History

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...

Happy New Year, Los Gatos!  After overindulging during the holidays, many people begin the new year by observing a “Dry January.” The practice of abstaining from alcohol for a month started in the U.K. in 2012 as part of a campaign by Alcohol Concern, a...

As we bid farewell to The Palms restaurant, let’s take a look at the history of this landmark Los Gatos property. The stately nine-room Queen Anne Victorian home on what was then a residential section of North Santa Cruz Avenue was built for Mary Barry...

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 arrival of Breaking Dawn, the newest restaurant on the Los Gatos dining scene, is the perfect occasion for a story about its historic home. The Renaissance Revival building that Breaking Dawn now occupies on W. Main St. was designed and built for The First...

Did you celebrate Groundhog Day last week? Me neither. But it’s a major media event back East, especially in Punxsutawney, Penn. where the tradition (based on an early European legend and immortalized in the classic comedy film by the same name) originated in 1887. At...

Untouched for millennia, the hills above Los Gatos underwent a rapid transformation in the mid-19th century. Timber had become the new gold for fortune seekers, and loggers were attracted to the area by the seemingly endless groves of massive redwoods. Sawmills popped up along the...

One of my earliest memories is from the early 1970s when I visited my elderly Italian aunt, whom we called Zia Elisa.

The historic Forbes Mill Annex is the oldest remaining commercial structure in Los Gatos. Before the town got its current name, it was actually called Forbes Mill, then Forbestown. The initial mill was erected in 1854 and lasted until 1916. Its storage unit has...

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...