The Other Capitolas

Yes, there’s more than one!

By Linda Hanson, CVRA member

On a recent six-week, cross-country car trip, I had finally turned my car westward and was starting the long trip home. As I was pulling into Tallahassee, Florida, imagine my surprise when a local road sign told me that the next right turn would take me to Capitola! I definitely had to check that out.

So I took the turn and ended up in Capitola, Florida, a small unincorporated community of a handful of streets, a dozen or so houses and a church. The “commercial district” consists of one grocery/convenience store, the Capitola Joy Mart. No one there could tell me much about the history of the town, but it was purportedly named after a woman who lived in the area, Capitola DuPree.

Finding another Capitola piqued my curiosity, so that night I went on the internet to see if I could find any more Capitola’s. Sure enough, I found some.

Texas, always wanting to be bigger than anyone else, listed not one, but two Capitola’s. The first is definitely a ghost town. It existed in the 1890’s and early 1900’s, had a post office and can be clearly seen on maps of the time. Apparently the route of the local road was changed and the town died out. Interestingly, the town is said to have been named after the E.D.E.N. Southworth book, The Hidden Hand, or Capitola the Madcap, a book that is sometimes thought to be the source of the name of our own fair city.

The current Capitola, Texas is described as being at the intersection of two farm roads. As I was driving there, I was happy to see a road sign that told me I would find Capitola in four miles. In exactly four miles, I found the intersection of the two roads, and not a lot else. There was a fairly new looking sign for the “Capitola Community Center”, but it was in front of a rather decrepit building with several notices reading “Private Property—No Trespassing” posted on it. Other than a stone with “Capitola” carved on it, there was pretty much nothing else to suggest either a Capitola or a town.

The internet also suggested there was a Capitola in Maryland, but a State of Maryland website showing the state’s cities and towns and the relevant county’s website had no such listing. Putting Capitola, MD into Google Earth showed a picture of a spot on a rural road with a few houses nearby, but not much else.

The bottom line I think is this: We California Capitolans can feel pretty confident that we live in the biggest and best Capitola in the country!