I find thick, white, not clear, textured chunks of the same color and heaviness. They are usually the size of 50 cent pieces. Well, now I know what they are. Some env/bio white guy on the beach told me. He said there was an olive oil company in Ellwood circa 1895, but it was washed out to sea in the 1920s. I was completely intrigued. "VotS," he said, (I wondered how he knew my name.), "Seaglass takes a long, long time. We're still finding glass from the Ellwood Olive Oil Company." It all clicked for me right there what the big milky bottle tops and bottoms were. I have been finding these throughout my 17 years here.
Information about the bottle design here:
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/applied-seal-ellwood-cooper-olive-oil-c1890
The seal is a large oval with generous blobby edges. Base is almost flat, but asymetrical and set in from base edge. Bottle stands almost 11 1/4 inches tall, and 2 3/4 inches at the base. It is glossy with no chips or cracks. Though mostly clean and clear, does have some small areas of very slight residue inside, some surface scratches, and manufacturing flaws near the base (see photo with finger pointing to it...) Neck has a turn-mold line, and seveal small bubble near the lip and string ring.
Olive Orchards and Oil
Below is an excerpt from an article in the SB Inde, California’s Great Olive Oil Flood: Farmers in Santa Barbara and Beyond Tap into an Ancient Tradition, January 2009.
"They stand firmly planted across California, scoffing the meek flow of centuries with their massive twisted limbs and gnarled trunks two feet thick. These relic olive trees, still as fruitful as ever and as old as America, attest plainly to the fact that this industry has thrived before in California-and faded away.
The first trees arrived in the state in the 1700s with the Spaniards, who initially brought them to the New World at the close of the 1400s. But in the humid colonies of Florida, Cuba, the West Indies, and mainland Mexico, olive orchards failed. Only when the Spanish padres trudged into Baja California did they finally find a climate resembling that of the Mediterranean where the olive trees could thrive. At their long line of missions from Baja to Sonoma, the priests grew, harvested, and pressed olives into a relatively low-grade oil that they used for cooking, fuel, soap-making, and ritual ointment.
The mission orchards were abandoned in the 1830s, but the trees lived on, blossoming and fruiting through decades of neglect. Meanwhile, various pioneers in horticulture began to plant fruit orchards throughout the state’s prosperous growing zones. Jules Emile Goux arrived in Santa Barbara in 1851 and, amid the established 50-year-old trees at the Presidio, planted his own groves in what would become downtown. The trees still grow and produce fruit today along Olive and De la Guerra streets. Others followed, such as Ellwood Cooper, who planted 8,000 trees on his ranch in Goleta, legendarily making 50,000 bottles of oil in one year."
Ellwood Cooper
The following is from an sbtrails website:
"When Ellwood Cooper first visited Santa Barbara in 1868 as a tourist, he was impressed by the olive trees which had been planted along Los Olivos by the mission padres. Quickly, he became convinced the oil produced in Santa Barbara’s mild Mediterranean climate could compete with that produced in Italy.
By coincidence, Cooper later met Colonel W.W. Hollister in northern California and began corresponding with him. When Hollister moved to the Goleta Valley in 1869 and built his fabulous Glen Annie retreat he began singing the praises of the “Good Land” to Cooper and convinced him to move to the area in 1870.
When he arrived in the Goleta Valley, looking at the property on which he would soon locate his olive trees, Cooper wrote:
“The appearance of the Goleta Valley is perfectly lovely, the prospect grand and sublime, mountains on the one side, the great ocean on the other. The building sites on our ranch cannot be surpassed anywhere. I can have wild ravine views, rugged mountains, the ocean and look all over the country between me and Santa Barbara 12 miles distant, the west view being of equal beauty.”
Cooper, being the industrious person he was, had 400 acres of his canyon holdings (what is now known as Ellwood Canyon) planted with 7,000 olive trees, and 12,500 walnut trees within two years. For many years he was the largest producer of walnuts in California and Cooper’s olive mill eventually became the largest in the United States. He was hailed as America’s olive oil king, but ironically, the olive oil business which brought him to Santa Barbara ended up being a failure; Cooper could not compete with the cheaper, and inferior, oil being produced in Sicily at a fraction of the cost.
The olive trees are gone, as are the walnut groves; nevertheless Cooper’s mark has been left indelibly on the Goleta countryside and in areas like the Ellwood Bluffs County Park. It is he who was responsible for bringing the eucalyptus tree to Santa Barbara. Cooper was the first grower in the United States to begin commercial propagation and distribution of eucalyptus trees. The main plantation was just across from Ellwood Bluffs County Park near Ellwood Union School.
Today, as you walk down through the park you will notice the long rows of eucalyptus lining Hollister Avenue. In places they separate the open fields from one another. It is these that are now the legacy of Ellwood Cooper."
I can't find anything about the flood that washed the grove out and potentially put all these old chunks of bottle seaglass into the Ellwood surf. I did, however, find this announcement in the Sacramento daily record-union, Monday, February 10, 1890, declaring Cooper's candidacy for governor on the Republican ticket as reported by the Santa Barbara Press.
And if you get a chance, read the short piece on what the city sharks are doing to honest snowshovelers. It's on the same piece of newspaper microfiche.
"They stand firmly planted across California, scoffing the meek flow of centuries with their massive twisted limbs and gnarled trunks two feet thick. These relic olive trees, still as fruitful as ever and as old as America, attest plainly to the fact that this industry has thrived before in California-and faded away.
The first trees arrived in the state in the 1700s with the Spaniards, who initially brought them to the New World at the close of the 1400s. But in the humid colonies of Florida, Cuba, the West Indies, and mainland Mexico, olive orchards failed. Only when the Spanish padres trudged into Baja California did they finally find a climate resembling that of the Mediterranean where the olive trees could thrive. At their long line of missions from Baja to Sonoma, the priests grew, harvested, and pressed olives into a relatively low-grade oil that they used for cooking, fuel, soap-making, and ritual ointment.
The mission orchards were abandoned in the 1830s, but the trees lived on, blossoming and fruiting through decades of neglect. Meanwhile, various pioneers in horticulture began to plant fruit orchards throughout the state’s prosperous growing zones. Jules Emile Goux arrived in Santa Barbara in 1851 and, amid the established 50-year-old trees at the Presidio, planted his own groves in what would become downtown. The trees still grow and produce fruit today along Olive and De la Guerra streets. Others followed, such as Ellwood Cooper, who planted 8,000 trees on his ranch in Goleta, legendarily making 50,000 bottles of oil in one year."
Ellwood Cooper
The following is from an sbtrails website:
"When Ellwood Cooper first visited Santa Barbara in 1868 as a tourist, he was impressed by the olive trees which had been planted along Los Olivos by the mission padres. Quickly, he became convinced the oil produced in Santa Barbara’s mild Mediterranean climate could compete with that produced in Italy.
By coincidence, Cooper later met Colonel W.W. Hollister in northern California and began corresponding with him. When Hollister moved to the Goleta Valley in 1869 and built his fabulous Glen Annie retreat he began singing the praises of the “Good Land” to Cooper and convinced him to move to the area in 1870.
When he arrived in the Goleta Valley, looking at the property on which he would soon locate his olive trees, Cooper wrote:
“The appearance of the Goleta Valley is perfectly lovely, the prospect grand and sublime, mountains on the one side, the great ocean on the other. The building sites on our ranch cannot be surpassed anywhere. I can have wild ravine views, rugged mountains, the ocean and look all over the country between me and Santa Barbara 12 miles distant, the west view being of equal beauty.”
Cooper, being the industrious person he was, had 400 acres of his canyon holdings (what is now known as Ellwood Canyon) planted with 7,000 olive trees, and 12,500 walnut trees within two years. For many years he was the largest producer of walnuts in California and Cooper’s olive mill eventually became the largest in the United States. He was hailed as America’s olive oil king, but ironically, the olive oil business which brought him to Santa Barbara ended up being a failure; Cooper could not compete with the cheaper, and inferior, oil being produced in Sicily at a fraction of the cost.
The olive trees are gone, as are the walnut groves; nevertheless Cooper’s mark has been left indelibly on the Goleta countryside and in areas like the Ellwood Bluffs County Park. It is he who was responsible for bringing the eucalyptus tree to Santa Barbara. Cooper was the first grower in the United States to begin commercial propagation and distribution of eucalyptus trees. The main plantation was just across from Ellwood Bluffs County Park near Ellwood Union School.
Today, as you walk down through the park you will notice the long rows of eucalyptus lining Hollister Avenue. In places they separate the open fields from one another. It is these that are now the legacy of Ellwood Cooper."
I can't find anything about the flood that washed the grove out and potentially put all these old chunks of bottle seaglass into the Ellwood surf. I did, however, find this announcement in the Sacramento daily record-union, Monday, February 10, 1890, declaring Cooper's candidacy for governor on the Republican ticket as reported by the Santa Barbara Press.
And if you get a chance, read the short piece on what the city sharks are doing to honest snowshovelers. It's on the same piece of newspaper microfiche.
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