Capitola’s cottage development on the flats, looking up Cherry Street with the tower of Henry Van Syckle’s house, beside a vacant lot for an unbuilt hotel. (Ross Eric Gibson collection) The resort was named after a couple of novels about an independent-minded tomboy named Capitola. (Ross Eric Gibson collection The still rustic Capitola was no longer called a camp in 1890.
Its odd hotel is the gabled building on right, with its hotel annex on the corner. (Santa Cruz County pamphlet by E.S.
Harrison for Board of Supervisors) Hard-nosed businessman F.A. Hihn developed a philosophy about artistic architecture, a theory proved right in Capitola-By-The-Sea.
(Ross Eric Gibson collection) Architect Edward Van Cleeck first designed this Hot Salt Water Bath House for Capitola, before he went whole hog on the Grand Capitola Hotel. (Ross Eric Gibson collection) F.A.
Hihn had leased the Capitola waterfront to Samuel Alonzo Hall in 1869 to grow barley and raise hogs. But with Central Valley farmers escaping the heat landing in Soquel, the waterfront evolved into a campground, which grew larger each year. As Hihn was soon to bring a railroad here, Hall saw an opportunity, and sold 100 hogs to buy tents for a resort.
In 1874 it was named (at the suggestion of Hall’s daughter Lulu) “Camp Capitola” after an independent-minded tomboy from a newspaper serial (later published as a book in 1880). Camp Capitola was chiefly a refuge from the sweltering heat in the valleys of San Joaquin, S.
