Quarantina Street’s tie to historic pandemics

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Quarantina Street in downtown Santa Barbara is one local road that might stand out to some during this pandemic. 

"Many of Santa Barbara's original streets, named in 1851, got their names because of interesting places they led to or led through," said Santa Barbara Historian Neal Graffey.

Graffey said the Quarantina Street originally ran all the way to the ocean to the area now known as East Beach.

"Quarantine" has been anglicized from the Spanish cuarentena which can mean 'forty days, months or years,'" Graffey said. "In this instance, the word means forty days, the standard period of isolation for plagues and other illnesses."

Graffey said there were two ships placed in quarantine off Santa Barbara's coast more than 200 years ago.

"The first historic ship was the frigate Princesa, which came here in May of 1797 and 34 sailors had scurvy. Now, scurvy is not contagious or infectious but nevertheless, they took the sailors off the ship, they isolated them, but only for 18 days, far short of the demands of that street's 40 days."

A year later, a ship by the name of Conception anchored off Santa Barbara's coast. Four of its crew members were sick with smallpox. 

"Governor Diego Barrancas said the ship must be decontaminated and the people taken off the ship and placed in quarantine," Graffey said. 

However, the comandante in charge at the time determined the disease hadn't spread and the sailors were cured so he allowed the ship to leave. 

"The governor was furious about that saying '40 days! What's this three weeks?!' And he said, 'If anybody gets infected, you are going to hang!'"

Graffey said fortunately the smallpox didn't spread from the ship and the comandante didn't hang. Centuries later, Graffey said the Eastside area street still tells us of the days when people were placed in quarantine and the ships were anchored off the East Beach. 

UPDATE: At least one viewer took exception with the meaning of "cuarentina." Graffey sent the following information: According to Cassell's Spanish Dictionary (17th printing 1997) "New Edition Completely revised and up-to-date, caurentina is "space of forty days, months or years."