From our Archives

TEAM WORK A chef and other staff at the long-standing Loma Linda Restaurant in Watsonville help Watsonville firefighters tackle a major fire that tore through the restaurant on  Nov. 17, 1956.  (Sam Vestal/Pajaronian file).

These men examine the damage in a plane crash at the Watsonville Airport on Sept. 25, 1954. According to aviation history buff Gary Plomp, the plane is a Grumman TBF-5 Avenger Carrier, which was used in WWII as torpedo bombers and level bombers. TBFs...

CIRCLE UP Students at Freedom School take part in their annual fiesta on May 26, 1955. The Pajaronian, photo by Sam Vestal

These women prepare for the annual All Saints Bazaar on Dec. 15, 1955.

Foreign visitors get a tour of the Garbage Department in Watsonville on Jan. 19, 1957.

A crowd gathers on the deck of the SS Palo Alto, colloquially known as the “Cement Ship,” on May 31, 1954. Built in 1919 as a 420-foot concrete tanker, it was eventually decommissioned and hauled to Seacliff Beach in 1929. By 1930, it was ...

Watsonville Union High School takes on Santa Cruz High on Feb. 8, 1957.

The 1882 Records Building—today called the Octagon Building—is shown in Santa Cruz in 1954. It is now part of the popular Abbott Square at Cooper and Front streets.v(Sam Vestal/Pajaronian file)

These folks gather for a groundbreaking ceremony on July 20, 1954, for the Westview Presbyterian Church in Watsonville.

A city bus rolls along Main Street into the Watsonville Transit Square on March 23, 1954. (Sam Vestal/Pajaronian file)