Los Gatos, California

Los Gatos (US: /lo?s 'g??to?s, l??s-/;[8][9] Spanish for "The Cats") is an
incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population
is 30,391 according to the 2013 United States Census Bureau.[10] According to
Bloomberg Businessweek, Los Gatos is ranked the 33rd wealthiest city in the United
States.[11] It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area at the southwest corner of
San Jose in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains, with a population of 41,544
as of 2017[12]. Los Gatos is part of Silicon Valley, with several high technology
companies maintaining a presence there. Notably, streaming and content creator
Netflix is headquartered in Los Gatos and has developed a large presence in the
area. It was in Los Gatos that The Bean Spray Pump Company was founded, which later
became the FMC Corporation.

Contents
1 Etymology
2 History
2.1 Overview
2.2 Rail transportation
2.3 Oil boom
3 Geography and environment
4 Economy
5 Demographics
6 Government
7 Infrastructure
8 Education
8.1 Primary and secondary schools
8.1.1 Public schools
8.1.2 Private schools
8.2 Public libraries
9 Museums
10 Outdoor Recreational Activities
11 Sister cities
12 Notable past and current residents
12.1 Actors
12.2 Artists
12.3 Athletes and coaches
12.4 Business
12.5 Musicians
12.6 Writers and journalists
12.7 Other
13 See also
14 References
15 External links
Etymology
Los Gatos is Spanish for "The Cats".[13] The name derives from the 1839 Alta
California land-grant that encompassed the area, which was called La Rinconada de
Los Gatos, ("Cat's Corner"), where "the cats" refers to the cougars and bobcats
that are indigenous to the foothills in which the town is located. The
pronunciation is often anglicized to /l??s 'g�t?s/ lawss-GAT-?s,[14] although one
also hears pronunciations truer to the original Spanish, /lo?s'g??to?s/ lohss-GAH-
tohss[citation needed].

History
Overview
The town's founding dates to the mid-1850s with the building of a flour-milling
operation, Forbes Mill, by James Alexander Forbes along Los Gatos Creek. The mill's
two-story stone storage annex has been preserved as a museum just off of Main
Street.
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
incorporated in 1887 and remained an important town for the logging industry in the
Santa Cruz Mountains until the end of the 19th century. In the early 20th century,
the town became a thriving agricultural town with apricots, grapes and prunes 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;[15] 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); and 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 beginning in the 1950s, and the town was mostly
built-out by the 1980s.

Downtown Los Gatos has retained and restored many of its Victorian-era homes and
commercial buildings. Other notable buildings are the Forbes Mill annex, dating to
1880 and now housing a history museum; 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).

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.

Recently[when?] the Main Street Bridge has emulated the Ponte des Artes bridge in
Paris by displaying love locks for anniversaries and engagements.[citation needed]

Rail transportation
Transport by rail was an early aspect of Los Gatos. The South Pacific Coast
Railroad, a popular narrow-gauge line from Alameda (and San Francisco via ferry) to
Santa Cruz in the late 19th century, stopped in Los Gatos.[16] Southern Pacific
took over this line in 1887. Los Gatos was also near the Southern Pacific resort
town of Holy City, along the rail line in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The last
Southern Pacific passenger train to Santa Cruz left Los Gatos in March 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 with service to Saratoga and San Jose. Streetcar service
via the Peninsular Railway 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.

Oil boom
Between 1891 and 1929 about 20 oil wells were drilled in and around Los Gatos,
starting a minor oil-drilling boom.[17] 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 6.5 km south of the Los Gatos Post Office.[18] An
intense search for oil ensued, resulting in the drilling of many wells and
establishment of the Moody Gulch oil field.[18][19] The Moody Gulch oil field,
however, never met expectations, and it was abandoned about 1938 after producing a
total of about 98,000 barrels of oil and 44 MMCF of gas.[18] 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 3 km northeast of
the Los Gatos Post Office.[18] Although commercial production was never
established, small amounts of oil were produced for use as fuel, lubricant, and
road tar by local residents.[18]