Saratoga News

Saratoga Stereopticon

Willys Peck

Real estate has always been a Saratoga commodity

Most ads for Saratoga real estate convey a not-so-subliminal message that goes something like this: "Unless you're rolling in the stuff, kid, don't even bother looking. That 95070 ZIP code can cost you an arm and a leg." Thus is delineated a major element in Saratoga's contemporary image: a rich man's town.

As one whose good fortune it was to have located here well before human limbs became a medium of trade--actually, it was shortly after birth--I have an interest in the various images the town has borne over the years. I touched on some of these in an early Stereopticon article.

There was the October 1858 diary entry by frontier journalist Alfred Doten, noting that McCartysville, now Saratoga, was a "strictly temperance town, no liquor at all being sold there--the only place of the kind I know of in California." And there was the description of the town in the 1880s, when it had seven saloons and to be "a drunk from Saratoga" was the last word in drunkenness. Then there was the 1870 San Jose Mercury article describing Saratoga as a "fine little manufacturing town nestled in the foothills"--this in reference to its flourishing paper, pasteboard and grist mills.

Continuing on this theme, here is how Saratoga was seen by some other writers of an earlier day.

From the 1881 Alley, Bowen & Co. History of Santa Clara County, California: "Located as Saratoga is on the foothills, the views from some points are magnificent. The mountains rise in irregular cones, one close upon another; some bold, others covered with timber or brushwood, and all running into softly undulating hills dotted with evergreen and majestic live oaks, which shelter many a neat homestead. To the east the mountains rise sharp and clear into the infinite blue of the cloudless sky; ... below, extending to the Bay of San Francisco, lies the gorgeous Santa Clara Valley. . . ."

Very heavy stuff. Somewhat more restrained, but pulling out all the stops when it came to describing the Congress Springs resort, was an 1888 volume, Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World, which in itself is a pretty florid title.

"The town has become widely known from its location near the Pacific Congress Springs, which has become one of the most famous summer resorts on the coast. . . ." Of Congress Hall, the luxury hotel: "Facing, as it does, the grand old mountains across the canyon, which are covered with forest trees, some of them of giant-size . . . the surroundings make one feel that there is plenty of room and comfort everywhere, and just the place to have a good time. . . ."

"The Saratoga district was the very first to discover and take advantage of resources in the direction of fruit- and vine-growing. The success of the earlier orchards induced the planting of others, and the success of these has kept up the enthusiasm until nearly the whole country is a succession of orchards and vineyards yielding golden harvests to their owners."

All of which brings us to 1895 and a profusely illustrated souvenir book, Sunshine, Fruit and Flowers, published by the San Jose Mercury, in which the writer seemed caught up in that old feeling.

"Where the waters of Campbell [now Saratoga] Creek emerge from the Santa Cruz Mountains sits a beautiful village. With a railroad to San Jose it will be a second Los Gatos [say again?], as it is one of the richest fruit-growing districts in the county, and is in the foothill thermal belt. Situated at the mouth of the canyon, on the road to the rich fruit- and vine-growing sections above, the great lumber regions over the summit in Santa Cruz County, and near one of the most wonderful mineral springs in the United States, it is a natural trading center, and with a railroad, will be an important town."

I don't know where the writer was getting all that railroad jazz, because it had been a good 20 years since there was some talk of routing the South Pacific Coast Railroad through Saratoga to Santa Cruz. As it was, the S.P.C.R.R. went down the east side of the bay to Los Gatos, which it reached in 1878, and Santa Cruz, which it reached two years later.

The writer may have been anticipating the electric interurban line, which reached Saratoga in 1904, but whether the Peninsular Railway made this an "important town" is a matter for conjecture. Check your local real estate ads.

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