Santa Maria High School, and perhaps the city of Santa Maria, will be abandoning its image of Columbus’ flagship, the Santa Maria, as a logo. Duh! Whose idea was it in the first place to adopt that ship as the city’s, and school’s, logo in the first place? I can assure you, it was not a local historian.
Erwin Gudde’s California Place Names, published in 1949, several years before Santa Maria adopted a ship as its seal in 1971, tells us that the Santa Maria River and Santa Maria Valley were not named after Columbus’ flagship. Gudde’s research tells us that the name was applied in Spanish times [before 1800] and was preserved through a Mexican land grant in 1837.
“Santa Maria” was named after one of the many Saint Marys dotting the Roman Catholic calendar. Which one? No one knows, but it was not named after a ship. Separation of “church and state” precludes a city emblem portraying a Catholic saint, hence the adoption of the ship in 1971—a ship that was, by the way, named after a Catholic saint!
Change the name of the city? That has already been done once. Does anyone recall “Central City”? Perhaps Santa Maria could adopt a smoking tri-tip barbecue and a strawberry as its emblem?
Stephen Siemsen
Orcutt
This article appears in Sep 23-30, 2021.