Paradise Park, CA

Paradise Park is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, California. The 2020 census counted 389 residents. Paradise Park sits at an elevation of 92 feet. Paradise Park is separated from the University of California, Santa Cruz campus by Pogonip Park and Highway 9. A newcomer can read Paradise Park through the overlap of its older landmarks, surrounding geography, and current places. For a newcomer, Paradise Park comes into focus through those concrete links among its past, landscape, and current routines. Paradise Park is the site of the 1872 California Powder Works Bridge, one of the best-preserved national examples of a wooden Smith truss covered bridge.

The California Powder Works was built on the site in 1861 as supplies of explosives from the east were cut off by the Civil War. The works produced black powder, dynamite, and smokeless powders for civilian and military uses, powered by the waters of the San Lorenzo river distributed by a system of flumes from a dam located in what is now Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.