Photograph by Ray Elam

In February 1976, snow fell in much of the South Bay, including Ray Elam's horse barn and paddocks in Los Gatos.

Best of Picture from the Past

Horses were a common sight in Los Gatos' past

By John S. Baggerly

Yes, despite our world-famous weather, it has snowed in Los Gatos. Ray Elam, owner of a horse corral on Kennedy Road, snapped this photograph in 1976 when a blanket of white lay over Los Gatos and beyond. Elam says some 50 tons of snow were hauled away that winter. The rainfall that year dipped to 8.17 inches, as compared to 21.75 the previous year.

Elam had been a model-maker for NASA/Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Mountain View and moved to Los Gatos from San Jose in 1947. He opened his corral soon after.

When the big snow hit, Elam says, the horses became playful and rolled in the snow. They loved to paw at it and dig holes. Frozen drinking water was a problem, Elam said, because a horse should drink two to three gallons of water a day, and five to 10 gallons if working. Thus Elam made certain that ice forming on the horses' trough was broken and discarded. Even without snowfall, horses locally acquire a winter coat in October and November and shed it around March.

Elam feeds the horses in the morning, and the owners take turns feeding them in the evening. The owners also hire veterinarians as needed.

Horses were workers in the West Valley and Santa Cruz Mountain areas long before they became animals for riding pleasure. They were heavy workers in the mountains when trees were first harvested as timber to be transported by ship out of San Francisco. A certain type of tree bark was also carted to Santa Clara to be used in the process of tanning leather.

To prevent accidents in the mountains, lead horses were "belled" as a warning to others. As Los Gatos developed as a town, there were some conspicuous riders. Attorney Carl Hubbell, crippled in the legs, rode a Tennessee Walking Horse, an animal with a gentle gait, bred for Southern plantation owners, who made long rides to oversee their land.

There was also Jim Crider and his wife, who rode silver-mounted pairs and were frequent winners in shows throughout California. When Crider's department store closed, the Criders moved to Gilroy.

Former Police Chief Ralph Phillips, a rider, was elected president of Los Gatos Gymkhana Association when that group was formed in 1940. Some 23 people met in Town Hall to organize. Leo Frank became vice president, Hubbell was secretary and Stanley Hopper, a local car-dealership owner, served as treasurer. The gymkhana group held monthly dances and used the money to fence and improve its riding grounds.

Frank was multitalented: He boxed professionally in San Jose's old Forman Arena and taught riding at Montezuma Mountain School for Boys in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He was related to the Franks, a pioneer family that eventually settled on the name without the "s."

Los Gatos' horsemen and -women were a spectacular addition to the local scene and headed parades running north on N. Santa Cruz Avenue to Los Gatos- Saratoga Road, where the riders dipped down to the creekside gymkhana grounds for their popular shows. The grounds were just west of Los Gatos Creek. This was before Los Gatos-Saratoga Road was extended in the mid-1950s over Highway 17 to Los Gatos Boulevard.

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John Baggerly is now semi-retired. This column is from the Los Gatos Weekly-Times archives.

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