In January 1904, the Santa Barbara Independent informed the public that a “very notable art exhibit” had opened at 1212 State St. in the building that recently housed the Chamber of Commerce. For 25 cents, visitors could see the much-lauded oil paintings of the 21 missions of California by Edwin Deakin. “Each of the 21 […]
Celebrating the 99th anniversary of its founding this year, Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta was established in August 1924. Civic celebrations commemorating Santa Barbara’s old Spanish days, however, date back to the December 1886 fiesta celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of Mission Santa Barbara. The purpose of that four-day celebration was to […]
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In Colonial Jamestown, having survived the starving time and learned how to work thanks to Captain John Smith’s edict of “no work, no food,” the male colonists wanted women. Not just for the delights of the fairer sex, but to share the work. Among her housewifery chores, a woman in Colonial America spun the wool, […]
The Land Trust for Santa Barbara County has given us an amazing Valentine’s Day gift. A thousand red roses could not compete with the nearly 50 verdant acres the Trust has just added to its Arroyo Hondo Preserve. Since the Preserve’s founding in 2001, more than 1,600 visitors have walked its trails and 26,000 students […]
by Hercule Beresford Italian-born Giuseppe (José) Lobero loved his adopted country so much that he opened his opera house, the first theater in Santa Barbara, on February 22, George Washington’s birthday. With such deep patriotic sentiment, it seems likely that it was he who hung a symbol of our nation above the proscenium arch of […]
“Clarence Mattei painted a portrait of our nation from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Shoreline… His portraits formed an album of an era which was melding the personalities of the fearless, rugged stagecoach drivers of the Wild West to the quiet confidence and well-bred sophistication of East Coast Philanthropy,” Erin Graffy, local historian, wrote […]
It was Shuku when a band of nearly 300 Chumash lived on the point of land that today marks the boundary between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. It became Rancheria San Mateo after the Spanish settled the area in 1782. It became El Rincon (the corner) after the Mexican governor of Alta California granted the […]
In 1854, Pope Pius the IX consecrated Thaddeus Amat y Brusi as bishop of Monterey. The reluctant prelate (he had tried to ditch the papal appointment) moved the headquarters of the diocese to Santa Barbara where he planned to build a cathedral for the relics of the newly beatified Saint Viviana. Arriving in December of […]
John Muir once wrote, “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you… and cares will drop away like the leaves of Autumn.” The Santa Barbara Historical Museum’s latest exhibition celebrates the region’s increasingly popular hiking trails and public lands. Isolated by COVID, locked out of their gyms, and finally […]
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The quest for the right way to live, the right way to be, and the search for a satisfying and happy life has spanned millennia; just ask Socrates. Between 1663 and 1820 in the United States, besides being a stimulus for emigration from the “old world,” this quest led to the establishment of over 32 […]
Lockwood de Forest (Sr.) was already considered one of the best-known landscape painters in the United States when he made his first appearance in Santa Barbara in late 1902. Captivated by the landscape, he painted over 100 oil sketches of the countryside by February 1903. That month, 112 of them were exhibited at Mrs. Tadd’s […]
In 1854, Pope Pius IX consecrated Thaddeus Amat y Brusi as bishop of Monterey. The reluctant prelate (he had tried to ditch the papal appointment) moved the headquarters of the diocese to Santa Barbara where he planned to build a cathedral for the relics of the newly beatified Saint Viviana. Arriving in December 1855, the […]
Fifteen years ago, gripped by the idea of initiating a dig into my peoples’ past, I flew straight to the very big and famous (in genealogical circles) Family History Library in Salt Lake City. My plan was to spend a few days immersed in productive research and come away with a nicely-plumped-out family tree full […]
Laura Bridley comes by her affinity for Casa del Herrero honestly. A native of Montecito, Bridley has a lot of memories of connection with the land and structures in the community that channeled into a career in city planning that has included positions with the Architectural Board of Review, the Historic Landmarks Commission, the City […]
