Santa Cruz County Place Name: Mary Easton Picnia Area (July 29, 2026)
A picnic spot in The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. Named for Mary Easton Porter, wife of Warren R. Porter. Porter, born in Santa Cruz, March 30, 1861, was the son of John T. Porter, one of the founders of the Loma Prieta Lumber Company incorporated in 1883 to log much of the area encompassed by today’s state park. Warren R. Porter was bookkeeper (1884), then secretary (1886-1902) of the lumber company. He was incorporator (1888), director and (1900-1922) president of the Pajaro Valley National Bank, Watsonville. From 1907 to 1911 he was lieutenant-governor of California. Mary Easton was the daughter of Rev. G. A. Easton, rector of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. They were married August 23, 1893, and built their residence at the company town, Loma Prieta. See also Porter Family Picnic Area, and Porter Gulch [3].
This week’s entry caught my eye because of the Porter family name. According to Find A Grave, Mary Elizabeth Easton Porter was born in Santa Cruz County in 1870, and died in Santa Barbara County, age 87, in 1957. Not to be confused with Mary Porter Sesnon (the daughter of her husband’s uncle, Benjamin Porter, and of a previous generation).
The Porter family (Santa Cruz History Wiki) name is instantly recognizable in Santa Cruz County, not the least because Soquel’s main drive is Porter Street (there’s also Porter College up at UCSC, the Porter-Sesnon House at Cabrillo, etc.) There were and have bean a LOT of Porter folk over multiple generations. The Santa Cruz Trains web site has a detailed history of the Porter Family, which among other things, explains the origins of this week’s entry: “When The Forest of Nisene Marks was formed in 1965, the matter of the Porters’ property had to be resolved [the family’s summer long time family home, the Porter House]. After long negotiations, it was agreed that the larger parcel would be donated in exchange for the creation of the Mary Easton Picnic Area.”
Clark doesn’t mention this, but Warren R. Porter also founded prominent local companies Graniterock (the gravel, sand, concrete, and asphalt company) in 1900 and Granite Construction (1922), as per the SCC History Wiki. The Graniterock Blog has a piece on The Easton Family of Santa Cruz who also played a big part in the founding of the company.
There’s very little I can find online about Mary Easton specifically, which I think speaks to the sexist bias of historiography in general. Clearly, she must have held some significance in the family’s mind, for the price of donating their portion of The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park to be naming part of it after her. The Mary Easton Picnic Area is right after the main parking space inside the park, and the short Porter Trail inside the park takes you from it to the Porter Family Picnic Area. See this California State Parks map (PDF) to locate both.
I’ve mentioned some of this local online historical resources I use to research the topics for each column, but Find A Grave is a general purpose tool/site that often yields fascinating information and links (as mentioned in my recent column on Winkle’s Bridge) not found elsewhere.
Tags: columns, place-names, bratton-online, writing