Abstract
The Loma Prieta earthquake of October 17, 1989 devastated Santa Cruz’s historic core and led to the de-listing of the area from the National Register of Historic Places. Loma Prieta was not the first disaster to strike the city’s calamity prone downtown area. The project uses maps, photographs, architectural histories, the National Register nomination, newspapers, and other primary and secondary sources to trace the environmental and disaster history first of Santa Cruz city and county, then of downtown Santa Cruz as a whole. The project finally narrows the focus further and inventories the historic buildings present on Santa Cruz’s downtown Pacific Garden Mall in October 1989. The project concludes that Santa Cruz’s experience presents a lesson to other municipalities and the public. That lesson is that comprehensive disaster planning is the key to protecting both lives and historic resources.