Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Los Gatos Weekly-Times file photograph

Bill Mason, right, and engineer Myron Alexander enjoy a ride on the predecessor of today's Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad.

Picture from the Past

John S. Baggerly

Los Gatos in Mason's day was different from today

When the late W. E. "Bill" Mason, one of the town's first Citizens of the Year, arrived in Los Gatos in the early 1940s, he noticed that "it looked kind of bedraggled."

"So many stores were closed at that time, you could rent a place anywhere along N. Santa Cruz Avenue," he recalled. World War II had called a lot of young men into military service, and civilians were primarily employed in vital industries.

Mason, born in Washington state, played football for the University of Washington Huskies and was drafted by the Green Bay Packers, a calling he declined.

He spent l943 and 1944 in the U.S. Marine Corps. When he came home, he said, "Los Gatos looked pretty much the same."

He rode the wave of postwar prosperity and, for a time, was partner in the Quinco Company. He also had interests in the Five-Spot--"a great kids' hangout" with a soda fountain and sandwich bar; the old M&W Cafe--an all-night restaurant that Mason decried as "a real hash house"--and the Live Oak Inn. All were situated near the intersection of N. Santa Cruz and Saratoga avenues. Later, Mason opened an appliance store on the east side of N. Santa Cruz Avenue, not far from W. Main Street.

Things "started to move," Mason said, in about 1946, as more and more businesses--from Western Auto to five-and-dimes--were attracted to Los Gatos. As manager of the Sunnymount Theaters, Mason was at the hub of the town's social life. Movies were almost the sole source of entertainment then, he pointed out. Speaking of entertainment, the carousel in Oak Meadow Park is named after Mason.

Mason said that his experience in theater advertising was a help in future business endeavors. "TV hadn't hit yet, and the theater business was booming," he said. The programs were mostly musicals and war stories--not shoot-em-ups but war romances in which the young man comes home to marry the girl next-door.

In 1940s movies, Mason recalled, actors couldn't even say "damn." In later years, they could use all the words in the dictionary, as well as some not found in the dictionary.

Basically, though, the town hadn't changed much in Mason's eyes after the war, save for the canneries being gone and not much industry in town. In the '40s, people commuted to defense industries such as Food Machinery and the Hendy Iron Works (later Westinghouse, then Lockheed).

At the end of the 1940s there were only about 3,400 people in Los Gatos. "When I served on the Town Council [in the 1940s and early '50s]," Mason said, "we had four policemen, one gardener and a door-knocker." The latter checked on unlocked doors in the downtown business section and kept a watch when proprietors were out of town.

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