Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph

Los Gatos' fearless Road Ranger keeps an eye on Highway 17 from the entrance to what is now The Cats and was formerly the estate of Erskine Scott Wood.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

Road Ranger, towing service aided many needy travelers

Add the name of the Road Ranger to that of Robin Hood and the Good Samaritan. The Ranger, shown above, was like the Good Samaritan in that he helped the ignored traveler. He was like Robin Hood because he showed lost travelers through the "forest."

The Road Ranger, who was actually a resident of Campbell, helped stranded motorists along the Santa Cruz Highway (now known as Highway 17) in the 1960s. With his modest truck he could refresh an overheated radiator, supply a few gallons of gasoline, charge a battery, change a flat tire or care for other minor ills drivers encountered on the climb over to Santa Cruz.

For heavy-duty work it was Anderson's Towing out of Los Gatos that tackled danger. See Shari Kaplan's farewell article on the Andersons in the March l8 issue of the Los Gatos Weekly-Times.

Around midcentury, former Los Gatos Times-Observer publisher Lloyd E. Smith sent reporters armed with a Speed Graphic camera to cover Anderson's most difficult assignments--using a steel cable to recover vehicles that had plunged over an embankment. During this dangerous operation, Anderson personnel warned police and reporters to get far away; if a cable broke it could snap back with such force as to cut a man in two. Kaplan's article also includes another interesting Anderson memory: hauling a cow out of a well.

Following are humble additions and corrections to recent columns on the building of Lexington Dam and reservoir.

Dorothy Shattuck phoned to point out that her friend 90-year-old Arlin Snyder, now living in Milpitas, worked for Guy Atkinson during the preparation of the site. Snyder directed drivers of heavy equipment and haulers of various materials in that vast acreage. There was intricate timing involved.

This writer and several readers thought that a man drowned in the process of building Lexington Dam and Reservoir. Not so. Contractor Earl W. Heple drowned in the process of building a dam that created Lake Elsman for the San Jose Water Works.

When an underground drain on one side of the dam became clogged, Heple did not ask a worker to take on the dangerous job of removing the debris. He descended into the concrete hole himself, and when he removed the debris, a huge flush of water swept him to his death. Lake Elsman was constructed in the hills above Lexington Reservoir.

Ralph Elsman, a local resident, underwrote Los Gatos Little League's first minor division when it appeared that his grandson and other younger players would not have a chance to play baseball.

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