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The Stanton Family on Santa Cruz Island
The Caire family had been involved in twenty years of court battles over
ownership of the island. When the case was settled in 1932, 90 percent of the island on the west end was held separate from the Gherini’s ten percent on the east end. In 1937, the Santa Cruz Island Company sold this 90 percent share of the island, a total of 54,500 acres, to Edwin L. Stanton. The Los Angeles businessman with holdings at Signal Hill in Long Beach - one of the country’s largest oil reserves - purchased the 90% ownership for $750,000. According to John Gherini’s book " Santa Cruz Island, a History of Conflict and Diversity ", Stanton in the same year contacted the National Park Service, but received no reply back.
Edwin Stanton clearly had a conservationist attitude towards the island. The first projects he commenced were to eradicate the wild pig population, to have the abandoned tourist site at Pelican’s Bay cleared of dilapidated buildings, and began to sell off the livestock that had come with his purchase. It was his observation that the island had been overgrazed, and his were the fist significant efforts to restore it to its natural ecosystem. Sheep that could not be gathered and shipped off-island became feral and a wild flock developed. He brought a new breed of cattle to the island, choosing registered polled Herefords to improve the stock. Another forms of income for Edwin Stanton on the island was the leasing of land to the U.S Government to establish a missile tracking station, which earned him $6,00 a year plus improvements to roads and docks.
The Stanton’s lived in Los Angeles and visited the island regularly, as did their sons Edwin Jr. and Carey. The elder son, Edwin Jr. was tragically lost in World War II in combat at Normandy in France. It then was left to the younger son, Carey, to manage the island’s interests.
Carey Stanton
Carey Stanton was a practicing physician who had graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine and was practicing in Los Angeles. After contracting polio while treating polio patients, he decided to move to the island as the manager. Upon his father’s death in 1963, the will stipulated that the Santa Cruz Island Company be re-incorporated, and these wishes were carried out, reactivating the corporation under the name originally used by their predecessors, Justinian Caire in 1869.
During Carey Stanton’s management, and 2/3s ownership of the western 90% of the island, he also developed diversified forms of income :
a one acre lease to General Motors Corporation for research projects,
hunting rights to the Santa Cruz Island Hunt club ( for the hunting and feral sheep and pigs ),
research facility site lease for the University of California,
and two communication sites were leased to the Santa Cruz Island Communications Company.
The remaining 1/3 ownership was inherited by his brothers son,
Edwin III. The nephew was not satisfied with his uncle’s management
of the island, specifically the fact that shareholders in the Santa
Cruz Island Company received no dividends on their stock. Carey himself
received a modest income for managing the ranch, and claimed the remainder
of the money generated from the company ( both island and oil interests
on the mainland ) was reinvested into the island operations or used to
offset the estate taxes that were levied after his father’s death. Carey
Stanton was not by any appearances an extravagant man, and continued to
keep the ranch holdings and operations intact even during the years it
operated at a loss. It is fortunate the family had the old oil holdings
to assist in years where the ranch was not self-supporting.
The Nature Conservancy
Facing costly and lengthy litigation between uncle and nephew, Carey
Stanton elected to sell the 60% share he held to the Nature Conservancy, and thereby his nephew upon the same sale earned 40% of the sale price. The National Park Service approached Carey Stanton about donating his share of t he island towards a National Park, but he declined feeling he had proved a better resource manager on his island than they had in their efforts on Anacapa and Santa Barbara Islands.
The deal arranged with the Nature Company allowed all parties to achieve their immediate and long term goals. Edwin III was paid $900,000 for his one third share. Carey was paid $900,000 for 50% of his holdings, which represented another 30% of the Santa Cruz Island Company. The remaining 30% of the Company was held by Stanton until his death at which time his estate would donate the remaining share to the Conservancy. In total the Nature Conservancy paid $1.8 million for the 90% of the island held by the Stanton’s Santa Cruz Island Company.
Compared to the other prices placed on the island, this was a very low price. The senior Carey had placed the island for sale in 1950 for $2,725,000, or $50 for acre. The Gherinis had been offered a total of $16.5 million for their vastly smaller 10% of the island by the National Park Service. If the Stantons had been paid at the rate the Gherinis were, they would have sold their 90% of the island for $148.5 million. It sold to the Nature Conservancy for $1.8 million, plus the Nature Conservancy paid other associated estate taxes and costs, for a total purchase price of $2,524,000.
Even with the signing of this agreement and finalization of the sale in 1978, the problems over management and ownership rights did not end. There continued ongoing disputes about hunting rights vs. habitat naturalization efforts by the Conservancy up until Carey Stanton’s death in 1987. Finally the hunting club ran into insurance problems that lea them to close operations in 1985. Following its closure, the Nature Conservancy began massively eradicating the sheep, which then produce other ramifications that have yet to be resolved. For example, the removal of the sheep population has allowed the fennel introduced by Italian cooks during the Caire era to overtake native vegetation, which in turn has been causing a disruption in the bee pollination patterns on the islands, putting native vegetation at further risk. The cycles of nature are still trying to correct themselves on Santa Cruz Island today.
The Santa Cruz Island Foundation
In 1986, Carey Stanton endowed the Santa Cruz Island Foundation as a research and collection repository to preserve the history of life on the island. The Foundation is a very important source of information and artifacts, and has both an archive in Santa Barbara and a small museum out on the island. Marla Daily, President of the Santa Cruz Island Foundation, is the author of numerous works about life not only on Santa Cruz Island, but also about the natural history of the entire Channel Island archipelago. The Foundation’s archive is open for public used by appointment, and Camp Internet thanks the Foundation for the materials it has made available to this project.
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