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By Frank Perry
This article is part of the MAH’s Online History Journal, a collection of original research on local history. Dive deep into Santa Cruz County history in this ever- growing forum and start creating your own.
The City of Capitola, California, began as “Camp Capitola”—a seaside resort established on the north shore of Monterey Bay in the late 1860s or early 1870s. Historians have long disagreed on the year of the resort’s founding, the origin of the name Capitola, who named it, and when it was named.
Did the people in nearby Soquel want the area to be the capital of California? Was it named for the character in a popular novel of the era? Or did the name originate in some other way? This essay is an attempt to sort through the conflicting evidence.
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