It was still dark outside when the fire started. The sun wouldn't rise for some time; the day was only three hours old. Most residents in Los Gatos were tucked safely in their beds that early October morning in 1901, only to be jolted out of slumber by what a local newspaper later called "the dread alarm of fire."

The day would prove to become one of the most destructive in the town's brief history. Starting in J.W. Hunt & Sons Imperial Bakery, a fire spread rapidly throughout the town. Newspapers captured the scene in lively adjectives: Of the response to the alarm, a local reporter recorded that "the increasing light and the continually repeated signal enlarged the rush of humanity to surge and to save amid the din of the occasion, the roar of the flames, the popping of tin roofs and the explosions of gasoline and other tanks, making a noise as distinctly its own as that of an oncoming cyclone."

Firefighters found it difficult to control the blaze. Dry conditions the week before had made the town a tinderbox. Gusty winds that morning also facilitated the fire's rapid proliferation.

"The firemen were soon on the ground and the hose laid," a newspaper reported. "But the splendid streams from the ever-ready water mains seemed to fall on the devouring element to little effect, the fire having gained so fast that resistance was all but impossible."

The fire raging out of control, firefighters abandoned their initial strategy of using a fire hydrant on the corner of Park Road and Main Street, close to the bakery, to put out the blaze. Unfortunately, while switching to another location, the fire team left the original hydrant open, lowering the water pressure at the subsequent hydrant.

The results were disastrous, as the newspaper noted. "The open hydrant reduced the pressure so that for awhile it seemed that Vulcan had set his forge in the center of town, Aeolus turned his blasts loose from the mountain and that Pluto directed the occasion. Magnificent buildings—Commercial Bank, Parr Block, Gibson Block and the Episcopal Churc—cracked, crumbled and fell."

Most of the business district, which stretched from the west side of the Main Street bridge and the railroad track, was destroyed in the fire. The paper estimated that almost half of the businesses in town burned down completely; few buildings were left unscathed, though the railroad station and the legendary Lyndon Hotel both survived. Everything else was reduced to ashes.

"It was remarkable how little debris there is left," commented the newspaper. "All that remains of a good-sized building would not make a wheel barrow load. No timbers or charred remains of wood are to be found. The entire debris is of mineral, plaster, glass or water pipes, wires, cans, dishes and the like."

So just one year into the 20th century, Los Gatos residents found themselves starting over from scratch once again.

The peaceful years

The town saw few changes in the first two decades after the fire. Apart from new buildings constructed after the fire and a booming fruit industry, the town's character and residents stayed relatively consistent. A population explosion was still decades away, after World War II, says Los Gatos Library Director Peggy Conaway. As before, many residents came from San Francisco and used the town as a summer getaway.

According to local historian Bill Wulf, tuberculosis sanitariums and centers for alcohol rehabilitation centers still dotted the surrounding landscape, though these institutions had declined in numbers.

Few colorful characters chose Los Gatos as a place of residency during this period, but a number passed through the town. Many were movie stars who thought Los Gatos could become another Hollywood. Charlie Chaplin often stayed at the Hotel Lyndon, but the real moviemaker was Bronco Billy Anderson, an early cowboy who tried making silent movies in the hills. Anderson came from Chicago to Los Gatos to make pictures, even calling locals to stand in as extras for his scenes. But these moviemaking dreams were soon quashed when Anderson had to give up production due to difficulties filming in summertime fog. Anderson moved to Niles, on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, before packing up and moving back to Hollywood.

Los Gatos would stay in Anderson's memory. In 1958, the movie star wrote a letter to the editor of the Los Gatos and Saratoga Times Observer, recalling that "I do believe the moon in Los Gatos was more enticing and romantic than any moon I have watched in any place we have been and gazed at in the far-off horizon." Anderson wrote that he once thought of settling in Los Gatos, but it was too far from a big city for his tastes.

"I even contemplated going to your Chamber of Commerce and asking them if it was possible to move Los Gatos a little closer to the big city like San Francisco, but I dismissed that as impossible, for I knew that the natives in Los Gatos would rather have their hometown nestling in a location of grandeur than have a bunch of wandering minstrels there making motion pictures."

Fruits and transportation

The largest employer in Los Gatos in the 1900s was the Los Gatos Cannery, which kept fruits such as cherries, apricots, pears and peaches in high demand from California farmers. The lumber industry, which had in previous decades been profitable, was in decline by now. "They pulled everything out of the Santa Cruz Mountains," Wulf says.

The cannery was established in the previous decade, but started to expand after the Hunt brothers bought the operation in 1907. They moved the location of the original cannery, where the Los Gatos Cinema is located today on N. Santa Cruz Avenue, to farther up N. Santa Cruz Avenue.

Even before the Hunt brothers purchased the cannery, there is evidence that the industry provided many with work. In 1900, owner Geo H. Hooke promised that no one would go without work that year in Los Gatos, as he was preparing for a large shipment.

Hiring practices at this time discriminated against non-Caucasian individuals, particularly against the Chinese and Japanese. A July 26, 1902, news article noted that many canneries were facing labor shortages, even though the workforce had been extended to include women and girls. The question for these canneries was whether or not to employee Chinese and Japanese workers as well.

"The Los Gatos cannery settled this question, locally, in 1888, since which time none but white labor has been employed and that Los Gatos labor as far as it would it would go. There is a reason we have no Chinese in this town except the wash men," the newspaper said.

The growth of the canneries throughout the early decades of the 1900s was facilitated by advances in transportation. Railroad tracks were upgraded by 1895 from narrow- to broad-gauge rails, enabling merchants and fruit growers to send their cargo through to San Jose without having to reload at that station.

"It is one of the best things Los Gatos could secure," a local newspaper commented on the opening of the broad-gauge rail. "Now a warehouse of the great packing companies should be built here to accommodate the small shippers."

Residents' leisure habits were also affected by new railroad services. The opening of the San Jose­Los Gatos Interurban railroad in 1904 made life more convenient for residents to travel between those places, Wulf says. In 1909, the Interurban railroad changed its name to the Peninsular Railway, eventually expanding service from Los Gatos and Saratoga to Cupertino and Palo Alto and through Campbell and into San Jose and Santa Clara.

Damage from the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco shut down the railroad between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz for three years before service could be restored.

Automobiles were also becoming increasingly popular travel options. In 1908, the Los Gatos Board of Trade fixed the first speed limit in town at 10 m.p.h., Wulf said. Two years later, the state of California opened Highway 5 to automobile traffic, from Santa Cruz along the old Santa Cruz Highway to Los Gatos, San Jose, Oakland and Stockton. It would, however, be another 10 years until the road was paved.

Victory at home

By the mid-1910s, Los Gatos had finished repairing most of the damage from the fire and the earthquake. New buildings in town would include the Ford Opera House, in 1904, and construction on the original Los Gatos Town Hall, on E. Main St., had begun. Though the town looked different, much stayed the same—until the United States went to war.

In 1917, the United States officially joined its allies fighting in Europe, and Los Gatos residents organized to support the effort. Boys and men from the town enlisted; the first soldier from Los Gatos to be wounded in the war made the front page of the Los Gatos Mail News on July 25, 1918. The paper predicted that news of Lt. Knight's injury would "have a great effect in bringing the war closer home and show to all the need of giving all possible help and cooperation in order to bring about victory."

Those who did not go to war instead ran clothing drives through the Los Gatos Red Cross or cut down on their food and clothing purchases. Merchants in Los Gatos in 1917 agreed to limit the number of deliveries made to homes, at the request of Herbert Hoover, then national food administrator. "You must help—we must help. Everybody—man, woman and child—must do his or her part if the dreams of this man and hopes of millions are to materialize in bounteous fruitage," the Mail News reported.

As 1920 approached, there was much to celebrate in Los Gatos. The town had recovered from two natural disasters and a war abroad. With a victory in Europe in 1919, new hopes and dreams lay ahead for residents during the next two decades.

Newspaper sources quoted in this article can be found in the Clarence Hamsher notebook collection at the Los Gatos Public Library, 110 E. Main St. The Hamsher collection is a series of local newspaper clippings dating back to 1885; names of newspapers are unknown.

1900-1919

Oct. 10, 1904—The Ford Opera House, on the north side of Main Street, formally opens with its first performance.

May 23, 1905—A contract for a new stone and concrete three-arch bridge over the Los Gatos Creek at Main Street is signed for $23,327. The new bridge is completed on March 6, 1906.

Oct. 26, 1905—Hal Chase, a former Los Gatos boy and then-celebrated first baseman with the New York Americans, arrives home in Los Gatos and is met with enthusiasm by his admirers.

April 18, 1906—A powerful earthquake destroys much of San Francisco and San Jose and many buildings in Los Gatos. The Southern Pacific Railroad is closed due to damage in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and it will be three years before the train starts running again. Refugees from San Francisco come to live in Los Gatos until the city is rebuilt.

Jan. 10, 1907—The Los Gatos Cannery is bought by the Hunt Brothers and is moved from its original site. The cannery becomes the largest employer in Los Gatos.

May 1, 1909—Los Gatos has its largest May Day celebration in its history with a large parade, decorated automobile contest and baby contest. More than 10,000 people attend.

May 29, 1909—The first broad-gauge Southern Pacific Railroad train makes the run over the Santa Cruz Mountains from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz after the 1906 earthquake.

May 15, 1913—A contract is signed for a new concrete and steel Los Gatos Town Hall on E. Main Street for $9,500. The Los Gatos Board of Trustees first occupies the Town Hall on Dec. 22, 1913.

June 21, 1918—The first town pageant is held at the old Los Gatos Winery. The event is called "The Pageant of Fulfillment."

Timeline is courtesy of Los Gatos historian William A. Wulf. Through his tireless efforts and dedication, the glorious history of Los Gatos will live forever.

Patriarch of the Lyndon family an integral part of town history

There are few sources left that reveal what John Lyndon was like as a man. Only an article in the San Jose Daily News running the day after his funeral sheds some light on what Lyndon's life and death meant to a small but growing community at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains at the turn of the 20th century.

The town shut down that day, the article noted. Most businesses and banks closed their doors and flags were flown at half-mast. It was a simple show of respect for a man who many considered "a trustee of the town and a man frequently spoken of as the founder of Los Gatos."

Lyndon's story seems remarkable: A biographical sketch written in 1888 at the height of his wealth and power notes that the future Los Gatos founder came from humble origins. He was born in Vermont on Feb. 18, 1836, the fourth child of Samuel and Polly Ann Lyndon—a brood that would eventually grow to include eight children. His father was an immigrant from Ireland; his mother, an American.

It didn't take long before Lyndon would distinguish himself with the enterprising mettle that would one day make him a wealthy man. He was just a boy, between the ages of 10 and 12, when he left his family to make his own way in the world, traveling to New Hampshire and Maine to find work.

There is no explanation of why Lyndon packed his bags once again in the fall of 1859 at the young age of 13 and headed west, passing through the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco. He missed the start of the gold rush by almost 10 years; the promise of riches in California was starting to wane with more recent rushes in Nevada and Colorado. But gold may not have been on Lyndon's mind—he spent less than a day in San Francisco before heading south to the town of Lexington.

The town Lyndon arrived at had sprung up somewhat out of necessity. Logging in the Santa Cruz Mountains was a thriving industry when Lyndon came to Lexington; the men who worked in the forests congregated around the area. It was in this town that Lyndon was hired by H.M. Hervey, who kept a boardinghouse, and started driving an ox team.

Lyndon displayed a budding determination to succeed in that first job. His biographer wrote, "To show his skill in the work, he says he tipped his wagon over the first day!" But he soon became dissatisfied with his job and applied for something else to do.

He would find more success to boast of in the years to follow. When he started to work for Hervey, Lyndon reportedly had only 60 cents. He would build his fortune while working for Hervey over the next two months and then working for Bernard Joseph—referred to as "Joseph the Jew"—in a grocery and general store in Lexington.

Two years later, Lyndon struck out on his own. He purchased goods in San Francisco and brought them back to Lexington, opening his own general store. Joseph proposed that the two men enter a partnership shortly after and Lyndon accepted the offer.

When Lyndon died, a local paper estimated that his estate was valued in excess of $10,000, a hefty sum for 1912. He owned most of Los Gatos: His property stretched from Bean Avenue on the north end to the creek on the east side and Glen Ridge Avenue on the west side.

Lyndon's moneymaking exploits are recorded with an admiring tone in his biographical sketch. "Mr. Lyndon has been a very successful business man," the sketch editorializes. "When he came to California he did not spend his money as fast as he earned it, as many did, but was saving and industrious and invested his money in property as he earned it."

It all began with the general store. After Joseph sold his stake in the business 1¹/2 years after the partnership began, Lyndon ran the store solo. He was making considerable money, but in 1868, he decided to sell the store and go back to Vermont for a year. When he returned to Los Gatos, he bought a 100-acre tract in the heart of downtown. "He paid $7,500 for it and two months afterward sold it for $10,000, and four years thereafter he repurchased it for $8,500!"

As his wealth grew, Lyndon diversified his business. He was a man of property, but he also owned a lumberyard and later became one of the original stockholders of the Los Gatos Fruit Packing Company, the Los Gatos Gas Company and the Los Gatos Bank. He owned the biggest house in Los Gatos, aptly called Lyndon Heights, which was estimated to be worth more than $12,000.

Lyndon was also considered to be a patron of the town, elected to the board of trustees and then appointed president in 1888. He was a school trustee for many years and as noted in his obituary "was always ready to assist in every public enterprise and one who was ever ready to led his aid to those who were less fortunate than himself."

Pictures of the Lyndons shortly before their patriarch's death show a family confident in its abilities and success. In a photograph taken a month before his death, Lyndon sits next to his wife and brother. His face is expressionless, almost stoic compared to his brother's wry grin. He conveys a sense of pride; his posture almost demands respect.

Lyndon's family eventually grew to include a wife and three children. His brother James, who later followed Lyndon to Los Gatos, added his seven children to the extended brood. The families would sometimes gather on the porch or front steps of James Lyndon's home at S. Santa Cruz Avenue and Broadway, where they could survey almost all that they owned.

In the end, most of what can be written about Lyndon includes some amount of speculation. His influence on Los Gatos was enormous, but what he thought of his little town is forever lost in the annals of history.