History

Spring has finally arrived! As beautiful as it is today, imagine what spring was like when thousands of acres of fruit and nut trees were in full bloom in the “Valley of Heart's Delight.” Did you know that many of those orchards might not...

Have you ever wondered how the infamous U-shaped stretch of Highway 17 known as Big Moody Curve got its name? There isn’t much to say about early settler D. B. Moody, who owned the property. But what happened there is one of the most...

The former Hotel Lyndon may be the most notable Los Gatos landmark lost to history. This magnificent hotel was built by one of our town’s earliest and most prominent citizens John Weldon Lyndon who many consider to be the “Father of Los Gatos.”  With velvet...

When I was a child in the 70s, Los Gatos was filled with Italians. I remember seeing the older women walking in town, dragging behind them their wire utility carts filled with groceries down Santa Cruz Avenue. My grandparents, Adam and Albina Contardo, were...

*Updated Sept. 6, 2022 Daniel Reyes, the founder of Project Gasmask Entertainment (PGM), says he’s excited to be part of a Los Gatos rebirth. Though he lives in Oakland, and grew up in the Fairfield-Suisun area, the promoter says he’s pretty familiar with the community from...

Strolling through the Almond Grove neighborhood is a real treat this time of year, when you can see carefully restored Victorian homes adorned with elaborate Halloween decorations. Yet these charming tree-lined streets once faced something even more menacing than ghosts and goblins. Progress. During the...

It was a chilly morning in January, 1953 when 11-year-old Elena Lim arrived in Los Gatos. Her widowed father decided that he was unable to care for her so he surrendered her to the missionaries at Ming Quong. Elena was unkempt, malnourished and had been...

Of all the events in Los Gatos’ history, none had a more lasting impact than the arrival of the railroad. In this two part series, we’ll explore how the “iron horse” became the driving force behind the transformation of our town from an obscure...

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy…unless you’re fighting bumper-to-bumper beach traffic on Highway 17. Even navigating from one side of town to another is an ordeal on summer weekends. Multiple attempts to eliminate cut-through traffic haven’t resulted in a permanent fix. But Caltrans is...

Earlier this year while tweaking the history section of the Draft General Plan, Los Gatos planning commissioners suggested zooming-out from the previous version, which only told the story of settler expansion, to also share the history of the original inhabitants. What may have seemed, to...