Saratoga Stereopticon

Many later highlights were dubious at best

By Willys Peck

It's a fair question: Was incorporation the ONLY landmark event in Saratoga occurring after the middle of the last century? To refresh your memory, the reference is to the two previous Stereopticon columns listing what I considered the 10 most important events in Saratoga during the 100-year period just ending.

Starting with the first Blossom Festival in 1900, these ran through 1941, when Saratoga became an armed camp with the arrival of a battery of field artillery just days after the Pearl Harbor attack. The only listed date after that was 1956, when Saratogans voted to incorporate as a city. So was Saratoga existing in a civic or municipal vacuum for the next 44 years? Hardly.

I'm sure there could be any number of nominations for events which, to their participants, were of landmark caliber. Although it might be hard to pin down, the date when the average price of a new house in Saratoga topped $1 million could be called something of a landmark. Or, how about the opening of Highway 85, which gave a major shot in the arm to the sound-wall industry? One might even want to include, as landmark events, significant losses to the downtown business district: the movie theater, auto repair shops, hardware store, variety store, drugstore, although it would be impossible to assign a single date to these distressing occurrences. Another late-20th century phenomenon with an impossible-to-specify date was the virtual disappearance of the orchards that had been the town's economic and scenic hallmark.

On a positive note, there was significant activity by organizations, some of them formed in the latter 20th century, that had a positive impact on the community. One such reminder came from the Montalvo Service Group which, I am advised by Doris Martinez, head of its publicity committee, was formed in 1954 "to support the best interests of Villa Montalvo and help maintain it as a center for the arts." As she described it, "This group of women participates in fundraising efforts and many activities that bring art experiences to the community." As with most worthwhile organizations, they're always looking for new members.

I had included the building of Montalvo in 1912 by U.S. Sen. James D. Phelan as one of Saratoga's key events, and it is through organizations such as the Service Group that this priceless cultural asset has been maintained in accordance with Phelan's wishes.

This was the key element of practically all of the events that I listed, the idea of community participation. It means drawing from the widest possible area of support in producing, say, a Blossom Festival or a Shakespearean play; building a library or forming a fire protection district. These were the kinds of things that shaped Saratoga's identity as a community and helped make it the kind of place it is, a place where people want to come to live, even if it means committing to a price tag of, gulp, over a million.

We're seeing an example of this community effort right now in the campaign for passage of Measure N on the March ballot. This is the bond measure, requiring a two-thirds majority for passage, to raise funds for needed renovation and expansion of the Community Library.

As something of an activist with the Historical Foundation, I've always been envious of the Friends of the Saratoga Libraries and their ability to recruit volunteers for the Book-Go-Round. We need this kind of talent on our limited roster of museum docents. But envy turns to admiration when I see the volunteer effort behind the Measure N campaign. Yes, we need the library improvements and expansion. No, it doesn't mean the end of the Heritage Orchard. That unique asset has been factored into the library expansion plans to the extent of having the addition as an enhancement of rather than an encroachment on this vestige of Saratoga's past.

Just be glad you live in the kind of town where this many people are willing to put out this kind of effort for the public's benefit.

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