Much of the community remained, however, in the shallow spot where water was directed naturally in a storm.īy the 1890s, three bridges sat in the center of town, at Bridge Street, Walnut Street and Soquel Drive near Main Street. New dwellings were set back toward the hills. Commercial buildings downtown were built on stilts wherever possible. They lugged dirt from surrounding hillsides and added fill to the floodplain. When a nasty flood tore up the landscape in 1862, shopkeepers realized the town sat in a basin. Soquel Creek ran through the middle of town and was known on occasion to surprise people by creeping into their houses in the middle of the night. The blacksmith shops, stores, hotels and saloons of the business center, though, were stretched along transportation routes and junctions near stream crossings. Wisely, most of their endeavors sat above the floodplain. They set out a cemetery, planted farms and gave land for Soquel's first schools. Pioneers Hames and Daubenbiss bought the neighboring Rancho Rodeo in 1847 and started gristmills and a flourmill. Hames, returning to find the Soquel mill rebuilt on higher ground, eventually filed suit against the widowed Martina in a futile effort to collect payment. Michael never came back and was believed murdered on his way home. Hames and the Lodges went to the mines during the Gold Rush. Lodge also promised cash later from the mill's profits to settle the total debt of $5,000. The mill, its storage yard and millpond dam, located just below the present site of the Soquel Lions Park on Main Street, were initially paid for with herds of sheep and Spanish cattle, the Californio equivalent for currency. The mill had been built in 1846 by John Daubenbiss and John Hames for Soquel Rancho owners Martina Castro and her husband, Michael Lodge. The town's beginnings, in fact, can be traced to a deluge in the winter of 1847, when a sawmill on the banks of Soquel Creek washed away in a storm. Records list more than a dozen severe floods. Throughout its history, the village was waterlogged at regular intervals. Billy's companions in this photograph were a dog and a cat resting in the doorway. The saloon was one of several bars in the village where a patron might try to "soak his boots" for a shot of whiskey. William "Billy the Barber" Kropf struck a dapper pose outside Sam's Senate Saloon at Porter Street and the highway known these days as Soquel Drive.
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