Linden Park

George Linden arrived in Boulder Creek around 1892. He secured employment with the Southern Pacific Railroad as a laborer. At the south-east end of the railroad yard, close to the round-house, the land sloped steeply to the river. It was a wilderness, overgrown with thick brush and covered with rocks. George asked the railroad if he could lease the land and build himself a small cottage – they agreed, since the land was useless to them.

Boulder Creek, 1908.

George began to clear the land, build himself a cottage out of driftwood, and decorate it with natural elements he found on the property. Each day he toiled, before and after work, sometimes by moonlight. He laid out winding paths, built walls and terraces with the rocks, and planted flower beds. The rocks were carried up the steep incline on his back using a harness he had constructed.

Initially, George carried water for irrigation up the slope from the creek by balancing two kerosene cans on a pole, but the townspeople were so thankful for the park that they established a subscription fund to raise money to purchase material to pipe water for irrigation. Local businessman Henry Middleton, owner of the Boulder Creek Water Company, was so impressed with George’s amateur gardening that he told George he was “welcome to all the water he could use.” He built a fish pond, a throne, and picnic tables, and he fashioned arbors from driftwood on which roses and grapevines climbed. For the ladies who like a cup of tea, he built a Dutch fireplace of boulders and mud with a chimney which was once a sewer pipe. A tea kettle hung from a crane. He propagated violets, yerba buena, blue flag flowers, fleur de lis, wild strawberries, pansies, and hearts ease. He planted a row of willows along the outer edge of the park with a row of roses at their feet. He created a dozen “leafy bowers” with benches and tables from driftwood.

Around his cottage he built a cinder track. Thirty laps was equivalent to the distance of one mile and one could “try your speed as a pedestrian.” George “challenged the State for a walk in this track of ten to a hundred miles.”

On Wednesday July 10, 1901, his body was found in the San Lorenzo River in Boulder Creek. He had succumbed to a heart attack. His funeral took place in the park. It was crowded with townsfolk. Samuel Rambo, David Moncrief, Thomas S. Cleland, John Glass, Thomas Maddock, and Daniel Hartman were the pallbearers, and Reverend Michael A. McKey of St. Michael’s Catholic church officiated. A volunteer choir sang as George Linden was laid to rest at the foot of the four poplar trees, “planted by himself in the park, and which he had called his monument.” His grave was covered with ferns and flowers.

But George Linden was not his real name. Four days after his death it was revealed that George was in fact William Scott. William had been a police officer and a champion long distance walker, winning the diamond belt in a six-day contest in San Francisco. Charles Hain, Henry Middleton’s brother-in-law, had been a good friend of William Scott when he was in the police force. When visiting Boulder Creek, Charles chanced upon George, who requested that he keep secret the knowledge of his former life, to which Charles agreed.

Image: Perry Collection, San Lorenzo Valley Museum.

Linden Park remained for many years under lease to the Boulder Creek Improvement Club. What little remains of it today is known as the “Barbara Day Park.”

This article is excerpted from Santa Cruz County History Journal Do You Know My Name? published by the Santa Cruz MAH which can be purchased in the San Lorenzo Valley Museum's bookstore. Read the full story to find out why William Scott changed his name and to discover more about the bizarre events that happened after his death.