Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph

Los Gatos once had its own Southern Pacific train station; the Town Plaza and post office have since taken its place.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

Of Train Stations and Humble Corrections

Today's humble-pie offering amounts to a commission of errors, omissions and, worst of all, the misplacing of a letter.

Last August, Mike Dickson wrote, "For several months now CalTrain has put a photograph of one of the old Southern Pacific stations on the monthly commuter passes. I recently purchased my August pass and was pleasantly surprised to see a picture of the Los Gatos station. The photo is black and white and seems to have been taken in the early 1950s, as the newest automobile in the photo looks like a 1951 or '52 Buick sedan.

"My question is: exactly where was the station located? I seem to remember you mentioned that the Lyndon Hotel was across the street from the station."

Dickson continues: "There are actually two buildings in the photograph. The one in the foreground appears to be stucco and has a 'porch' with three arched openings on three of the sides. The other building is a wooden Railway Express Office--both buildings [were] torn down in 1964."

Today's photograph is similar to the one described by Dickson, a Los Gatan and analyst for Pacific Bell who commutes to San Francisco from San Jose.

Today's photo was taken between the time rail service was discontinued in Los Gatos and the old train station was demolished to make space for the Town Plaza and Los Gatos Post Office. The plaza is flanked on the north by W. Main Street, on the west by S. Santa Cruz Avenue and on the east by Montebello Way, formerly Front Street. Montebello Way, entered from Main Street, leads to the Los Gatos Post Office and westward into Santa Cruz Avenue.

Now for some humble-pie corrections.

After an early photo of St. Luke's Episcopal Church appeared here, a correction was phoned in by Marnya Phelps Campbell. She pointed out that the name of the Rev. David Todd Gilmor (with no "e" on the end) reached print as David Starr Gilmore. Our excuse was a lame one. Our 81-year-old brain told the fingers to type the first two names of former Stanford University president David Starr Jordan.

Mrs. Campbell knows whereof she speaks. She and her brother Jack, a retired World War II Air Force commander living in Hawaii, accompanied their parents, Happer K. and Grace Phelps, to all services, including Christmas Eve rites. Mrs. Campbell and her husband, the late Roland Campbell, were even married at St. Luke's.

Jean DuBois, our local ornithologist, has an ear for poetry as well as for our feathered friends. He phoned to point out an omission in the poem "Casey at the Bat," which appeared here prior to the opening of the youth baseball season. DuBois said there was a line missing after the umpire called strike two on the mighty Casey: "Fraud, cried the maddened thousands and the echo answered fraud." The missing line of the couplet is "But one scornful look from Casey and the multitude was awed."

The poem ends with "There's no joy in Mudville--because the mighty Casey has struck out."

But where is Mudville? Was there such a place? Yes. Several Sundays ago, the San Francisco Examiner, in an article about the California State Professional League, mentioned Ernest Lawrence Thayer's poem. Thayer was thinking about a town like Stockton, close to the unruly San Francisco Bay, when he wrote the poem.

Mudville also came up at the recent Pony Baseball Tournament for l3-year-olds at Blossom Hill School, where diamond announcer Doug Neale asked the whereabouts of that muddy town as one of his trivia questions. Neale has the voice for announcing--he's a professional auctioneer.

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