Editing Los Gatos, California (section)

==History==
===Overview===
The first inhabitants of the area that is now Los Gatos were the [[Ohlone]] Native Americans.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Back From Extinction: The Muwekma Ohlone, Part 4Exhibitions, Education, Art, Innovation, History, Bay Area, Los Gatos |url=https://www.numulosgatos.org/lghp-blog/11/30/2021/back-from-extinction-the-muwekma-ohlone-part-4 |access-date=November 5, 2022 |website=NUMU |date=November 30, 2021 |language=en-US}}</ref> At the time the first settlers arrived in the area, it was estimated that approximately 5,000 indigenous people were living in the [[Santa Clara Valley|Valley]], and noted that the relationship between the settlers and natives was very good. The first settlers to enter the Valley proper were two soldiers that had strayed from their [[missionary]] group on November 2, 1769. By 1777, there were between 1,500 and 2,000 Native Americans living in the mission compound.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bruntz |first=George G. |title=History of Los Gatos: Gem of the Foothills |publisher=[[Valley Publishers]] |year=1971 |pages=3–4 |language=en |lccn=79-174678}}</ref>

The town's founding dates to the mid-1850s with the building of a flour-milling operation, [[Forbes Mill]], by [[James Alexander Forbes (1805–1881)|James Alexander Forbes]] along Los Gatos Creek, then called Jones's Creek.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bruntz |first=George G. |title=History of Los Gatos: Gem of the Foothills |publisher=[[Valley Publishers]] |year=1971 |pages=5 |language=en |lccn=79-174678}}</ref>  The mill's two-story stone storage annex still stands.

The settlement that was established in the 1860s was originally named for the mill, but the name was changed to Los Gatos after the Spanish land grant. The town was [[municipal corporation|incorporated]] in 1887 and remained an important town for the logging industry in the [[Santa Cruz Mountains]] until the end of the 19th century. Despite being nearby to logging communities, Los Gatos itself only served as a stopping point for those heading into the mountains. With the creation of the Los Gatos Turnpike road, the town was placed in a strategic position on the journey between San Jose and Santa Cruz, and it became an attractive location to live in. Soon, the town was booming. In 1852 only one [[adobe]] home existed in the area; by 1868 Los Gatos held the Mill, a [[blacksmith]] shop, a stage depot, a lumber yard, a temporary schoolhouse, a hotel, a post office, and several houses. The town began to rapidly gain prominence after the town of [[Lexington, California|Lexington]] lost its importance with the fall of the [[timber]] industry in the area.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bruntz |first=George G. |title=History of Los Gatos: Gem of the Foothills |publisher=[[Valley Publishers]] |year=1971 |pages=7 |language=en |lccn=79-174678}}</ref>

In the early 20th century, the town became a thriving agricultural town with [[apricot]]s, [[grape]]s and [[prune]]s being grown in the area. By the 1920s, the Los Gatos area had a local reputation as an arts colony, attracting painters, musicians, writers, actors and their bohemian associates as residents over the years. The violinist [[Yehudi Menuhin]] lived there as a boy;<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.losgatos.com/1999/03/yehudi-menuhins-los-gatos-days/|title=Yehudi Menuhin's Los Gatos Days|first1=Dan|last1=Pulcrano|publisher=Losgatos.com|access-date=June 25, 2014|archive-date=April 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414113106/http://www.losgatos.com/1999/03/yehudi-menuhins-los-gatos-days/|url-status=dead}}</ref> the actresses [[Joan Fontaine]] and [[Olivia de Havilland]] (sisters) were graduates of [[Los Gatos High School]]; John Steinbeck wrote ''[[The Grapes of Wrath]]'' there (the location is now located in [[Monte Sereno]]); Justin Goodsell, a renowned quantum mechanics spectroscopy scientist,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UFE0051970/00001/pdf/0|title=UF Digital Collections|website=ufdc.ufl.edu}}</ref> was born in this town, and a prominent Beat hero [[Neal Cassady]] lived there in the 1950s. Along with much of the [[Santa Clara Valley]], Los Gatos became a suburban community for [[San Jose, California|San Jose]] beginning in the 1950s, and the town was mostly built out by the 1980s.

=== Architecture ===
Downtown Los Gatos has retained and restored many of its [[Victorian architecture|Victorian]]-era homes and commercial buildings. Notable buildings include the [[Forbes Mill]] annex, dating to 1880 and formerly housing a history museum;<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 22, 2014 |title=Los Gatos: Museums get new name, and soon new home |url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/10/22/los-gatos-museums-get-new-name-and-soon-new-home/ |access-date=November 5, 2022 |website=The Mercury News |language=en-US}}</ref> Los Gatos High School, which dates from the 1920s; and the Old Town Shopping Center, formerly the University Avenue School (the school was established in 1882; the current buildings date to 1923).

The Lyndon Hotel was another location of significance in the town from its establishment in the 1890s until it was razed in 1963.The building was located on the site of a previous hotel. One that had changed hands numerous times over the previous years. But primarily under the ownership of one of the most esteemed Los Gatos business owners at the time. John Weldon Lyndon.<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 10, 2007 |title=HISTORY: Hotel Lyndon was in the center of Los Gatos' activities |url=https://www.mercurynews.com/2007/10/10/history-hotel-lyndon-was-in-the-center-of-los-gatos-activities/ |access-date=November 16, 2022 |website=The Mercury News |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>Bruntz, P. 9-12</ref>

A number of brick buildings in downtown Los Gatos were destroyed or seriously damaged in the [[1989 Loma Prieta earthquake]], though the district was quickly rebuilt and has made a full recovery.

===Rail transportation===

Rail transport played a large role in Los Gatos's historical development, but the city, as of 2020, has no regular passenger train service of any sort. The [[South Pacific Coast Railroad]], a popular [[narrow-gauge]] line from [[Alameda, California|Alameda]] (and San Francisco via ferry) to [[Santa Cruz, California|Santa Cruz]] in the late 19th century, stopped in Los Gatos.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.spcrr.org/HistorySPCRR.htm|title=The South Pacific Coast Railroad|website=Spcrr.org|access-date=February 21, 2021}}</ref> Southern Pacific took over this line in 1887. Los Gatos was also near the Southern Pacific resort town of [[Holy City, California|Holy City]], along the rail line in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The last Southern Pacific passenger train to Santa Cruz left Los Gatos on February 26, 1940. In town, the rail line used to run along the shore of Vasona Reservoir to the present-day location of the Post Office, following the path of what is now a continuous string of parking lots between Santa Cruz Ave. and University Ave. There was also a streetcar-type rail line called the [[Peninsular Railway (California)|Peninsular Railway]] with service to Saratoga and San Jose that started about 1905 and ended about 1933. San Francisco commuter trains continued into downtown until 1959, and Vasona Junction until 1964. The site of the old railroad station is now occupied by Town Plaza and the post office.

While VTA had originally planned to extend their [[Green Line (VTA)|Green Line]] to Vasona Junction and bring back passenger rail to the city, the extension was cut short to Winchester due to the high cost of the extension, minimal expected ridership gains, and the difficulty of sharing rail right-of-way to Vasona Junction with Union Pacific freight trains.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sanjosespotlight.com/vta-committee-puts-vasona-extension-on-ice-discusses-light-rail-makeover/|title=VTA committee puts Vasona extension on ice, discusses light rail makeover|first=Brendan|last=Nystedt|website=Sanjosespotlight.com|date=August 23, 2019|access-date=February 21, 2021}}</ref>

===Oil boom===
[[File:USA-Los Gatos-2-8 North Santa Cruz Avenue.jpg|thumb|left|Historic Los Gatos bank, built 1931]]
Between 1891 and 1929, about 20 oil wells were drilled in and around Los Gatos, starting a minor oil-drilling boom.<ref name=Stanley1>{{cite book|last1=Stanley|first1=Richard G.|title=Subsurface and Petroleum Geology of the Southwestern Santa Clara Valley ("Silicon Valley"), California|date=2002|publisher=[[U.S. Geological Survey]], [[U.S. Department of the Interior]]|location=[[Washington, D.C.]]|page=1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rFRd3wtOWcoC&q=los%20gatos%20oil%20boom&pg=PA1|access-date=October 23, 2015|display-authors=etal|isbn=9780607986983}}</ref> About 1861, small
amounts of oil were discovered in streams, springs, and water
wells in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the vicinity of Moody
Gulch, about {{convert|6.5|km|mi|0|sp=us|order=flip}} south of the Los Gatos Post Office.<ref name=Stanley15>{{cite book|last1=Stanley|first1=Richard G.|title=Subsurface and Petroleum Geology of the Southwestern Santa Clara Valley ("Silicon Valley"), California|date=2002|publisher=[[U.S. Geological Survey]], [[U.S. Department of the Interior]]|location=[[Washington, D.C.]]|page=15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rFRd3wtOWcoC&q=los%20gatos%20oil%20boom&pg=PA15|access-date=October 23, 2015|display-authors=etal|isbn=9780607986983}}</ref> An intense search for oil ensued,
resulting in the drilling of many wells and establishment of
the Moody Gulch oil field.<ref name=Stanley15/><ref>{{cite book|last1=Krueger|first1=Max|title=Moody Gulch Oil Field, in Geologic Formations and Economic Development of the Oil and Gas Fields of California|date=1943|publisher=State of California Dept. of Natural Resources Division of Mines, Bulletin 118|location=San Francisco|page=477}}</ref> The
Moody Gulch oil field, however, never met expectations, and
it was abandoned sometime around 1938 after producing a total of about {{convert|98000|oilbbl|m3}} of oil
and {{convert|44|e6ft3|e6m3|abbr=unit}} of gas.<ref name=Stanley15/> In 1891, one of the Moody Gulch drillers, R.C.
McPherson, found oil in a well along San Jose Road (now Los
Gatos Boulevard) in the Santa Clara Valley flatlands, about {{convert|3|km|mi|sp=us|order=flip}} northeast of the Los Gatos Post Office.<ref name=Stanley15/> Although commercial production was never established, small amounts of oil
were produced for use as fuel, lubricant, and road tar by local
residents.<ref name=Stanley15/>