The Santa Maria Times has been telling our region's stories for 140 years. Yes, today is our anniversary! But while we've spent 140 years chronicling the history of the Santa Maria Valley there are few, if any, comprehensive stories about this newspaper.
December 1883: Santa Maria's first brick building was put up by T.A. Jones to replace a two-story wooden structure that was destroyed in a fire Sept. 3 of that same year. The second story of the new building became a lodge room for the Santa Maria Masons, the office of Judge Thornburgh and a reading room for WCTU. The Santa Maria Times moved in the following January.
Read this selected column from Shirley Contreras, focused on the effort to require Santa Marians in the city to get a permit for their horses in the late 1940's. The attempt to 'regulate' horse ownership was seen by some as an attempt to ban them.
Sept. 21, 1905: The first meeting of the new City of Santa Maria's Board of Trustees (now the City Council) was held in the director's room of the First National Bank of Santa Maria, which was located on the northwest corner of Lincoln and Main Streets. Alvin Cox was elected president and Thomas Preisker became the city's attorney.
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Central City to Santa Maria
Benjamin Wiley, who lived in a dugout a little north and east of the present city of Santa Maria, was Santa Maria’s first settler.
HEART OF THE VALLEY In the fall of 1867, Benjamin Wiley became the Santa Maria Valley’s first settler. He lived in a dugout, a little north and east from the present center of the city.
William C. Adam was a boy of 8 when he arrived in 1869 in the Santa Maria Valley with his folks, Elizabeth (O’Connor) and William Laird Adam, and four brothers and sisters, Mary, Isabelle, James and Charles.
Central City to Santa Maria
Thomas Allen Jones died at the age of 71 on Dec. 7, 1902. He and Viola are buried in the Santa Maria Cemetery.
Shirley Contreras - From the time when the pioneers first arrived, water, or the lack of it, was a major problem for the valley. The first water system was started by Reuben Hart, who came to the United States from Derbyshire, England, first settling in New Jersey with his brother, Thomas.
The high school football season officially kicked off this week, and with college players and the pros taking to the field soon now is a good time to take a look back at the beginnings of football in the Santa Maria Valley.
Serving as mayor of Santa Maria from 1956 to 1960, Curtis Tunnell had worked unceasingly toward improving the downtown area, most specifically, Whiskey Row.
See a list of highlights in the history of the Santa Maria Valley in this column from Shirley Contreras. Aug. 21, 1874: The Guadalupe Masonic Lodge voted to purchase land (together with the Odd Fellows) to be used as a cemetery.
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Central City to Santa Maria
Times were tough in December 1870, in the tiny community called Central City, and there just wasn't much to celebrate. Just three years had passed since Ben Wiley had hammered in the first stake to claim part of the barren wasteland. The weary homesteaders were struggling to survive.
Prior to 1891, high schools in California could only be built and maintained in incorporated towns and cities. This made it difficult, if not impossible, for small communities to support a high school without generous donations from private parties.
July highlights in the Santa Maria Valley region included the opening of the Campodonico Store in Guadalupe in 1895, and the dedication of the new Mission Santa Ines in 1817.
In a 1938 interview, Samuel Jefferson “Jeff” Jones told the weekly Santa Maria Courier, there wasn’t much to indicate that the barren and wind-swept valley would one day be a city in 1871, the year the Jones family arrived.
Heart of the Valley: June highlights include the hottest day in Santa Maria history with a recorded high of 105 degrees, causing pavement to buckle up as high as a foot in some areas of the city.
Having come to America from Derbyshire, England, "with five kids and five dollars," Charles and Elizabeth Booth Bradley first stepped foot in California when the steamer Colorado docked Nov. 9, 1868, in San Francisco.
On May 25, 1956, a fire apparently caused by gas leaking from one of the firetrucks, destroyed Santa Maria’s fire station. Only one truck survived the blaze. See more important May dates in Santa Maria's history right here.
When the Hancock Foundation College of Aeronautics first opened for registration, almost 400 applications for the school’s initial class came in from all parts of the country. Although the minimum age of 18 was originally set for application, it was later amended to 21. In addition, certain …
The early radios, although lacking speakers, came with a set of earplugs which families took turns passing around, so that each person in the room could have a turn in listening to part of the programs being transmitted from cities far away.