Alzina, Francisco

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Alzina house 600px.jpg

Francisco "Frank" Alzina (1821-1887), a native of Spain, stowed away on an American ship leaving the Spanish island of Minorca in 1840, and arrived in Santa Cruz in 1846, where he became a clerk for alcalde William Blackburn. He married Carlotta Gonzales, a daughter of the local family and, in 1850, built what is now the oldest wood-frame structure in Santa Cruz. It stands next-door to where his in-laws adobe house once was, on the west side of Mission Plaza. From 1850 to 1853, Alzina was the first Santa Cruz County Sheriff. He had fourteen children, and son Enoch followed his father into the sheriff's dept. Another son, Frank C., became a grocer on Mission Street.