Island ranchers, circa 1870. © Santa Cruz Island Foundation

The earliest evidence of human habitation on Santa Cruz Island is more than 11,000 years old, left by Native American Chumash. The Chumash called Santa Cruz Island limuw, meaning “in the sea.”

Skilled mariners, the Chumash traveled in seafaring canoes made of split driftwood planks laced together and sealed with natural tar. Originally used for hunting and fishing, these so-called tomols eventually gave rise to a thriving trade between islanders and mainland tribes throughout Southern California. Delicate shell beads produced on Santa Cruz Island served as the economy’s legal tender. In fact, mainland Chumash called Santa Cruz Island michumash, meaning the “place of those who make shell bead money.”

By the time Europeans arrived in the late 1700s, more than 1,100 Chumash lived in 10 permanent villages on Santa Cruz Island. By 1807, however, epidemic diseases introduced by the Europeans had greatly reduced the island’s native population. European settlers relocated the last of the Chumash to mainland missions in 1822, but remnants of their culture still exist on Santa Cruz Island in more than 3,000 archaeological sites.

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was the first European to discover the northern Channel Islands in 1542. But it wasn’t until 1769 that Captain Juan Perez claimed Santa Cruz Island for the King of Spain. According to lore, Perez named the island La Isla de la Santa Cruz, or Island of the Holy Cross, to honor an event in which a local Chumash retrieved and returned a cross-tipped walking staff the Spanish expedition party had left behind.

In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain, and in 1839, Mexican Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted Santa Cruz Island to Andres Castillero for his diplomatic service. Castillero’s agent, James Barron Shaw, imported domestic livestock to the island and built one of the most admired sheep ranches in California. Ranching on Santa Cruz Island would continue for the next 150 years.

In 1857 Castillero sold Santa Cruz Island to William Barron, who cultivated 200 acres of grain and fruit and exported high-quality merino wool. In 1869, Barron sold the island to 10 men in San Francisco who formed the Santa Cruz Island Company. By 1880, one of these men, Justinian Caire, emerged as the sole stockholder of the organization. Caire expanded the ranch, planting orchards and vineyards. He also built brick warehouses, barns, a winery and a chapel—most of which still stand today. At the peak of Caire’s enterprise, nearly 100 people lived and worked on the island.

When Caire died in 1897, two decades of litigation followed, resulting in the 1925 division of Santa Cruz Island into seven parcels. Los Angeles businessman Edwin Stanton purchased five of the parcels in 1937 and shifted the ranching focus from sheep to cattle. In 1957, his son, Dr. Carey Stanton, took over the ranching operation and 90 percent of the island. With the land, Dr. Stanton also inherited a growing problem. Tens of thousands of feral sheep and pigs—descendants of domesticated animals that had escaped their confines in the mid-1800s—now roamed the island freely, consuming vast amounts of native vegetation and destroying natural habitat.

In 1975, Dr. Stanton approached The Nature Conservancy, seeking to permanently protect Santa Cruz Island’s cultural resources and unique, natural character. In 1978 they struck a deal. For $2.5 million, the Conservancy purchased 12,000 acres outright and acquired a conservation easement to prohibit sub-division and development of the rest. The agreement allowed Dr. Stanton to continue his ranching business. When Dr. Stanton died in 1987, The Nature Conservancy assumed full ownership of the property.

Through a series of transactions in the 1990s, the National Park Service acquired the remaining 10 percent of Santa Cruz Island from family heirs of Justinian Caire. Shortly afterward, the Park Service and The Nature Conservancy signed a cooperative agreement to co-manage the island as one ecological unit. In 2000, the Conservancy conveyed 8,500 acres to the National Park Service to streamline operations and accommodate increased public visitation to the island.

Today, The Nature Conservancy owns 76 percent of Santa Cruz Island, and the National Park Service owns 24 percent.