Santa Cruz Brush Clearing and Defensible Space Services

About forestry service, 94022, Los Altos, CA, US, California

Aptos (Ohlone for "The People") is an unincorporated town in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. The town is made up of several small villages, which together form Aptos: Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley, Aptos Village, Cabrillo, Seacliff, Rio del Mar, and Seascape. Together, they have a combined population of 24,402. == History == Aptos was traditionally inhabited by the Awaswas tribe of Ohlone people. The name is one of only three native words that have survived (in Hispanicized form) as place names in Santa Cruz County (the others are Soquel and Zayante). The first European land exploration of Alta California, the Spanish Portolá expedition, passed through the area on its way north, camping at one of the creeks on October 16, 1769. The expedition diaries don't provide enough information to be sure which creek it was, but the direction of travel was northwest, parallel to the coast. Franciscan missionary Juan Crespi, traveling with the expedition, noted in his diary that, "We stopped on the bank of a small stream, which has about four varas of deep running water. It has on its banks a good growth of cottonwoods and alders; on account of the depth at which it runs it may be that it cannot be utilized to water some plains through which it runs." Crespi diary translator Herbert Bolton speculated that the location was Soquel Creek, but it could have been Aptos Creek. In 1833 the government of Mexico granted Rafael Castro the 6,656-acre (26.94 km2) Rancho Aptos.