Best of Picture from the Past
Daily life in Los Gatos once depended on horses, wagons
By John S. Baggerly
Today's photograph was taken at the turn of the century on University Avenue, a few yards from Main Street; the mule team is hauling loads of wood from trees in the hills above town. The first wagon had a seat for the driver and his helper, called a "swamper."
Visible in the upper right are the top reaches of Ford Opera House, along with power poles installed in l896 and the tile roof of the Rankin Block at the corner of Main and what was then called Oak Street. It later became Front Street when the railroad entered town.
In the far left is a one-story building that became the home of the telephone company exchange, the PG&E office and the Pioneer Cigar Store, where gentlemen could enjoy poker and a game of pool. Today this stretch has become "coffee row."
Recently we drew on Emma S. Garrod's (neé Stolte) One Life, Mine to tell the story of life in the mountains during the past century and leading into the 1900s.
Of the teamsters' rigs she wrote: "Usually the leaders had metal arches on their harness hames, on which were hung five or seven bells as big as coffee mugs. They made a wonderful jingle-jangle that could be heard a long way. These bells gave warning of a heavy outfit on the road so that other travelers could find a suitable place to stop and wait for the big ones to come by."
Of the teamsters, Emma wrote: "They were young, just getting out on their own, venturesome and trying to establish themselves in the world. Mostly they owned their own teams and treated them well. Others, I am sorry to say, underfed, overloaded and abused their animals and should never have owned them."
Emma was not alone in observing the mistreatment of horses in toil. Similar ill treatment was observed in the cities, which later accounted for the formation of humane societies to lobby for better treatment of animals, particularly horses.
Teamsters, Emma continues, were often thoughtful and polite. She explains how a light rig--such as two horses and a spring wagon--might be caught in a bad spot on a mountain road.
"I knew this happened to Mother one day. The men on the big rig unhitched her horses, led them past their wagons, set the light wagon off the road into the brush, drove their load past, came back, put Mother's wagon back on the road, hitched up the team, wished Mother a pleasant good day, and proceeded down the road."
Emma adds, "I remember the Grocery Wagon Man. I think he came from the store of Edwards and Roemer. His call was designed to be a midweek supplement to the Saturday trip so many farmers made." Perhaps 18 at the time, the Grocery Wagon Man was named Fred Suydam--later a printer and publisher of a Los Gatos newspaper.
"He would come clattering into the yard with a spring wagon and a fast-stepping team, deliver whatever Mother had ordered the time before, take eggs, packed in bran for safety, also butter if Mother had it ready, write down her next order and be off again."
When the Stolte family arrived in San Francisco, they first took an apartment over a saloon. Father Stolte planned to become a skipper of a boat, hauling produce from rural areas to the city. When this did not evolve, Mother Stolte demanded her husband homestead in the hills above Los Gatos. Two more daughters followed Emma.
Emma later became Mrs. Vince Garrod--wife of the prominent Saratoga orchardist. She is also the mother of Vince S. Garrod and Louise Garrod Cooper, both of Saratoga.
John Baggerly is now semi-retired. This column is from The Los Gatos Weekly- Times archives.
Los Gatos, California Since 1881
