Model A Day

Recently I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at a meeting of the Santa Barbara Model A Club about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, the Tecolote Canyon. I was happy to do so, and we had a great time, but my big payoff […]
Recently I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at a meeting of the Santa Barbara Model A Club about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, the Tecolote Canyon. I was happy to do so, and we had a great time, but my big payoff […]
These two hangars are coming up on 100 years old. What better way to celebrate their birthday than to give them some love? If you know anything about our local history, you know that a lot of the pioneers of American aviation, like Amelia Earhart, spent time in Santa Barbara. […]
St. Raphael’s Catholic Church has been at the same location on Hollister Avenue for as long as most of us can remember. But the church has a long history in Goleta that goes back to another century and a few different locations. During the mission period, small chapels were built […]
If you drive down Fairview by the airport, just past McLeans Auto Body, make a right at Matthews St. and follow the signs to Fed Ex. Keep driving past Fed Ex and you will drive right into these two historic hangars. They’re easily overlooked, but have sat here proudly since […]
There has been a lot of media about the removal of the old oil piers at Ellwood lately. And unfortunately, it seems this has caused a lot of confusion. Headlines like, “Two oil piers set to be removed at Haskell’s Beach” and “Haskell’s Beach May Be Free of Oil Piers […]
Not long ago, we did a story called Saviors of Goleta History. The Main-Begg Farmhouse project is a perfect example of what we were talking about. A group of forward-thinking locals are working to restore and preserve a beautiful example of an early Goleta farmhouse built in 1911. The Main-Begg […]
Our local history stays alive through the efforts of individuals and occasionally socially conscious corporations. Certain people can see past the five minutes directly in front of them and realize the value of preserving our past for future generations. The folks at the Goleta Valley Historical Society have done a […]
Dos Pueblos is Spanish for two villages, but to locals, that’s the name of our high school. And the name of a ranch on the outskirts of town. But why would this ranch and our high school be named “Two Villages”? Good question…. Dos Pueblos is in fact the oldest […]
Just off the coast from Sandpiper golf course, these four structures sit quietly. Several times a day people look at them and ask each other, what are those? And usually the answer is a random guess. Here’s the story. In the early 1930s, Ellwood was a booming oil field. It […]
If you know what you’re looking at, this boring clump of ivy holds a lot of historical importance. This is all that’s left of Goleta’s once booming asphalt industry. But let’s start at the beginning. Tar, oil and asphalt have always been present in Goleta. The native Chumash had many […]
It can be said that Nicolas Den is one of the most important people in the history of Goleta. He landed here by chance and never left. Over the course of his life, he changed Goleta and Santa Barbara for the better. It’s remarkable there isn’t a street, or anything […]
At the far west end of Goleta, the Tecolote Canyon winds down from the uppermost reaches of the Santa Ynez mountains. The canyon descends rapidly into a pastoral valley and down to a beach that that has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years. At the mouth of the […]
Near the corner of Patterson and Hollister Avenue sits this quaint little building. With ornate window designs, fresh paint and a neat red tile roof, it resembles a proud senior citizen, all decked out in her Sunday Best. A well kept remnant from a simpler time that has never stopped […]
We all know Ellwood Cooper left his mark on the Goleta Valley, in a good way. He planted thousands of trees around our area and many of them still exist. But there is one tree that stands above them all, literally. The Ellwood Queen is a prime specimen of a […]
The Goleta slough as we know it today is a narrow, semi stagnant waterway that winds through the large marsh beside the airport. Not much to look at really, but believe it or not it was once a large body of water that was used as a port of call […]
We all know and use Turnpike Road, but have you thought about the name? If you Google turnpike it says “an expressway, especially one on which a toll is charged“. Well our Turnpike isn’t really an expressway, and there’s no charge…so…why that name? Blame it on the stagecoach! Back in […]
Everybody knows and loves this beautiful old building. We have for decades. And we are all waiting patiently for the city to save it. Over the years, countless artists have made their renditions of the little gas station with world class architecture. But recently, a viewer told us they had […]
Every year on February 23rd, we remember the bombing of Ellwood by a Japanese submarine in 1942. It is an important historical event and deserves the attention, but there is one very popular element to the story that involves an old cactus patch that just isn’t true. If you do a […]
If you’re driving past Sandpiper Golf course on Hollister Avenue, you can’t help but notice this distinguished looking building, standing proud among the weeds. An almost forgotten landmark in Goleta, the Barnsdall-Rio Grande gas station is a reminder of a simpler time. Located beside what was once a vast oil field, the building […]
Recently, a bottle collecting friend was kind enough to give me some beautiful old Goleta bottles. One of them was from the San Marcos Dairy, which has been on my short list for a while since another historian friend, Adam Lewis, had asked me to figure out where exactly it […]