Bears Like Bacon

1889, Official Map of Santa Cruz County,
A. J. [Andrew Jackson] Hatch

1877: C. C. [Charles Campbell] Rodgers, founder of the Mountain Echo newspaper published in Boulder Creek, had an encounter with a mother grizzly and her two cubs. Rodgers was living on his homestead at the source of Boulder Creek at Bull’s Spring (also known as Bull Springs). Bull’s Spring is close to Highway 236 on the edge of Big Basin State Park and on the Skyline-to-the-Sea trail.

Headwaters of Boulder Creek at Bull's Spring, with
a small concrete dam through which the creek flows.

He had not yet built his cabin on the land and so slept on the ground under the stars. Around sunrise one morning he awoke to find a large female grizzly eating his discarded bacon rinds just a few feet from the end of his bed, with two cubs a little further away. Rodgers and the bear looked at each other for a brief time - that seemed like an eternity to the former. He then sprung to his feet and without stopping to dress he “clasped the nearest tan-oak in a loving embrace” and made a desperate attempt to climb it. Fortunately, for Rodgers, the bear gave a disgruntled growl and sidled slowly off into the nearby brush.

The area has since been logged.

That very same day Rodgers constructed a scaffold, in a “bunch of redwoods” well up from the ground, and used it to sleep on until he had completed his cabin. He bored holes in a redwood into which he drove wooden pins so as to make a ladder up which he could climb to the scaffold high in the tree.

In October the same year, C. C. Rodgers had yet another encounter. The Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel reported:

“On the head of Boulder Creek, last week, C. C. Rodgers, while ascending a trail, found himself in the rear of a couple of grizzly cubs. They hurried along, a few feet apart, the hunter getting his Henry rifle in order to give them a salute. Hearing the pattering of feet behind him, he turned his head and beheld mother bruin, open mouthed, long-haired and shaggy, and apparently as large as an elephant. Thinking that there might be something in the bushes that he wanted he turned aside, breaking one side of his bridle in doing so. Held by one rein around and around swung his terrified animal, and the grizzly kings of the forest, together and satisfied that neither was hurt, moved off at their leisure, apparently indifferent to the presence of the man with the broken bridle.”

Gatling Gun versus a Bear!

Boulder Blast, October 19, 1895

1899:  In December 1899, butcher William (Billy) H. Dool of Boulder Creek sent a 300 pound black bear to the Popular Meat Market in Santa Cruz. The bear had been shot by Henry L. Middleton in the Big Basin.

Henry Middleton had acquired a Gatling gun and wanting to “experiment” with it took it to a place near his lumber mill in the Big Basin. The gun, a machine gun that consists of multiple barrels revolving around a central axis and is capable of being fired at a rapid rate, had been “captured” from the Filipinos.

The Gatling Gun,
for Service Ashore & Afloat,
William B. Franklin, 1874

(The Philippine-American War ran from Feb 1899 to Jul 1902. Middleton had just been awarded a contract by the US government to supply troops at Manila with 3000 tons of hay.)

He fired the gun and then saw a large bear approaching. Middleton had long wanted to kill a bear and saw this as his opportunity.

The bear came running toward the gun, Middleton fired.

"Bruin saw he had no business with the Mayor of Boulder Creek, and decided that the Big Basin was too small to hold both. As the bear turned to run another shot was fired with fatal effect."

Middleton, with the assistance of several men, brought the bear to Dool's Meat Market in Boulder Creek.

Grizzly in Big Basin - Too Frightened to Stay

1890: In May 1890, Jacob “Hans” Mandel, a cook at a sawmill near Boulder Creek, and two friends had an encounter with a bear while on a hunting trip in the Big Basin. As the men rested in the evening after the day's work they heard a noise in the brush. On looking around they spotted a huge grizzly bear in the distance. The grizzly saw them and moved towards them "his eyes gleaming like two electric lights."

The men ran for a mile with the grizzly gaining on their heels. They reached a tall climbable tree and took refuge in it just as the grizzly caught up. Unable to reach the men, the grizzly just remained at its base for several hours. Afraid to move, the men stayed in the tree all night on their "uncomfortable perches." In the morning they realized the bear had departed, so they climbed down the tree and "made haste to reach Boulder."

The experience was too much for Hans who promptly resigned as cook to return to the safety of Santa Cruz. This was a great loss to the sawmill crew as Hans was famed for his corn beef hash which was considered "a rare delicacy." And the different ways in which he served mush and milk for breakfast had given him a reputation which made him the "envy of the other chefs in the neighborhood."

Black Bears in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Occasionally, black bears were encountered in the Santa Cruz Mountains, perhaps in part as a result of the declining grizzly population.

1890: An Italian who worked as a "swamper" trimming felled trees into logs for a sawmill at the summit had a lively encounter with a black bear. Macaroni, as he was called, as his real name was too difficult to pronounce, borrowed a gun and “went up the canyon to shoot something.”

He disturbed a black bear that was taking a nap. After shooting at the bear, but only slightly injuring it, he found he had to run for his life. Realizing he would lose a straight race, he dodged round a large redwood, the bear dodged too. So began a race around the tree that by accounts lasted several hours.

Santa Cruz Sentinel: "At last, he remembered he had a gun in his hand and managed to load it, made a desperate spurt to catch up with the bear, and shot it in the back."

Two of the boys who went back with Macaroni to bring the dead bear in, declared that the Italian and bruin had worn a well-beaten track around the redwood. The bear weighed a little over 200 pounds. 

1899:  In December 1899, butcher W. H. Dool of Boulder Creek sent a 300 pound black bear to the Popular Meat Market in Santa Cruz. The bear had been shot by Henry Middleton in the Big Basin.

Middleton had “captured” a Gatling gun “from the Filipinos” and wanting to “experiment” with it took it to a place near his mill. He fired a single shot and saw a bear approaching. Middleton had long wanted to kill a bear and saw this as his opportunity. So, as the bear came running towards him, he fired a shot which entered the bear's head.

Santa Cruz Evening Sentinel: "Bruin saw he had no business with the Mayor of Boulder Creek, and decided that the Big Basin was too small to hold both. As the bear turned to run another shot was fired with fatal effect."