Surfing in Santa Cruz (Images of America)
Title: Canton Area RailroadsAuthor: John WhitacrePublisher: Woolgathering and WiddershinsDate: 8/14/09Alliance, Ohio, has not been forgotten by the railroads. Its high volume of train traffic inspired railroad historian Craig Sanders to write "Canton Area Railroads," a collection of railroad photos spanning 15 decades and several counties, with Canton as the focal point, and into a mere 127 pages Sanders packs a gondola full of railroad history."The idea for this book came to me during a 2007 Labor Day weekend visit to Alliance to photograph trains of the Norfolk Southern Corporation, which now owns the tracks through town once used by the Pennsylvania Railroad," writes Sanders in his acknowledgments. "Alliance is one of the few places in Stark County that still sees a high volume of rail traffic. Although no town of any size in Stark County has lost rail service, far fewer trains today rumble through Canton or Massillon."The introduction presents an exhaustive summary of the numerous railroads that operated in the greater Canton area from the early days of steam to the present. Rather than focusing only on Canton, the book ranges east to Beloit, west to Wooster, and south to Carrollton, Minerva and Newcomerstown. Chapters cover electric railways, the Pennsylvania Railroad, Conrail, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Wheeling and Lake Erie, Ohio Central Railroad, and other railroad operations."I expanded this book's scope to include the bordering counties because of the community of interest that they have with Canton and because the rail lines that served Stark County also served those places," writes Sanders. "The Canton region has a rich railroad history and still features a variety of railroad operations. Brewster, tucked away in the southwest corner of Stark County, remains the quintessential railroad town as the operating headquarters of the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. This book examines how railroads developed in the Canton region and how they got to where they are today."The oldest photo shows two mules hauling a small wooden car sometime between 1859 and 1867 on the Carroll County Railroad after the line's sole locomotive quit. The railroad was reorganized in 1866 as the Carrollton and Oneida Railroad, and a photograph taken in 1867 shows an 0-4-0 locomotive named the Carroll at the same station.The second and third oldest photos show two Pennsylvania Railroad 4-4-0 American-style locomotives in the 1880s. Most photos come from the 1900s, many show diesel and some are quite new, as late as the 1990s. A 1966 photo shows Wall Tower in Alliance, which controlled the Pennsylvania Railroad crossing with the New York Central System. The tower closed in 1972 after the crossing was removed and was later razed.Akron Railroad Club members contributed many of the more than 200 photos, and Sanders draws on decades of accumulated rail knowledge to identify locomotives by make, model and ID number, often giving their manufacturer and date of manufacture. He pinpoints the location of all photos, giving a bit of history with each photo and often the load being hauled and its destination.Each chapter shows motive power, rolling stock, structures and bridges belonging to the line or lines it covers. The final chapter, "Other Railroad Operations," addresses lesser known railroads that the average person never sees: private company operations and excursion trains. The Timken Company's small fleet of rolling stock included a 4-8-4 steam engine that Timken commissioned from the American Locomotive Company. ALC built the locomotive, Number 1111, nicknamed the Four Aces, with roller bearings on all axles, the first steam locomotive to be equipped with sealed roller bearings on all axles. The Nimishillen and Tuscarawas Railway operated in Republic Steel's Canton, Massillon and Lorain plants and was later renamed Republic N&T; Railway, now a subsidiary of Republic Engineered Products.Sanders is president of the Akron Railroad Club and has published four other railroad history books, including "Akron Railroads" in Arcadia's Images of Rail series. He lives in University Heights and teaches journalism and public relations at Cleveland State University. Akron Railroad Club members maintain a blog at http://akronrrclub.wordpress.com/.Arcadia sells a "Canton Area Railroads" companion packet of 15 postcards. The book and postcard packet are available through bookstores or Arcadia Publishing at www.arcadiapublishing.com or (888) 313-2665.Title: Hickenbottom's book a portable Santa Cruz surf museumAuthor: Gary B. NiblockPublisher: Santa Cruz SentinelDate: 8/15/09Thomas Hickenbottom has found a way to fit a surfing museum into a backpack.With his new book, "Surfing in Santa Cruz," Hickenbottom presents a pictorial history of the sport from South County to Steamer Lane. Written by a native son, the book offers the reader an ultimate insider's look at the roots and evolution of modern day surfing in Santa Cruz."It was an era for only the boldest and most dedicated surfers," said Hickenbottom of Bonny Doon in the book's introduction. "This volume of photographs is a testament to those people from the earliest of times who helped define and transform surfing and beach life in Santa Cruz."Hickenbottom's stories and pictures evolve from the slabs of redwood used by the three Hawaiian princes who christened Santa Cruz's waters to the heavy wood boards of the 1950s to the light "foamies" that emerged in the early 1960s.Hickenbottom's sincere focus isn't the boards, however, but the people who rode them. He shares snapshots of some of the area's premiere surfing families, including the O'Neills and the Van Dykes. He digs up pictures of pro and local surfers waiting for their turn at contests and shows members of the Santa Cruz Surf Club gathering at the surf barn that used to sit at the corner of West Cliff and Bay Street.One photo shows a group of longtime Westside surfers, including Al Fox, hanging out under a beach umbrella"After Fox retired from the County of Santa Cruz, he rarely misseda day sunning at Cowell's," Hickenbottom wrote. "He was down there so much he would tell people, If you need me, I'll be at the office,' which meant under the beach umbrella."Hickenbottom, 61, succeeds at capturing Santa Cruz's surf history in part because he lived it. He started surfing in 1959 as an 11-year-old "grommie" [young surfer]. He progressed quickly, and as a member of the premier O'Neill Surf Team, was one of the first sponsored surfers. He competed up and down the coast, surfing against and often beating the best surfers of those days.His meteoric surfing career was disrupted by the war in Vietnam, but Hickenbottom never lost his passion for surfing -- especially in Santa Cruz. That's why decades later, Hickenbottom delved into piecing together his latest book, taking his own knowledge and gleaning additional stories from some older members of the SCSC and information found at the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum."Surfing in Santa Cruz is a multifaceted experience," he wrote. "The community has some of the greatest surfers in the world as residents -- professional surfers who are constantly seeking out ultimate honors and personal triumphs. It is also a community that supports even the most physically compromised individual, who would like to experience the stoke of riding a wave."To have all this together in one portable volume could be considered, for surfers, like finding a secret surf spot.Title: Surf CitizensAuthor: Staff WriterPublisher: Santa Cruz MetroDate: 8/12/09Right after Thomas Hickenbottom signed with Arcadia Publishing last fall to compile a pictorial history of surfing in Santa Cruz, the bottom fell out of his plans. Hickenbottom, a Santa Cruz native and professional surfer during the '60s, '70s and '80s, knew he'd have no problem gathering photographs from the 1950s and 1960s; his friends had plenty of those. But the collection he was relying on for 90 percent of the vintage photos from the 1940s and earlier --photos belonging to original Santa Cruz Surfing Club member Harry Mayo--was suddenly off limits, tied up in litigation over rights to the images and the club name.It may have been a blessing in disguise. Nerve-racking though it was, it forced Hickenbottom to reach out to other surfers, some of whom had moved away from Santa Cruz years before. Slowly the significance of his task dawned on him."I didn't realize what a cosmic thing I was doing for the whole surfing community, to be able to talk to all these people and sit in their living rooms and realize what incredible people were involved in this thing called Santa Cruz surfing," he says. "It's done for posterity, man! It's so bloody cool!"Hickenbottom, a tanned, good-natured man with laughing hazel eyes and the upright, eternally youthful vibe of the soul surfer, speaks unselfconsciously about the Great Spirit and the role of service when he talks about the book. But it works on a material level, too, as a history of how boards themselves shaped the sport, the evolution from redwood plank to balsa to foam blank to shortboard fostering a constant expansion of maneuverability and athleticism. His book ends in 1968, after a decade of foam longboards had made possible the stylistic riding of the era. "In some ways it was more of an art form than an athletic endeavor," he says. Even the hotdogging--that quaint term--of the day was graceful.Of course surfing didn't end in 1968. Hickenbottom himself went on to adapt to the shortboard revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, and he's as excited about surfing today, tow-ins and all, as he ever was. "It's going in all different directions!" he says. "Who knows where it could go?"Ultimately, though, the book's significance, at least to its author, resides in the story of a developing Santa Cruz surfing community, one that embraces the physically limited along with the supremely gifted. "If someone were to ask me to write the history of Santa Cruz surfing, I'd tear out this page and say, 'Here it is, man!'" says Hickenbottom. He turns to a page with two plates, one of Dick Keating on a monster wave at Steamer Lane and one of Danny Cortazzo helping a young amputee catch a two-foot swell. "You can go into the consciousness, man, and this is where we need to be going. We need to be changing things for the better. And I think the Santa Cruz surfing community is like a metaphor for that."THOMAS HICKENBOTTOM signs copies of 'Surfing in Santa Cruz' (Arcadia; 128 pages; $21.99) Saturday, Aug. 15, 6-9pm at the Museum of Art and History, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. Several members of the original Santa Cruz Surfing Club are expected to attend. Second signing is on Tuesday, Aug. 18 at 7:30pm at Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave., Santa Cruz.Title: Old SchoolAuthor: Linda KoffmanPublisher: Good TimesDate: 8/10/09If you've ever envisioned surfing The Lane alone during a pumping swell (I can see innumerable disgruntled eyes rolling), Thomas Hickenbottom's new photo book might make your wetsuited soul whimper for a time very few can honestly claim they remember.There was, after all, a beginning--before Santa Cruz was a well-known black hole sucking in swarms of adventurers of all ages hoping to mine their own nuggets at its many illustrious breaks. "Surfing in Santa Cruz," with 124 photos spanning 128 pages, documents that genesis when locals were literally first testing the waters. From Lloyd Ragon's initial exploration of the previously unknown offerings of Steamer Lane on an unlaminated redwood plank, through the sport's ensuing growth, commercialization, contests, and the birth of the shortboard, the book chronicles Santa Cruz from the 1930s through the 1960s.It was an auspicious era, like the pioneering of the Old West transposed onto the Pacific, and our bay and its unexploited waves served as the latest Gold Rush of a new kind of opportunity. Locals were following suit five decades after three Hawaiian princes in the late 1880s are presumed to have imported to town the seeds which sprouted into a cultural revolution; a revolution that in recent years culminated into all that "Surf City" banter. We're talking way back, back when the Santa Cruz cliffs and the elements on both sides of them laid vacant."Before the '60s, surfing was almost a bohemian lifestyle," Hickenbottom begins, "but the Beach Boys gave it a look with the madras shirts and blond hair, and Hollywood movies glorified and stereotyped it. That led, in my view, to the downfall of the pure essence of the sport. The book ends when all of that was starting to take off. So, what you get to see in the book is just that bitchin' essence."The 61-year-old, who began surfing in the '50s during the balsa period, became a regular character in later competitions as a Team O'Neill rider (one of numerous sponsorships he obtained), and is now a member of the Santa Cruz Surfing Club Preservation Society, has amassed a hearty assemblage of photos for "Surfing in Santa Cruz," which is part of an Images of America book series. The visual narrative is broken down into six sections: Early Days, South County, Pleasure Point, Rivermouth, Cowell's Beach, and Steamer Lane. The pictorial timeline ends just as the proliferation of the shortboard enters into play.Hickenbottom, who brims with childlike excitement as we chat at Mitchell's Cove on a summer afternoon about his year-long project,says it is the first historical account about Santa Cruz of its kind. He will be speaking about the hot-off-the-press collection at the Museum of Art and History and Bookshop Santa Cruz on Saturday, August 15,  and Tuesday, August 18, respectively."In the '60s, many surfers didn't even drive past Cowell's or The Lane," he imparts, "so many of the Westside spots that are now very popular weren't even surfed. Isn't that interesting!" Hickenbottom beams with a genuine wonder at the distant factoids "Surfing in Santa Cruz" brings to light, and in the book he addresses those prominent surfers who pioneered the spots many now consider everyday stops.Scouring the country for the eldest network of surfers, he has woven together submissions from original Santa Cruz Surfing Club members' personal photo collections. "Surfing in Santa Cruz" serves as a sort of time capsule constructed, he says, with the help of "people who were instrumental in the evolution of surfing in Santa Cruz and the consciousness of its surfing community."Just like the book itself, this week's book signing at the Museum of Art and History is expected to lure 60 years of Santa Cruz surfing dignitaries. Hickenbottom couldn't be happier."It's going to be amazing to get all those people in one place after all these years," he states, his eyebrows excitedly lifted into an arch above his broad smile. "Making this book has made me realize just how cool all the people are that made the Santa Cruz surfing culture what it is; just really soulful, wonderful people."