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Watchmen often lived in towers like this in the days when Interurban Streetcars rumbled through town.
Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph
Picture from the Past
Town built towers to check streetcars and war planes
By John S. Baggerly
Today's photograph shows the Interurban Streetcar crossing gate tower at W. Main Street, bordering the railroad tracks. It was one of several towers that dot the town's history.
Nearly a century ago, Interurban tracks ran down the middle of W. Main Street and N. Santa Cruz Avenue and also connected our town with San Jose and Saratoga. When auto and foot traffic increased, pneumatic crossing gates were installed, one dropping in front of westbound traffic and the other checking eastbound automobiles.
Local historian Bill Wulf further informs us that the watchman's housing was at first a small single story abode, protecting him from the weather and providing a place to sit and keep records. As train traffic increased, a second story was added for better contact with train crews.
The railroad tracks ran north and south between N. Santa Cruz and University avenues and ran southward through what is today the Town Plaza Park. Earlier tracks ran into the hills to Santa Cruz.
In the 1920s, when the Bank of Italy became The Bank of America, and a branch was built on the northeast corner of N. Santa Cruz Avenue and W. Main Street, Los Gatan and attorney James A. Bacigalupi said, "This corner will become 'The Hub of Town.' "
During World War II, Admiral Charles Lockwood, a resident of what became Monte Sereno, once commanded a Pacific underwater feet. Los Gatos native Jack Phelps became a combat flyer in the Mediterranean during the war and later found himself at the Intelligence School in Washington, D.C. when Lockwood was there. Assigned to Defense District Headquarters, Phelps said, on a visit to his sister Marnya Phelps Campbell and local friends "Admirals are a dime a dozen in D. C., but brass struggled to meet Lockwood." Phelps, now living in Hawaii, says that during the war, Lockwood met incoming subs and shook hands with entire crews.
Following World War II, U.S. powers that be deemed it wise to install lookout towers to spot and record airplanes that passed over areas near the Pacific Ocean. Los Gatos complied with this request and volunteers kept a tower fully manned on property bordering Louise Van Meter School on Los Gatos Boulevard. When the tower began to deteriorate, Los Gatos wrote to Western Command Headquarters and asked for funds to make repairs. By return mail, Los Gatos was told that money could be raised by holding bake sales.
Lyndon Farwell, then general manager of the local telephone company and tower committee member made the following suggestion to the Town Council: "If the safety of our citizens is dependent on bake sales, I suggest that we drop the 'tower program.' The council so acted.
Speaking of sales, real estate broker Fred Crisp once told the town that business on N. Santa Cruz Avenue would never go north of Saratoga Avenue. About a year later he closed a deal that moved Safeway to its present location.
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Los Gatos, California Since 1881
