Saratoga News

Saratoga Stereopticon

Willys Peck

Garden party to feature all things historical

Trivial items of Saratoga history that you probably wouldn't have known or thought about if you hadn't read this column, which doesn't make them any less trivial.

Item 1, a question: What was the given name of Painless Parker, the chain-office dentist whose name survives in the Parker Ranch development in the hills near Prospect Road?

Answer: Edgar Randolph Parker was born in 1872 in Newfoundland. In 1915, he changed his legal first name to Painless, after launching a succession of widely advertised dental offices.

On his death in San Francisco in November 1952, he was buried here as Edgar Randolph Parker in the family plot at Madronia Cemetery, the implication being that, while death may have come as a release, it couldn't be called Painless.

Item 2, Saratoga's primeval slammer: In previous Stereopticon columns I have made reference to the Saratoga jail that was on the east side of Fourth Street, between Big Basin Way and Oak Street, on a site which today is the entrance to a parking lot. I bring this up now because of a January 1938 clipping from the San Jose Mercury Herald that recently surfaced. The article concerned the sale of the structure and the underlying ground, by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, to Mrs. Eva Small for $175. Mrs. Small owned a row of identical cottages fronting on Oak Street and, if memory serves, she used the lumber from the jail to build a garage. A couple of those cottages had their own historical aura, having been occupied by Mrs. Lilian De Havilland (later changed to Fontaine) and her two young daughters, Olivia and Joan, after they arrived in Saratoga from Japan.

Had the jail sale situation arisen today, there would have been a concerted effort, with me at the forefront, to save the building as a landmark. Back then, however, it was just another old building that had to be gotten out of the way. Even at this late date, I would like to know more about its origin; to me it was an important link to the town's history. The newspaper article said only that it had been built "during the latter half of the last century." My guess is that it was built in the 1870s, or maybe later, to house the more obstreperous patrons of Saratoga's many saloons. This was borne out in the 1938 article, quoting Mrs. Charles Miller, the former Lillian Melone, who lived near the jail back in Saratoga's days as a lumber town. She said her family kept the "hardwood heads of their high-poster beds against the windows" to keep out stray pistol shots fired by the men spilling out of the saloons. Talk about frontier atmosphere!

The same article quoted W.A. Rice, justice of the peace, as saying the jail was used to house prisoners until they could be taken to the county jail in San Jose. Both of these lockups, Saratoga's, which consisted of a single room lit only by a barred opening over the front door, and the county facility, which dated back almost to the Civil War and was medieval in its accommodations, or lack thereof, would have been fair game for the American Civil Liberties Union today. "Dungeons" wouldn't be stretching the description.

The Saratoga jail was used until about World War I, and the old county jail in San Jose was replaced by a facility on Hedding Street in the mid-1950s.

Item 3, not-so-trivial question about what do you do on an idle Sunday afternoon?

Answer: If that Sunday happens to be the upcoming one, Sept. 20, you might want to give serious consideration to attending the Saratoga Historical Foundation's annual garden party at the Historical Museum, from 2 to 4 p.m. Say again? You don't know where the museum is? Why, it's that distinctive, false-front store building on Saratoga-Los Gatos Road, with the beautifully landscaped garden right next to the old library, now the Book-Go-Round on Oak Street.

The museum is the repository for some of Saratoga's most interesting artifacts, dating back to the town's beginnings. If you have never been there, this is an excellent opportunity to see the exhibits and mingle with congenial people who share the same interests. A contribution of finger-food would be appreciated, but no one will be turned away for showing up empty-handed.

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