California Powder Works

California’s miners and railroad builders needed increasing supplies of black powder at affordable prices. For a time, demand was satisfied with seaborne shipments from the powder mills of the eastern United States and Europe.  However, by the late 1850s the eastern mills shifted production to the military in anticipation of the Civil War. As the Union and Confederacy plunged into war, black powder became a strategic material and shipments were embargoed. Californians grew desperate for their vital black blasting powder. In October 1863, the Collector of the Port of San Francisco telegraphed the Secretary of War in Washington DC that unless powder was sent promptly, the Union would receive no more California gold.

John H. Baird, a forty-niner from Kentucky, saw the opportunity to produce black powder in California. In 1861 he led a group of investors to raise capital of $100,000 and incorporate the California Powder Works. A suitable site was selected on the San Lorenzo River, outside Santa Cruz, near a paper mill.  With ample water power and forests for construction timber and charcoal, the site was separated from the town, but enjoyed access to a wharf in the Santa Cruz harbor.

By 1864, with factory equipment procured from the East, the first black powder mill in the West was in operation. It relied on Chinese laborers and saltpeter shipped from India. Employing up to 275 workmen, the California Powder Works was for many years the principal industry of Santa Cruz and the sole source of black powder in California.