 |
|
|
|
|
Saratoga Stereopticon
History meets the challenge of today's planners
By Willys Peck
Don't get me wrong; I'm not criticizing our city government, I'm glad we have it. The official machinery may have slipped a cog once or twice in granting certain permits that come to mind, but overall I'd say we fare very well administration-wise.
It would be interesting, though, to speculate what the result would have been had the current level of regulation been enforced back in Saratoga's formative years. We'd have a far less colorful history, that's for sure.
Leafing through the pages of Florence Cunningham's Saratoga's First Hundred Years, one could imagine these dialogues having taken place, given a sufficient time warp. The first involves Martin McCarty and a city official.
Official: Young man, just what do you think you are doing?
McCarty: I'm putting up a tollgate.
Official: Oh, yes, I did see your permit application. Well, you can't put it up here. This road is in the wrong place. How did you happen to choose this route, anyway?
McCarty: It's the way the lumber wagons follow, coming down from the mill. The horses seem to like it.
Official: Well, we're not going to have the streets in this town laid out by horses. With the contour of the ground here, we need to have two parallel streets on the same level for traffic circulation. Otherwise, this is going to be a one-street town.
McCarty: I'm afraid you're too late. This is the way the teamsters want to go, and if you want to take on the teamsters, be my guest. Anyway, better a one-street town than a one-horse town, haw, haw, haw.
Official: (His ears start smoking, and he stalks off.)
The next scene involves the same city official and the brothers King, Erwin T. and William F. They want to build a paper mill at approximately the end of the present Pamela Way.
Official: Gentlemen, I can't imagine what brings you here. This is a residential community and the kind of industry you propose is completely out of the question. Aren't those smokestacks I see on these plans?
E. King: Why, yes. We plan to have steam-powered machinery. There's ample wood nearby for fuel.
Official: (Clutching his forehead) Ye gods! Industrial smoke! Air pollution! No way. And say, doesn't paper-making involve some sort of chemical waste?
W. King: Shucks, there's a creek just a few yards away. No problem.
Official: (Face buried in hands) Industrial wastes in Saratoga Creek. No! No! No! Never!
E. King: (Calmly playing his trump card) I wouldn't be too quick about sending us away. There's something you should know.
Official: Wh-what's that?
E: King: Someday there's going to be a Historical Foundation here, and they're going to have a museum and also conduct historical walking tours. William's and my houses will be among the very few historic buildings left to be pointed out on those tours, along with the house of John Henry, our plant engineer. Deny this mill and you're putting local history in peril. Without that history, this will be just another high-priced real estate development. Think about it.
Official: (In a choking voice) Go ahead, build your mill.
Postscript: The Saratoga Paper Mill, which produced a heavy wrapping paper known as butcher's paper, operated from 1869 until it burned in 1883. Meanwhile, a companion industry, the Caledonia Pasteboard Mill and its predecessor, called the first mill of its kind on the Pacific Coast, operated near the present Wildwood Park from 1870 until it was moved to Corralitos 10 years later.
This industrial ferment engendered a fitting atmosphere for Charles Maclay, who rates an entire chapter in Saratoga's First Hundred Years. He came to the area as a Methodist circuit rider and stayed on to become a businessman, land developer, industrialist and politician.
One of his projects was a stone grist mill, to be located near the present entrance to Hakone Gardens, replacing an earlier wooden structure across the road that had burned. We can visualize Maclay in 1865, confronting the same beleaguered city of Saratoga official with a set of plans.
Official: (Who by now has pretty well had it) Mr. Maclay, I see by these plans that you propose an overshot water wheel at least 50 feet in diameter. Need I point out to you that, in Saratoga, any water wheel over 10 feet in diameter constitutes heavy industry. We have been very lenient with you and your several bootleg zoning violations, but this time we draw the line. The answer is an unequivocal no, and why are you grinning?
Maclay: Tough cheese, sonny, it's already built.
Postscript: Maclay's mill, which he called Bank Mills, functioned as a grist mill, a tannery and, in its later years, a winery. Its usefulness was ended by the ultimate zoning enforcement measure, the 1906 earthquake.
So far, earthquakes have not been adopted as an official tool of city planning.
|
|
|
|
Saratoga, California Since 1975
