in Charleston, South Carolina, Fremont joined the Army Corps of Engineers, and became an explorer in the 1840s.  His name is listed alongside other famous surveyors, such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln,  Meriweather Lewis and William Clark, who were pioneers in the exploration and mapping of the United States during its westward expansion.  He is the man who mapped most of the Oregon Trail.  With Kit Carson as his guide, Fremont crossed the Rocky Mountains, and eventually made his way to the Great Salt Lake Basin, and on to the Sierra Nevadas.

Fremont became known as "The Pathfinder". 

According to John Putnam of the San Franciso Examiner,

...in June 1845, he (Fremont) began his next trip west with Carson as guide and 55 men,  handpicked for their marksmanship; and instead of his goal of mapping the headwaters of the Arkansas River, he made for the Sacramento Valley where he promised to protect the American settlers if a war with Mexico broke out. Toward this end he lent support to the Bear Flag Revolt and, when war did erupt in 1846, he formed the California Battalion from his sharpshooters and local volunteers...."  (San Francisco Examiner, March 13, 2010)

Mexico took California from Spain in 1821, and only ruled the territory for 25 years before the American Californians took their independence from the Mexican government.  During the Bear Flag Revolt, California became an independent republic and Lt Col John C Fremont was elected governor. 

At this place, the American flag had already been planted by Col Fremont,  who,  with sixty three men, had been sent out in 1845 by the government,  with the ostensible object of making peaceful explorations.   He had been officer of the corps of topographical engineers, employed in the years 1842-3, in exploring the great rivers,  valleys,  prairies,  lakes,  and mountain passes on the grand route to Oregon, and he had manifested,  by his keen observation,  his hardy endurance,  untiring activity,  courage,  and conduct among the Indian tribes,  the incipient germ of the great military commander.

He was opportunely on the ground at the breaking out of the war.   The Mexicans menaced him,  although he had obtained leave of Gen Castro,  the military commandant,  to winter near the San Joaquin. 

Subsequently,  all Americans were threatened.  Frem0nt went and aroused the settlers in the valley of the  Sacramento.   They added to his force and he swept out the Mexican authorities from the northern interior.  The American Californians,  July 6th,  declared their independence and placed Fremont at the head of their government.

A few days after,  news came that war existed between the United States and Mexico,  when the Californian colors were joyfully pulled down and the American hoisted.

~ Emma Willard, Last Leaves of American History, 1849

Southern California had been claimed by the Americans, but the ranchero Californios, the Southern Californians of Spanish and Mexican descent, revolted against the Americans. 

Lt Col Fremont was dispatched from Monterey with his California Battalion, to return to the south and take the area - once and for all. 

They had planned to  journey by sea to the coast of Santa Barbara, but hostilities were so great that Fremont and his men could not make landfall that way.  Rather, they had to  march southward, a 400 mile journey made on horseback in the hostile winter weather.

Once they reached San Luis Obispo County,  north of Santa Barbara, they stopped for rest and replenishment at Rancho Nipomo which lies about 90 miles north of  Santa Barbara.

Captain Dana, owner of the Rancho and brother to Richard Henry Dana, author of Two Years Before the Mast, is said to have counseled Fremont during his stay.

Some historians credit Dana as the man who advised Fremont that the Mexicans had planned an ambush, and  lay in wait at the rugged Gaviota Pass that lay about 60 miles southward.   Gaviota Pass was the only known southern route through the rocky terrain.  

Fremont and his men again  journeyed southward to meet their destiny.  They traveled another 40 miles, and stopped to rest in the  Santa Ynez Valley, at the ranch of Benjamin Foxen, another old sea captain turned rancher.  It is Foxen, other historians say, who advised Fremont of the pending ambush at Gaviota.  In any case, Fremont had been warned of an incipient danger.   He asked Foxen and his son, William, if there were not another way to approach Santa Barbara by land, besides the Gaviota Pass....

 Foxen informed Fremont that there was a little-known and very trecherous trail through the rugged Santa Lucia Mountains.  The Chumash, Santa Barbara County's indiginous people,  used it as a route between the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Barbara.   It was rugged, steep, and barely as wide as a man's footstep.   And in the winter storm, it might prove as deadly as the other threat that await in Gaviota.

Fremont was leading dozens and dozens of men and their horses, and many mules loaded with provisions and weapons, including a cannon.  The winter storm had begun to rage in earnest.   Some say that William Foxen, Benjamin's son,  knew the area exceedingly well and offered to accompany Fremont's men, and show them the path over the mountains.   

The burden of choice weighed heavily upon Col John C Fremont.

So it was that Fremont and his men, on December 24, 1846, approached Santa Barbara along the San Marcos Pass.   It was devilishly dark, and cold, and the mountainous terrain above Santa Barbara was scoured by a driving rain.

Every step was fraught with danger as torrents of rain fell.  Creeks were quickly running bank to bank.  Their pathways and trails turned to slick, slippery rivers of mud; fallen boulders and rockslides slowed their forward progress.  The journey was an exceedingly difficult one. 

The men were discouraged, and spirits lagged.   The horses and mules were spooked by lightening and thunder, and more than 100 animals were lost - slipping on the muddy paths, sliding to their deaths from the heights of the mountains, being swept away in overflowing creeks....yet the party drove forward in the relentless rain.  They camped on the Pass, in the rain,  on that  frigid Christmas Eve.

On a rainy Christmas day,  1846,  he (Fremont) was dragging his cannon up the mountains,  along the narrow Indian trail,  and he did not reach the foot of the range on this side until after dark,  with everything so wet that no fires could be kindled.

It was a most uncomfortable night,  and when,  next day,  the balance of the company and horses had been brought over,  it was found that so many animals had been lost in fording the swollen torrents of the Santa Ynez and tributary streams,  that there were not enough to mount all the men.

On the 27th of December,  1846,  Fremont entered Santa Barbara without opposition.... Here Fremont and his soldiers remained encamped for a week,  going to Ventura on the 5th of January,  1847,  which place was also taken without resistance.

~ Gidney, Brooks, Sheridan, History of Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, California, Vol 1, 1917

Southern California had been successfully annexed from the possession of Mexico.  On January 5, 1847, Fremont met with Mexican governor, Pio Pico, at the Cahuenga Pass, and a treaty was signed making California an independent republic.  We joined the United States on September 9, 1850.

Fremont went on to live a colorful life:  he ran against Abraham Lincoln for the office of President of the United States.   He served in the Civil War.   He was elected as governor of Arizona.

In the final analysis, some see Fremont's life as the victorious adventure lived by a great American patriot - others may judge him as a man who could not abide authority, a man who, although he accomplished great things, was ultimately his own worst enemy. 

What we do know is that John C Fremont  lived  from adventure to adventure.  He opened American doors in the West - he was a charismatic, brave, interesting man whose life played out in some of the great scenes in American history.  And on that one Christmas Eve in 1846, his adventure took him to the top of the San Marcos Pass.

Cartas - Santa Barbara Advent Calendar - December 23, 2010 - Oak Park

Oak Park is one of Santa Barbara's most beloved community parks.  Long before Santa Barbara became a city - in the old days when Spanish Dons ruled the area, they would come here, with their senoritas and families, to sing and relax and picnic beneath the sycamores alongside the creek.   It has been a popular community gathering place ever since that time.....

As  a result of the City's love of this area, a neighborhood has grown up around the old park.  Era upon era of homes are found:  small Victorian-era houses,  Craftsman-styled homes, and little cottages -

places graced with tumbles of flowers and charm, some with white picket fences and trees full of oranges right outside the front door.  The Park and neighborhood are situated near the banks of the Mission Creek, and native California Live Oaks are everywhere.   The area is vibrantly alive - a rich little riparian world located in the middle of town.

It was, "Through the generosity of Mr Henry Tallant that the city acquired fourteen acres of natural woodland,  today known as Oak Park," according to Leila Weekes Wilson, in her book entitled, Santa Barbara, California, published in 1913. 

Thanks to Mr. Tallant,  the area dedicated as Oak Park  has retained its  natural beauty - a seasonal creek, and land studded with enormous, sturdy  live oak trees and native California Sycamore trees.  And yet,  the park was modified to provide comfortable amenities that would enable residents to host large community events here, or just ot enjoy a leisurely day in the park.

The City installed  several large barbeques and party/picnic areas (allowing parties of up to 500 people at the largest picnic ground), two tennis courts,

a playground, a wading pool, and even a wooden stage - everything a City could want in a hometown park.    Much of the hardscape found here was created using the boulders and river rock found on site.

Mission Creek runs the entire length of the park, embuing it with vitality and beauty - no matter what time of year.   The City has been working on the Tallant Road project, to improve the health and viability of life in and around this important waterway that begins several miles above the city, and flows into the Pacific Ocean....

The park is comprised of a large swath of grass that is laid out the full length of the park, and is ringed by the huge old oak and sycamore trees.   The trees and grass and creek  set a living perimeter enclosing this natural playground, setting it apart from the noise and distractions of daily life.

 Although the park is empty today - the wet, dark tables are scattered with fallen leaves and the ground is soaked from recent rains - this popular site will be busy, soon enough, with the gatherings, parties, and community celebrations that are part of the life of Oak Park.

Some of the annual festivals that are held in Oak Park include:

• French Festival
• Greek Festival
• Jewish Festival
• Multicultural Festival
• Carribean Festival

In addition to the big events, smaller gatherings are held here, almost any weekend of the year.  Balloons and pinatas are tied to the trees for birthday parties, the barbeque areas are popular for holding casual receptions or celebrations....and every day of the year, people come here just to enjoy an afternoon out of doors.

Santa Barbara is a city that has always loved her trees, and parks, and bits of wilderness tucked here and there among our neighborhoods and businesses.  We need places that allow us to gather on the weekend,  or walk our dogs, or take our kids to run and play.  

Today, I walked alongside the muddy, rain-swollen creek.   The water sang with the rush of storm runoff  from the mountains,  foothills and  city.  

Splashes of sunlight pierced dark storm clouds,  illuminating the sudden-yellow leaves of the sinuous sycamore trees and the  ring of native oaks that circle the park.  The  neon-red  berries of the native Toyon were lacquered by the recent winter rain.

I witnessed a rambunctious and lively exchange between several crows and woodpeckers as they dashed through the cathedral of trees that overhang the creek.

Oak Park has been a constant presence in the life of the City, and while it has not changed a lot in the ensuing years, a lot of life has gone on in and around the Park.   The City and her people have changed.   And yet, after decades and decades, still we  return to this same spot of land - this place we have come to call Oak Park.  We come here again because we long for that which never changes. 

Water that tumbles in a rush through a cold, rocky creek.  Woodpeckers that flash - black/white/red - from atop a tall tree. Pale mushrooms that appear in tender grass just after a rain.

I recently uncovered an article about some controversy centered on  Oak Park many years ago.  It is one small tale, one tiny chapter in the life of Oak Park.... 

The story unfolded with the passing of a new City ordinance, the "anti-bee ordinance"  of 1916;  it revolved around a "honey headquarters" established nearby....

From The Western Honey Bee magazine, dated November, 1916:

THE SANTA BARBARA BEE ORDINANCE

(Santa Barbara Daily, Oct 20th)

Ordinance No. 93 is still on the books,  despite the protest of S G Kelly of Kelly Brothers,  the pioneer apiarists of Santa Barbara county.   And,  Mr Kelly said in parting, that unless the ordinance was repealed,  "we are through with Santa Barbara".  

When the Kellys located their honey headquarters in the Oak Park district,  they were outside the city boundaries.   The town expanded and took them in.   Mr Kelly explained that they have no commercial hives in Santa Barbara,  that all they do in their town establishment is to raise queen bees.   They did not bring bees into Santa Barbara,  but the swarms came to them.

They were asked repeatedly to remove bees from various buildings,  and they did so,  thus helping to stop the annoyance of floating swarms.   Yet there are bees all over the city.    There are three bee trees in Oak Park, the chief of police has one swarm in his chimney,  and others have complained to the Kellys of the unwelcome presence of these colonies.   Stewart Edward White (the noted novelist and traveler,  Ed.) has a swarm in his house he would like to get rid of.  

But  still, the council was unconvinced.

The correspondent who sends this report says Mr Kelly visited the old maid who complained of his bees,  on a peace mission - but without the desired results.   He was told that,  "bachelors should be taxed $10 per year".  

Mr K cheerfully replied,  "It's worth it,  it's worth it!"  and she is indignant yet.