1895-97 | Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track | Santa Cruz
Page last updated March 31, 2026.
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Unfortunately, no photographs or illustrations of the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track have yet to be found.
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Vue de l'Eau was a pagoda style building with a second story observatory that opened in Santa Cruz on November 1, 1891. It was located at the end of the streetcar line, on the cliff top overlooking the sandstone arches which existed at the time. In 1892 a casino was opened across the street from Vue de l'Eau.
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The Santa Cruz Surf, February 9, 1894 article is the first reference of a bicycle track, "plans are being considered for a kite shaped bicycle track." There will also be a baseball field.
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The Santa Cruz Surf, October 23, 1894 article indicates that construction of the track is underway. This article mentions a football field, the previous article included a baseball field - those are probably the main attractions of the "Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park".
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The Santa Cruz Surf, October 25, 1894 article has general information about the "New Amusement Park". This is a very unique reference to the park.
The entrance to the park is identified as being "just off Garfield Avenue, along which the electric railway runs, and has its general entrance at the south-west corner, near the Casino." The big upcoming attraction is a Stanford football game.
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Details of the track are given such as "A bicycle track of three laps to the mile" and "Inside the bicycle track there is also a base ball diamond laid out."
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The only formal event on the track in 1894 appears to be a novelty race held during halftime of a football game on Thanksgiving Day. The articles below include an advertisement, publication of the start list, a day-before update on the grounds and lastly the race results.
1895
The first event of 1895 at the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track was again a very unique event.
The Santa Cruz Surf, April 7, 1895 advertisement is for a bicyclist versus trotting horses contest. Jack Prince was a very famous bicycle racer at the time, he was in his mid-thirties in 1895. He would be quite a draw for the new track.
The San Francisco Call, April 8, 1895 article describes that Prince was able to beat the team of three horses.
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The Santa Cruz Surf, April 13, 1895 article indicates that racing, perhaps among the local racers, may take place more regularly.
Anecdotally, it's interesting to see the related advertisements in the section of the Santa Cruz Surf, April 7, 1895 that contained the "Horses vs. Bicycle" advertisement. There are advertisements for Columbia and Waverley bicycles as well as one for "The Casino!" at Vue de l'Eau.
The first big event for the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track is to be held on June 15, 1895 during Santa Cruz's water carnival.
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The Wheel, June 7, 1895 shows that the Pilot Wheelmen obtained sanctioning of the event from L. A. W.
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The Bearings, May 21, 1895 is yet another national publication advertising the June 15th race in Santa Cruz, to be preceded by races in San Francisco and San Jose.
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Lastly, a local newspaper but very prominent paper, the San Francisco Call, May 23, 1895 publicizes the event as well as a $1200 investment by the Santa Cruz Carnival Association, likely the promoter of the winter carnival.
These are two of the most detailed articles about the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track.
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The Santa Cruz Surf, May 23, 1895 article indicates the event will be quite well attended with "Members of thirty-four different bicycle clubs" and "A new grandstand with practically unlimited seating capacity." It also includes a reference to the quality of the event and racers "it comes off with the sanction of the L. A. W. racing board and will have at the scratch the cracker-jacks of all the leading California teams."
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In the San Francisco Call, "The Wheelmen" is a regular section, the San Francisco Call, June 8, 1895 section provides the most detailed description the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track:
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3 laps to a mile in length
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built three years ago, not used, deteriorated
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rebuilt, modeled after the San Jose Agricultural Park Track
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surface is loam
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30 feet wide on the start/finish stretch, 20 feet wide on the backstretch
Again, this article mentions the local clubs attending and their plans for riding to Santa Cruz "The Olympic Club Wheelmen will start on Friday night and ride to San Jose and ride over the mountains early the next morning." Also plans for the return trip "A proposition is also on foot for all the San Francisco and Oakland wheelmen to return together on Sunday night by steamer. There will be no rest for the weary on that steamer, surely, if they do."
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The local newspaper, Santa Cruz Surf, June 15, 1895 provides some day-of-the-race, last minute publicity in the form of the start list of racers to race later at Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track.
The water carnival race at Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track is summarized in The Bearings, June 15, 1895.
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About the track, "the reconstructed three-lap dirt track, laid there two years ago, and which had never been used until today."
The San Francisco Call, July 13, 1895 article references the challenges of racing on, and maintaining a track so close to the water's edge.
1896
The Referee, March 8, 1896 has a very comprehensive article titled "Race Tracks of California" written by Charles Fuller Gates. The article compares the nuances of all the California tracks, as well as the towns and clubs associated with each track.
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The article is very long. The piece included below is a snippet that addresses the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track. If you want to read the full article click on any of the links. Note, when reading the full article, the two pages are separated by a full-page advertisement.
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Despite the Santa Cruz Track holding only one major event to date, the track seems to rank well among other California tracks and is well received.
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The Santa Cruz Surf, March 19, 1896 article again shows the difficulty of maintaining a dirt track through a Northern California winter, especially located so close to the ocean.
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There is no other information about racing or big events at Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track in 1896.
1897
1897 starts out very much like the previous year, according to the Santa Cruz Surf, April 3, 1897, funds are again needed to restore the track to ridable condition.
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The next two articles indicate that the funds were apparently raised, the track is in "splendid shape" and "a number of local wheelmen were trying their speed on the track on Sunday morning."
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The Santa Cruz Surf, April 27, 1897 article is the last reference to any sort of riding on the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park Track.
The Santa Cruz Surf, September 15, 1897 article is one of the early references to a "New Athletic Park" to be built in Santa Cruz. It seems to be focused on baseball, there is no mention of a bicycle track.
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The Santa Cruz Surf, November 4, 1897 article announced the upcoming "formal opening of the Dolphin Athletic Park."
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Lastly, the Santa Cruz Surf, November 9, 1897 article confirms that "Dolphin Athletic Park was opened on Sunday afternoon" - November 7, 1897.
Location
As mentioned in the first section of this page, Vue de l'Eau was a pagoda style building with a second story observatory that opened in Santa Cruz on November 1, 1891. It was located at the end of the streetcar line, on the cliff top overlooking the sandstone arches which existed at the time. In 1892 a casino was opened across the street from Vue de l'Eau.
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The Santa Cruz Trains website has a very good description of Vue de l'Eau as it was one of the popular car stops in Santa Cruz. The article provides a connection among the Vue de l'Eau, the casino and baseball diamond locations, "In May of 1892, the streetcar company opened a mid-sized casino at the northeast corner of Pelton and Garfield Avenues" and "The railway also set out a baseball diamond on the lot beside the casino where the company baseball team, the Electrics, played."
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The photograph below from Santa Cruz Trains, Car Stops: Vue de l'Eau shows the building and the streetcar line quite nicely, the casino and Athletic Park would be just to the right.
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The Santa Cruz Trains, Streetcars: Santa Cruz Electric Railway is also a great read about the train lines over time that serviced Vue de l'Eau.
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The map at the top of this page, courtesy of the David Rumsey Map Collection, shows a map of the city of Santa Cruz c. 1914.
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The two maps below, increasingly focus in on the area of the Vue de l'Eau Athletic Park, with the second map showing the most likely locations of the Park and therefore the Track.
Below is a current Google Map of the area (36.95390552608605, -122.03689543482632), the Garfield Park area of Santa Cruz.
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Note, the Garfield Avenue referred to on this page has since been renamed to Woodrow Avenue.
Current Google Map of the Garfield Park neighborhood of Santa Cruz
Current Google Map of the Cliff Drive area of Santa Cruz
CHECKLIST:
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mention that there are NO PICS of this track. two illustrations though??
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make sure to doc the track specs in para, someplace.
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make sure to Note where other tracks are mentioned for CONTEXT!
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review each writeup and the archive item to make sure the details of the archive item are touched upon in the writeup
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review to make sure the Links are ALL GOOD!
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review to trim pics if necessary.
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HIDE this section.