This cartoon sketch used to grace the spot above the masthead in the old 'Los Gatos Daily-News.'

Picture from the Past

British medical journal gave town the nod for its weather

By John S. Baggerly

'If you don't like Boston weather, wait a minute," and "The coldest winter I ever spent was one summer in San Francisco," were observations of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain.

Someone else said, "Everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it."

The Lancet, England's prestigious medical journal, once declared "The two most equitable climates in the world are in Aswan, Egypt, and Los Gatos, California." (The cartoon above misspells it "Assuam.")

The Lancet's statement amused Los Gatos Mail-News publisher Andrew Falch, who ran a cartoon over the masthead of his paper. To save the reader a trip to an atlas, Aswan is an ancient city on the Nile River south of Cairo and is famous today for its large dam.

Equitable is a word meaning "fair" and, as applied to weather by The Lancet means not too hot and not too cold. Whatever the definition, Los Gatos is happy with an average of 342 sunny days per year.

Despite being knighted as a town with classy climate, the town actually displays several kinds of weather. Ruth Blake Crighton, a town clerk from the mid-century, once asserted: "Johnson Avenue is the warmest street in town." Her second observation: "The rainfall at the depot is greater that at the Main Street Firehouse only a block away at the corner of W. Main Street and Tait Avenue." The railroad depot stood at the present location of Town Plaza and the post office and was in the direct line of rain blowing down Cats' Canyon. The firehouse Crighton mentions is today the Los Gatos Museum of Fine Art and Natural History.

Even without The Lancet's proclamation, San Franciscans knew that Los Gatos was a good summer retreat, and thus all empty homes were quickly rented. Like Mark Twain said, San Francisco can be particularly cold in the summer when the Pacific Ocean plays its fickle tricks, as the Atlantic does along the New England coast.

Perhaps because of The Lancet's kind words, doctors all over the nation began prescribing "The Gem City of the Foothills" as a home for those troubled with respiratory problems. Sanitariums became numerous here, as did rental homes.

During the winter, many Los Gatos homes sat empty, prompting local children to think them haunted. In warmer months, they were eagerly rented by city folk, mainly San Franciscans retreating from the cold fog that prompted Mark Twain's remark. Some of these renters spoke with the soft "r" often heard in New Englanders' speech. Los Gatan Ted Fletcher, now of Sacramento, noticed the sons of these San Francisco visitors also spoke "funny"--with a soft "r." He found out that the visitors' ancestors had sailed to San Francisco from New England via Cape Horn

Asthma victims were not entirely relieved by coming here, however. A story circulated in the 1930s noted that a new resident continued to be troubled after renting a house here. After moving to another location and feeling fine, it was determined the culprit was an acacia tree that graced the first property.

Dr. David Hibbs and his nurse wife founded a mountaintop school with an emphasis on outdoor living for children; the former Montezuma School for Boys was definitely "out-of-doors."

When high tech replaced fruit orchards on the valley floor, empty rental homes became a thing of the past in Los Gatos, but the equitable weather has continued.

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