Laura Hecox Collections
About Laura
Laura Hecox was an extraordinary woman and a brilliant amateur scientist who even had species named after her. Laura was the Santa Cruz lighthouse keeper from 1883 to 1916, and a renowned collector whose lighthouse museum was known far and wide. Contemporary descriptions in newspapers, correspondence, and other publications describe a stunning collection that occupied a room’s worth of cabinets on subjects from marine life to gems and minerals to ethnographic collections. Her collection of natural history specimens, artifacts, and curios was gifted to the people of Santa Cruz in 1904 and is the foundational collection of the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History.
Over the years, as Laura’s museum found homes in different community locations, portions of the collection were lost to time. Today, we strive to reconcile this loss with the honor of preserving what we still have, and the responsibility of making it available to our community. To learn more about the Laura Hecox collection or set up a research appointment please contact us.
Learn More About the Natural & Cultural History of 19th Century Santa Cruz in Laura’s Scrapbook
Scrapbooking Stories
Lighthouse keeper Laura Hecox was well known for building an incredible natural history collection while maintaining the Santa Cruz light. She left us with catalog books describing her collections, but no diary to describe her life. However, like many middle class 19th century women, she was an avid scrapbooker. For a few years now, we’ve had the pleasure to host...
Explore the Hecox Collections
Portrait of Laura Hecox from the Family bible, 1873. Image credit: Santa Cruz MAH.
Display cabinet in the Santa Cruz Lighthouse.
Fragment from the shipwreck of The Active.
Bird egg collection catalog book.
Trays of oology collections.
California quail eggs.
Laura Hecox in front of a natural bridge in Santa Cruz.
Cinnabar specimen.
Green parrot taxidermy.
Souvenir bottle of oil from Kern County.
Quartz specimen.
Stibnite specimen.
The Hecox family in front of the Santa Cruz Lighthouse in the early 1880s.
A newspaper clipping from Laura’s scrapbook.