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Old Ways
Local historians uncover trails to the past
By Oakley Brooks
There are some firsthand clues about what native life was like in the Santa Clara Valley in the days before heavy European settlement. One of the most detailed records comes from the diary of Franciscan Friar Pedro Font, who accompanied Spanish Lieutenant Juan Bautista de Anza on his trek from northern Mexico to the Bay Area in 1775-76.
Making its way over Tulare Hill through the Almaden Valley and into the West Valley along the edge of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the expedition encountered dozens of villages and wave upon wave of American Indians--some extending a hand in trade, others resisting De Anza's advance. Font also described the vast expanse of redwood stands, oak savannas and a network of seasonal pools in the lowlands surrounding the bay.
"They talked of an Eden," says Steve Haze from atop a grassy knoll near Cupertino's Rancho San Antonio County Park. Today, the landscape is a material version of its former self. Every tree has a house hiding behind it. Snaking freeways replace vernal pools. But from this hill, Haze has a clear shot south into the Almaden Valley and north to a sketchy San Francisco skyline. He can make out De Anza's general route up the west side of the bay. From here, Haze, a 50-year-old high-tech consultant, likes to squint and drift back into time.
"It's a good place to imagine," he says.
In years past, De Anza expedition re-enactment groups have used the hill as part of demonstrations, and this March, on the 225th anniversary of the Spanish trek, religious leaders, Ohlone tribal members, trail enthusiasts and even descendants of the De Anza party held a commemorative ceremony on top of the knoll.
Haze is trying to get local residents hooked on a specific piece of the area's past, by bringing them to this same spot.
In 1990, the National Park Service established the De Anza route as a National Historic Trail and since 1993, Haze has been rallying Santa Clara County government agencies and civic groups to establish walking, biking or other means of travel along the historic trail. He's currently pushing for a proposed trail through the West Valley, along the Union Pacific Rail corridor, to be designated the De Anza historical route. It would link Los Gatos, Campbell and Saratoga with designated historical sites in Cupertino and end on the hill overlooking the western bay.
Haze drops down to the valley floor and makes his way south by car, following--in reverse--a rough approximation of De Anza's route. He crisscrosses the rail corridor, pausing on the tracks to have a hopeful look at the potential trail. We stop at historical markers at Stevens Creek and Monte Vista High schools, and pull off to gaze at Calabazas Creek on the Saratoga-Cupertino border, where one descendent of the De Anza party believes the expedition spent the night of March 25, 1776. The night is a source of small debate among historians; a marker at Stevens Creek claims De Anza's party slept there.
And, in between stops, he winds through nameless streets lined by houses and strip malls. It's here that Haze realizes clearly the need for the interpretive trail.
"This is just a road," he says. "It doesn't stimulate thought on how things were yesterday, and how you want things to be tomorrow."
Historians share perspective
Bill Wulf stands on tranquil Mendelsohn Lane and blows a long, slow note on his old train whistle.
"Just think, once that could be heard all over the valley," says Wulf. "And when it was in bloom--I remember that when I was a kid--it was like perfume. God, it was beautiful."
Wulf, 62, pulls a stash of black and white photos from the trunk of his car and shows a shot of a streetcar, heading across the wooden Bonny Brae trestle towards Los Gatos The trestle stood under our feet.
For 25 years beginning in 1904, the streetcars clattered throughout the West Valley, carrying city recreationists out to the leafy canyons and sweet smelling fruit groves at the base of the foothills, and bringing commuters into San Jose or linking them to San Francisco trains. Wulf grew up in Los Gatos, but missed out on riding the trolleys by about 15 years, after the growing popularity of the automobile pushed them out.
But with a slew of props and a quick, toothy smile, Los Gatos' town historian easily conjures up the world of rails.
Winding through back roads on the former route between Saratoga and Los Gatos, Wulf notices the tiny bridges of early century stonework that carried the streetcars over streams. Someone has lined his yard with railroad ties. "See, little do they know," says Wulf, catching the person's unwitting hint at the past
We shoot across Saratoga-Los Gatos Road onto Austin Way and pull to a stop where it meets Quito Road.
This was the infamously tight Austin Corners, where many a streetcar slipped on wet oak leaves and turned on its side. Wulf says that streetcar accidents in the West Valley were common. Cars reached 55 mph on straightaways and the network relied on conductors to manually flip switches on one-way tracks. He produces a small ticket the Penninsular Railway Company used to hand to passengers involved in wrecks, to "Exonerate the Trainman" from responsibility.
Austin Corners are a bittersweet spot for Wulf now. Until a few years ago, the last section of visible rail in the West Valley still poked through the pavement here. Wulf had an ally in county government,--which monitors Monte Sereno's roads --who kept the rails exposed. But when that county commissioner left office, the rails were covered with a fresh coat of asphalt.
"It breaks my heart," Wulf says, standing on the spot. "But they're still under there."
A stretch of the streetcar right-of-way still exists at the top of Quito Road and we head up to see it. A few old ties jut out from under the earth. Again, Wulf has a picture of a trolley on this spot. Two middle-aged women speed-walk by as he produces the image.
"Wanna see what this used to look like?" Wulf entices them.
They're all ears, taken up by Wulf's recollection.
"That's not that long ago," one of them says.
Later, when we have finished retracing the old route, Wulf pauses in the front seat of his car.
"It's getting more and more difficult to recreate the past," he says. "The only place you can see it is in photographs.
"What worries me is there so many people coming in that don't appreciate these historical things and they just want to tear things down and build their own. But the Indians probably said the same thing when we came."
It's historical perspective that leads Wulf to admit that California's recent past has been a dynamic mix of cultures and lifestyles. "It's been a melting pot," he says, noting the latest impact of the Asian community on the Bay Area.
As Willys Peck, a lifelong Saratoga resident and that city's historian, notes, local perspective on changes, even large homes, shifts through time. "Nobody said there goes the neighborhood when Senator Phelan built Villa Montalvo in 1912."
But Peck adds that people were fewer and time moved slower then, and, now, in the rush of life on the western side of the Santa Clara Valley pieces, even recollections, of the past are at a premium.
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Cupertino, California Since 1947
Cupertino trail activist Steve Haze stands on a knoll near Rancho San Antonio Park, where he hopes to locate an interpretive site about the 1776 De Anza expedition's trek through the West Valley.
