Best of Picture from the Past
Almendra Avenue was home to politicians, businessmen
By John S. Baggerly
Downtown Los Gatos' Almendra Avenue, home to the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, has produced seven mayors, several councilmen, a postmaster and a six-sided home.
Almendra, Spanish for "almond," is the northernmost street of the Almond Grove District, flanked by Bean, N. Santa Cruz and Massol avenues. The area was once an almond orchard. When gophers threatened to destroy the trees, Zepf A. Macabee invented his Macabee gopher trap, still manufactured at 110 Loma Alta Ave. and sold worldwide.
Almendra's seven mayors were: R. R. Bell, 1912-1914; S. D. Balch, 1914-1916; Carl W. Gertridge, 1920-1922; A. H. Bell, 1928-1930; Marc Vertin, 1932-1940; Carl S. Balch, 1940; and Stanley Mills, 1940-1944.
Additional Almendrans who served on the Town Council were Happer K. Phelps, 1932-1936; and Bert Fresher, 1942-1946. Fresher was a Standard Oil distributor. Many of these men walked to their place of work in town. Another Almendran, although not a councilmember, was Lee Darneal, the town postmaster.
R. R. (Richard Rundle) Bell, an attorney, was founder of R. R. Bell Co.--a feed and fuel outfit--and was justice of the peace for Redwood Township.
A. H. Bell, like his father, was a justice of the peace and was also co-head of the real estate and insurance firm of McMurtry and Bell. A. H. "Arch" Bell was actually the first true mayor. Previously the office was called "Chairman of the Board of Trustees." Individuals were first elected as councilmen and then voted to the chairmanship by their peers.
The Bell mansion once stood on the northeast corner of Almendra and N. Santa Cruz Avenue, with R.R. Bell's horses corralled in an area now occupied by the Bank of America. When the 1906 earthquake ravaged San Francisco, many local homes were destroyed, and the railroad tunnel near Wrights station was ruptured. At this time, Bell opened the orchard behind his home as a campground for neighbors whose homes were damaged.
Marc Vertin was an accountant and developer of Redwood Estates, a mountain residential community. His young son, for a small price, would bring his pet duck to wipe out snails in neighbors' gardens. The free-roaming duck hurt business, however, by attacking snails on his own.
Stanley Mills was a real estate agent. Phelps, in partnership with his father-in-law, E. H. Norton, ran Norton-Phelps Lumber Co. on Bean Avenue. He later founded California Roofing Co., today run by Hap Campbell, son of Marnya Phelps Campbell of Los Gatos.
Marnya Phelps Campbell recalls that during World War II, postmaster Darneal noticed an overseas letter in a mail pouch from her brother Jack to their mother. Darneal fetched the letter and dropped it off to her on his way home that evening.
At one time, kids on Almendra played kick-the-can and hopscotch on the dirt street and later, one-foot-in-the-gutter when Almond Grove streets were paved. Former tomboy Barbara Dickerson White recalls that her knees were always dirty, and Campbell recalls how she and her brother Jack got up early Sunday mornings and snatched the "funnies" from metropolitan newspapers delivered nearby. She says she suspects the neighbors knew about the scheme.
John Baggerly is now semi-retired. This column is from the Los Gatos Weekly-Times archives.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
