Rice, Henry

Henry Rice (1810-1889), a member of the Imus-Rice family, was a Santa Cruz businessman and civic leader. He was listed and shown as a property owner in Block 2 of the 1866 Santa Cruz map, on the mission plaza at the corner of High St. and what is now Sylvar St. That lot was later owned by Jackson Sylvar.

The 1866 map also shows Rice as owner of a large parcel (8+ acres) in "Block No. 4", just to the west of the Pacific Avenue lot owned by the partnership "Moore & Pray, PO House" (William Moore and Amasa Pray), which built the Pacific Ocean House hotel in 1866. That hotel replaced the San Lorenzo Hotel, which had burned down in 1865. According to Sidewalk Companion, the San Lorenzo Hotel was built in 1852 by Henry Rice, so Rice probably sold the hotel site to them after the fire.

• Evergreen Cemetery of Santa Cruz (2020 book) has a short biography of Rice. The Imus-Rice family had owned the PacAve land since 1848.
• Rice was elected to the state Assembly in 1878, serving one term.
• A daughter, Nancy Rice Myrick (1842-1925), has a biography in Martin, which was copied to the Find-a-Grave page.