Photograph by Douglas Rider

Tim and Denise Hood look at old photographs of the mill that gave Forbes Mill its name.

Forbes Mill exhibits its own history

By Shari Kaplan

The current exhibit at the Forbes Mill Museum of Regional History, at 75 Church St., is very self-centered.

Far from being selfish, this exhibit is, in fact, simply a look inward--a visual walk through the history of Los Gatos' historical mill that gave the museum its name and the town a source of income.

Since the exhibit wouldn't be complete without an introduction to the mill's namesake, James Alexander Forbes, there's a section devoted to the Scottish immigrant who settled in California in 1831 and built Los Gatos' first commercial building in 1854. His inspiration for the flour mill came from the high price of flour during the Gold Rush, a result of California's scarcity of such mills and the cost of importing flour from Chile.

Forbes' mill was originally a 3 1/2 story stone building. Because its overshot-style water wheel was situated with too low a head on Los Gatos Creek, the mill was an inefficient grain-grinder. Four years after starting the mill, Forbes sold out, and the mill passed through a number of hands before William H. Rogers took the helm in 1866.

Rogers brought in three business partners, replaced the overshot wheels with turbine wheels, raised the head 200 feet and upgraded the mill's machinery. The mill finally became profitable. For unknown reasons, Rogers left the business, named the Los Gatos Manufacturing Company, in 1882. The other partners consolidated with a San Jose mill in 1887 and closed the Los Gatos site.

The building had a later incarnation as an ice storage facility for an ice plant built south of the mill, but the plant eventually moved. By 1915, crumbling mortar and falling stones necessitated the demolition of the mill's top two stories; its ground level was torn down in 1929. The stone building in which the Los Gatos Museum Association runs Forbes Mill Regional History Museum is actually the original mill's annex.

LGMA member Pat Dunning, an archaeologist and volunteer faculty member of San Jose State University's Anthropology Department, curated the exhibit to share the history and photographs of Forbes, the mill and Los Gatos during the mid-1800s to early-1900s, as well as to give the public a look at artifacts recovered from two archaeological digs she conducted on the site. Among these are some pretty large nuts, bolts and screws; a pulley; an ax head; an aluminum pail--a bit crushed; intact and broken bottles of various colored glass and some square nails. These rust-prone iron nails were used exclusively in carpentry and construction until 1880, when they were replaced by slimmer wire nails.

Complementing the exhibit are two booklets the LGMA put together for visitors' perusal: Forbes Mill Unearthed, a history of the mill and the artifacts dug from behind the annex; and Flour and Flour Milling, an interesting collection of flour facts and how the mill was used to make it.

The exhibit continues through this week. Forbes Mill hours are noon to 4 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. For more information, call 408.395.7375.

Photo: New storm drains go underground on Tait Avenue

Mark W. Mayfield: Non-pet performed amazing feats of color

Local Home Sale Listings

Photo: United Methodist Church of Los Gatos presents double bill for community concert

Picture from the Past

Sports Briefs

Wildcats going for 10-0 football season

Cougars open playoffs with win

Martin, Beritzhoff lead the Cats to cross-country wins

Gatos rolls 56-0 to clinch frosh-soph football title