Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Ben Lomond, CA

Ben Lomond is a census-designated place in the San Lorenzo Valley of Santa Cruz County, strung along Highway 9 about 12 miles from Santa Cruz, and it also takes in the smaller communities of Glen Arbor and Brackney.

Ben Lomond is named for the mountain rising west of town, which a Scottish immigrant named after Ben Lomond in Scotland - and the community borrowed the mountain's name in 1887 when residents voted on it while applying for a post office, replacing its original name, Pacific Mills.

The townsite grew around a sawmill in the redwood-rich San Lorenzo River watershed, an early center of Santa Cruz County's logging industry, and settler John Burns, who arrived in 1851, became one of the first vintners in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Ben Lomond's population was 6,337 at the 2020 census, living in 2,492 households that average 2.52 people, with about 75% of homes owner-occupied.

Ben Lomond is one of the wettest communities in the greater Bay Area, averaging 49.63 inches of rain a year - its wettest year, 1983, delivered 100.37 inches.

Despite sitting in a coastal county, Ben Lomond bakes in summer because the mountains trap heat - it averages about 54 days a year at 90 degrees or hotter, and its all-time record is 121 degrees Fahrenheit, set on September 6, 2020.

The one-room Alba School, built in 1895 and used as a school until 1940 before serving as a library and community center, was destroyed in the CZU Lightning Complex fires of August 2020.

Northeast of Ben Lomond is Loch Lomond, a reservoir on Newell Creek that, like the town and mountain, is named for the famous loch in Scotland.

Ben Lomond is an affluent mountain community, with a median household income of $120,977 in 2023 census estimates and 97% of adults holding at least a high school diploma.

Heavyweight boxing champion Jim Jeffries trained in Ben Lomond in the 1940s at the now-defunct Wagon Wheel Bar and Restaurant.