May 26, 2005 - What's Up Mo-Doc?

As you drive along Hollister Road from Goleta toward State Street and locations beyond, you find yourself momentarily on an old 1950’s highway, lined with motor lodges, antique shops with plastic horses in front, stores that sell liquor and ‘spirits’, restaurants with signs that say, “EAT” and low-clearance train under-crossings. But, it’s really the motels that look the most authentic, throwbacks to a time when baby boomers were just little passengers in their parents’ station wagons, looking for late-night lodging as they made their way from Los Angeles to San Francisco during summer vacation.

One of these motels is called the Modoc Motel. Well, at least it used to be called a motel. Today it is officially, the Modoc Inn, and it no longer rents rooms for the night, only long-term stays. You might say that there’s never any room at the inn. The sign in front, which in a past life informed passersby whether or not rooms were available, today is permanently painted, “NO VACANCY.”

Oh yeah, the sign … the sign at the Modoc Inn is very cool. It’s made of two sheets of metal, painted with a single-feathered Indian in front of a rustic Native American scene. The silhouette of the Indian and the mountains in the background form the shape of the sign. It is a picture of the Indian that was shown in yesterday’s Wednesday Where Is It (WWII) contest.

John, from the Modoc Inn told us that he had recently redone the sign – painting in the idyllic teepee scene and replacing the some of the metal.

Anybody with basic knowledge of Santa Barbara’s indigenous peoples and/or casino gambling experience, knows that the Native Americans native to this area are the Chumash. The Modoc are a northern tribe – from Modoc County and southern Oregon. And, anyone with any training in political correctness knows that depicting Indians as feather wearers is no longer accepted. It was 30 years ago that Stanford University had to abandon their Indian mascot.

So, Ed wanted to know, what the heck is a Modoc Indian doing way down here in Santa Barbara? The dedicated staff of edhat.com was quick to figure that the motel was only named after the street (which, by the way, it is not on). But, then, where did the Street get its name? It turns out that the Street was given its name in 1873 by Thomas Hope, in honor of the Modoc War. Hope was an Indian agent who employed an Indian named Justo (no relation to the tailor) as the head of his sheep ranching operations. History tells of a conflict between Hope and J. L. Barker, the county surveyor who was mapping out the new road. Hope hit Barker over the head with a fence post and had to pay $1000 in damages. But, it’s still unclear how that incident had anything to do with the naming of the road.

The Modoc War, in case you forgot, started when the Modoc Indians wouldn’t stay put on their reservation. At a peace negotiation, Modoc officials shot and killed a US General (named Ed), starting the war. It wasn’t fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction, but an excuse for a war just the same. The Modocs fought a good fight, but were eventually defeated. And so, as a memory to their struggle years ago, the road, the inn, and the county still bear their name.

In yesterday’s contest we had 29 winners – too many to list and too many to get the Edhat dog involved. A random drawing chose Rhuff as the winner of a cool Edhat t-shirt. Now that we know where the name Modoc came from, maybe some day we can figure out what Edhat means.

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