Saratoga News file photograph
Saratoga Creek was once a swimming hole, but it is now posted with warnings for children to stay out of the water.
Every town ought to have at least one creek or river, for atmosphere if for no other reason. Our community is particularly fortunate in this regard because in addition to its aesthetic qualities, Saratoga Creek has a lot of history behind it. For one thing, like the town itself, it has had several names. First, it was called Arroyo Quito, after the Quito land grant. Then it was officially Campbell Creek, named for William Campbell, who, with his sons, built a sawmill and later a flour mill at the site of the present Saratoga Springs resort. Finally, in 1951, it was designated Saratoga Creek.
As suggested by the activities of the aforementioned Campbell, this was a working creek. In addition to the sawmill, at least two flour mills derived power from this stream. The only known picture of any of these operations is the widely reproduced 1872 photograph of Charles Maclay's Bank Mills, situated near the present entrance to Hakone Gardens. It shows a stone building, at one end of which is an overshot water wheel at least 50 feet in diameter, surmounted by a flume that had to have originated at a millpond upstream.
In addition to the lumber and grist mills, the steam-powered Saratoga Paper Mill, located near the end of the present Pamela Way, no doubt depended on the creek for water for its boilers and for the considerable volume needed in the manufacture of its product, a heavy butcher paper. The same could probably be said of the Caledonia Pasteboard Mill, near the present site of Wildwood Park. And we can't overlook the small tributary to the creek where the mineral water source known as Congress Springs is located. As is well-known, the springs are responsible for the town's having been named after Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Finally, Madronia Cemetery could be said to owe its beginning to the creek. Although the incipient town would have had a burying ground anyway, the first interment was that of a boy who drowned in the creek in 1854.
People have been capitalizing on the creek's scenic qualities for well over a century. Long Bridge, now Saratoga Springs, was an early resort that boasted a hotel in its early years. Downstream a ways, Congress Springs flourished as a picnic grounds up until World War II, when the property was fenced off by the San Jose Water Works. During its heyday, Congress Springs was served by the interurban Peninsular Railway, which scheduled special runs for picnics. Along the creek in the town itself is Wildwood Park, which had been a popular picnic grounds for years before being acquired as a city park. During the late 1940s, the proprietor brought in various big-name bands for dancing on the outdoor platform.
One of my most indelible memories of the creek is of the swimming hole that was created below the Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road bridge. In 1936, several of the town's enterprising young men laid a couple of telephone poles across the channel and piled sandbags against them, causing the water to back up to a depth of several feet. They even rigged up a diving board near the dam, and one hardy soul reportedly dove in from the bridge itself. This, of course, was in the days before people became litigation-conscious, and I don't think I ever heard the word "liability" mentioned. We just had fun. The following year, the same crew got ambitious and built a couple of concrete abutments, with large grooves into which large planks could be lowered. When the planks were removed, the creek could resume its normal flow.
As I recall, the end of this project came when the county health department started taking an interest in things. The scuttlebut at the time was that there were some cows pastured upstream, doing what cows do, only a tad too close to the stream. End of swimming hole.
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, March 19, 1997.
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