Sentinel over Silicon Valley. Photo: Courtesy of Jitze Couperus

It was a clandestine military post, a mysterious mountain tower, and a secret control room filled with the blips and bleeps of sci fi-worthy technology. During the Cold War, the radar tower atop Mt. Umunhum embodied the stuff of Cold War fantasy. Besides guarding the Santa Clara Valley from Soviet bombers, the post was a catalyst for technological advances that paved the way for today’s Silicon Valley.

Yet after 22 years of protecting the valley, the long-decommissioned tower is now the subject of an impassioned debate about its future.

The boxy radar tower atop Mt. Umunhum. Photo: Basim Jaber Photography

How Silicon Valley Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Radar

By the end of World War II, the rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union had heated up enough to kick-start the Cold War. The Soviet Union detonated their first atomic bomb in 1949 and, as the former regime began annexing Eastern European countries, US officials began planning an expansive air defense system to secure the country’s perimeter. Until the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the biggest threat to American shores was airborne, nuclear-armed bombers.

In 1958, Almaden Air Force Station was founded as an early warning site at Mt. Umunhum, the fourth-highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. (If you think the Soviets didn’t have their eyes trained on the San Francisco Bay Area, take a peek at this fascinating Cold War era map.) Named for the Ohlone Indian word for “resting place of the hummingbird,” Mt. Umunhum became the site of a self-sustaining military community — complete with swimming pool and bowling alley — of 125 airmen and their families. At the center of the station, a spinning radar swept the skies for hostile aircraft.

Keeping watch at the radar tower, 1964. Photo: Basim Jaber Historic Archives

This was not the first radar in the Santa Clara Valley. Stanford University, Moffett Field naval air station, and nearby defense-funded technology firms made the valley the home of numerous radar advances and military research in the early 20th century. In the 1930s, Stanford University initiated a pioneering research park and invited Varian Associates to be its first tenant so that it could build radar components for the military.

Operations room, 1960. Photo: Basim Jaber Historic Archives

Yet when Almaden was opened, radars were still manual, isolated, and couldn’t offer the panoptic view that defense officials craved. Enter IBM’s Military Products Division. Eager to win a significant post-war military contract, the computing giant linked radars by designing the world’s first computer network, something that would herald the modern Internet.

SAGE-Topped Mountains

In 1961, The Almaden Air Force Station became part of an innovative nationwide network dubbed SAGE, for Semi-Automatic Ground Environment. Engineered by IBM, SAGE was a series of interconnected computers that captured info from radars around the nation to form one central picture of US airspace. This data was fed to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, known as NORAD, as information for a military response via jets or missiles from nearby bases.

Clouds over Mt. Umunhum. Scene from Santa Teresa County Park. Photo: Don DeBold

SAGE had the distinction of being the largest, most expensive computer system ever built and the first online network of geographically distributed computers in the world. The station atop Mt. Umunhum was one node in a network of 24 SAGE “direction centers.” The central building in each center was a windowless blast-resistant concrete behemoth. Known simply as Building 102, the center at Mt. Umunhum was topped with a massive 85-ton radar “sail” that oscillated and covered a whopping 250-mile range. Local residents soon learned to live with a regular zip of interference on radios and television screens as byproducts of the radar that stood sentinel high above the valley.

SAGE Display Scope. Photo: Joi Ito

The enormous SAGE computers filled a room and required a staff of 100 to operate. Airmen sat at round monochromatic screens, or display scopes, with pulsating lights that made Pong look cutting-edge. The SAGE computer system was captured in two time capsule-worthy films produced by IBM: A TV commercial that introduced the system to the public and “On Guard!,” a 12-minute short with a paternal narrator who reminded us that SAGE was on the job around the clock.

The real SAGE computer displayed at the Computer History Museum. This is a great museum in Mountain View. Click here for hours. Photo: Steve Jurvetson

At the Movies

SAGE didn’t just star in propaganda shorts. It made appearances in feature films, including the Cold War satire “Dr. Strangelove,” where it surrounds a frantic Peter Sellers trying to stave off nuclear Armageddon. The wheelchair-bound character of Dr. Stangelove was based on one of the architects of SAGE who was also principal member of the Manhattan Project, John von Neumann. As SAGE was dismantled, pieces were used as set props in movies such as “Lost in Space,” “Planet of the Apes,” and “War Games,” a sci fi flick that pits an unknowing hacker against a nuclear-ambitious supercomputer in Sunnyvale, California.

Open Space and the Fight for Preservation

As technologies advanced and satellites began to eclipse radars, the staff at Almaden dwindled and the station was ultimately shuttered in 1980. In 1986, it was sold to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, or Midpen, a Bay Area land preservation agency. Midpen is in the process of restoring the land to its natural state so that the previously restricted property can be enjoyed by the public as an open space preserve. In 2011, KQED detailed the restoration project in an engaging 10-minute film. The new park is scheduled to open on October 22, 2016 with interpretive trails, natural and cultural history exhibits, and sweeping top-of-the-world views.

Mt. Umunhum from Almaden Lake in San Jose. Photo: Basim Jaber Photography

Given the time-worn disrepair to the radar structure and a lack of a background in historic preservation, Midpen announced plans to demolish the iconic tower, the last remaining structure on the former air force station. In 2014, the Santa Clara Valley unexpectedly lost a similar Cold War landmark, the boxy operations center used for tracking spy satellites from the former Onizuka Air Force Station in Sunnyvale — what locals called The Blue Cube. It was demolished in 2014.

The threat to the Almaden radar tower mobilized a group of individuals to form the Umunhum Conservancy to help save the structure. Midpen agreed to halt plans to raze the tower if the conservancy could raise $1.5 million by 2017. Basim Jaber, a founding director of the conservancy and de facto historian of Almaden AFS, is a strong advocate of the tower’s preservation. In advocating for the significance of saving the atomic age icon, Basim states, “Not only did air defense technology help shape Silicon Valley, it contributed to the blanket of protection that let this valley thrive to what it is today.” Jaber brings the Almaden Air Force station back to life in vividly detailed slideshows presented every other month. Held at the Quicksilver Mining Museum, in the shadow of Mt. Umunhum, the free demonstrations are buoyed by Jaber’s extensive collection of historical photos and archives. For a schedule of upcoming slideshows, check the conservancy’s website.

The effort to save the radar tower has recently made great strides. The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted on May 10, 2016 to put it on the county’s Heritage Resource Inventory, a designation making it immune from demolition as long as the building is cared for and not falling down. The Umunhum Conservancy plans to take great care of it. As of May 2016, they have raised about $375,000 toward their $1.5 million goal.

Mt. Umunhum sunset. Photo: Dawn Ellner

Be sure and check out this Cold War gem and the surrounding hiking trails when Midpen opens the area to the public. It was scheduled to open on October 22, 2016, but has been delayed to mid-next year due to construction delays and increased costs. When it does open, Basim Jaber has graciously offered to give Mobile Ranger fans a guided hiking tour after it opens. If you are interested, please say so in the comments section that follows.

Updated October 24th, 2016

Sentinel of Silicon Valley: The Radar Tower at Mount Umunhum is Saved https://t.co/4S1tRrGmK1 @HistorySanJose pic.twitter.com/GU9oYHWuvT

— Mobile Ranger (@Mobile_Ranger) October 24, 2016

The view toward San Francisco Bay from Vista Point, 2015. Photo: Janet Schwind

The vista point parking area along Highway 35 sports a spectacular view. It’s about 8.5 miles south of Highway 84 and depending on the smog level or cloud layer, you might be able to see the entire south end of San Francisco Bay.

The 285-foot Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto, home of the Hoover Institution, can be seen from this location. Established by Herbert Hoover, this facility was used to house a library and an archive concerning issues of war, revolution, and peace. Now its scholars focus on economic opportunity and prosperity, as well as peace.

Hoover Tower, Stanford University, California. Photo: King of Hearts CC BY SA 3.0

A giant parabolic-shaped hangar can be seen to the south. It is a remnant of the time when the US Navy housed its airships at Moffett Field. Constructed in the 1930s, this landmark encompasses eight acres of land. In February 2014, NASA announced that the tech company Google had signed a $1.16 billion, 60-year lease for the Moffett Airfield. Google plans to allocate $200 million to rehabilitate the three hangars and two runways, as well as the site’s 18-hole golf course, and use the space to develop robots, rovers, and drones.

Moffett Field from the air in 2008. Hangar One is at the left of the runways in the center, and Hangars Two and Three are to the right. Photo: NASA

Downtown San Jose can also be seen from this point. Mission Peak and Mount Diablo loom above the East Bay. If you visit on a clear day, you might see the Bay Bridge and the city of San Francisco, with a backdrop of Mount Tamalpais.

Coal Creek

To the north, the Cloud’s Rest trail leads down into the Coal Creek Open Space Preserve and its network of mostly wooded trails. The preserve is named after Coal Mine Ridge. In the 1850s, settlers opened a coal mine that produced a low-grade lignite. Customers who burned the coal complained that it was oily and emitted a most unpleasant odor, so the mine had little future even before it was destroyed by a landslide.

Russian Ridge

Across Skyline Boulevard is the first of two entrances to the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve and its extensive network of trails. Wildflowers decorate the meadows in late spring.

A trail entrance to the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve across from Vista Point, March 2015. Photo: Janet Schwind

The ridge is named after a Russian family, although the family’s name has been lost over time. They leased the dairy ranch on the east side of the ridge. Later,  a small Russian Orthodox retreat center was built on the site.

From an elevation of 2,572 feet atop Borel Hill, you can gain even more of a bird’s eye view than from Vista Point. When the fog recedes from the coast, you can see a great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Locals love to inform gullible visitors that you can see all the way to Hawaii from here.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the South Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35) Tour made possible by Janet Schwind and the Skyline Historical Society. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

Replica of first integrated circuit by Jack Kilby. Photo: Florian Schäffer CC BY-SA 4.0

The integrated circuit might not inspire the same level of excitement as other tech breakthroughs, such as Facebook or the iPhone, but the impact of its invention was just as far-reaching, if not more so. You don’t need an engineering degree to understand how it changed everyday life. In fact, if you’re reading this on a smartphone, tablet, or laptop, you’re benefiting from the integrated circuit.

The first commercially viable integrated circuit was invented in Silicon Valley and was fundamental to both naming the region and making it today’s powerhouse of technical invention. Two plaques at the entrance to the former site of the Fairchild Semiconductor building in Palo Alto, California pay homage to the circuit’s significance.

Former Fairchild Semiconductor building at 844 Charleston Road, Palo Alto, California. The historical markers are  to the right of the door shown in the center of the photo. Photo: Garrick Ramirez/Mobile Ranger

Closeup of the two historical markers at the right of the door in the center of the photo. Photo: Garrick Ramirez/Mobile Ranger

OK, But What Is an Integrated Circuit?

An integrated circuit is an interconnected series of electronic components that are fitted onto a plate the size of a fingernail. It’s also referred to by the more familiar term, the microchip. Integrated circuits are at the heart of most electronics. They perform the core functions of everyday devices, such as smartphones, cars, and ATMs. A microprocessor, the virtual brain inside a computer, is one example of an integrated circuit.

The introduction of the integrated circuit was revolutionary because it made both personal computing and handheld electronics possible. Before integrated circuits, computers filled rooms that resembled a digital Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. For the first half of the 20th century, most electronics functioned on bulky vacuum tubes until the smaller and more efficient transistor was invented. The shift to transistors shrunk circuit boards significantly but not enough to make something like a handheld calculator possible. That all changed with the integrated circuit.

Robert Noyce with Motherboard, 1959. Photo: Intel Free Press CC BY SA 2.0

The Revolution Began with the Traitorous Eight

The story starts with the Traitorous Eight. What sounds like the title of a Quentin Tarantino flick refers instead to eight employees of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Mountain View, California who fled to form their own semiconductor company in 1957. Word on the street was that owner William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, was a genius but a less-than-personable boss. The eight men christened their nascent company Fairchild Semiconductor and formalized the partnership by adding their signatures to a set of newly minted one dollar bills.

The Fairchild/Shockley 8, who left the lab of Nobel Prize winner William Shockey to form Silicon Valley’s first start-up, Fairchild Semiconductor, 1960. From left to right: Gordon Moore, C. Sheldon Roberts, Eugene Kleiner, Robert Noyce, Victor Grinich, Julius Blank, Jean Hoerni, and Jay Last. Photo: Wayne Miller © Magnumphotos.com, used with permission

It was at Fairchild that the current model for the microchip was invented. Robert Noyce, one of the Traitorous Eight, created what was referred to as a monolithic integrated circuit. Rather than a traditional circuit, where individual components — transistors, resistors, and diodes — sat atop a large plate, linked by wires, Noyce’s integrated circuit was one self-contained plate. Using a semiconductor, a substance of exceptional insulation and conductivity, the components were fabricated from and within the plate itself. This enabled the circuit to be much smaller and much faster. For his integrated circuit, Noyce used silicon, the primary element in sand and the material still used to produce microchips. It’s also the substance that eventually redefined the Santa Clara Valley.

Silicon Proves More Fruitful Than Peaches

In the early 20th century, the Santa Clara Valley was blanketed in fruit orchards that supplied the nation with most of its apricots, prunes, and peaches. Long before Apple and Google, the big names in the valley were Del Monte and Sunsweet. But after the rise of Fairchild, the number of semiconductor manufacturers began to proliferate. Many of those companies were formed by former Fairchild employees.

Prune Orchard Near Santa Clara, California. Photo: Oregon State University Special Collections & Archives

So influential was Fairchild that employees who left to form other companies were dubbed The Fairchildren. Noyce and his associate Gordon Moore eventually left Fairchild to start Intel, which later developed the first commercially viable microprocessor. By 1971, the number of semiconductor manufacturers in the Santa Clara Valley had grown so prevalent that journalist Don Hoefler referred to the region as “Silicon Valley USA,” and the name stuck. Noyce was even called “The Mayor of Silicon Valley.”

The Nobel Prize Goes to Who?

The historical markers at the entrance of the former Fairchild Building in Palo Alto commemorate Noyce’s groundbreaking feat. But the real credit that counts for the invention of the integrated circuit, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2000 for “basic work on information and communication technology,” went to Jack Kilby, not Robert Noyce.

There’s a story behind that, too, of course: In 1958, roughly six months before Noyce’s discovery, Kilby invented the first integrated circuit when he was a new employee of Dallas-based Texas Instruments. But due to vulnerable wiring and the use of germanium as a semiconductor, Kilby’s circuit was judged commercially unviable. Fairchild and Texas Instruments duked it out for years over the claim to the technology but finally settled upon Kilby and Noyce as co-inventors. Kilby took home the part of the 2000 Nobel Prize relating to integrated circuits, but Kilby did mention Noyce in his acceptance speech.

So Much Moore Than Before

Although Noyce’s pioneering model is still used today, the capacity of microchips has grown exponentially. In 1965, Noyce’s colleague, Gordon Moore, famously predicted that the number of transistors and corresponding processing power in a circuit would double roughly every year for 10 years. In 1975 he revised it to every two years. Although Moore made the prediction partly to encourage more sales of Fairchild Semiconductor chips, the engineers at Fairchild made it a goal to make sure Moore was right.

Moore’s Law says that the number of transistors that can fit into a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years, which doubles the processing capacity. It is named after a prediction by Gordon E. Moore, co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. The transistor numbers trend chart shows major central processing units (CPUs) 1970 – 2011. Graph: shigeru23 CC BY SA 3.0

Moore’s prediction, which came to be known as Moore’s Law, was  prescient well beyond a few decades. In 1959, Noyce’s circuit contained one transistor. Today, microchips contain hundreds of millions.

Moffett Field from the air in 2008. Hangar One can be seen in the left center and Hangars Two and Tree in the right center. Photo credit: NASA.

Looking out over Silicon Valley, the airstrips of Moffett Field and its three gigantic hangars are a defining feature. The airfield is a bastion of open space surrounded by dense urbanity to the west and salt ponds and the bay to the east. If you drive by it along Highway 101, your eye naturally finds Hangar One. Oddly beautiful, it stands apart from Hangars Two and Three and conjures up a sense of hugeness, achievement, and possibility. Built in 1932 to house the Navy’s cutting edge lighter-than-air rigid airship, the USS Macon, Hangar One is the icon of Moffett Field and a symbol of pioneering aeronautical achievement in the 20th century.

You might have noticed that Hangar One looks different since 2011. This change in appearance was quite a catalyst for other significant changes.

The USS Macon in flight near Hangar One, 1933. Photo credit: NASA

Decades-long Dilemma: What to Do with Hangar One?

Heavy airfield use and related high costs for upkeep nearly shut Moffett Field down on numerous occasions throughout the six decades that it served the Navy as Naval Air Station Moffett Field. It officially closed as a Naval operation in 1994, when it was turned over to NASA Ames Research Center and renamed Moffett Federal Airfield.

Since that time, there has been near continuous evaluation of the fate of the airfield, and Hangar One in particular, by various federal agencies and commissions. The 1994 Moffett Field Comprehensive Use Plan found Moffett Field to be an important federal asset, as did all the other commisssions and committees over the years.

Hangar One in 1992. It looked pretty much like this for 78 years. Photo: NASA Ames Research Center

In 2003, plans to turn Hangar One into a space and science center were put on hold when polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) was discovered to be leaking from its metal exterior. The Navy was still responsible for the environmental remediation, and its price tag of tens of millions of dollars. Initially, the Navy decided just to remove the metal skin and then demolish Hangar One. This prompted an outcry from local politicians, history preservation groups, and local residents who all wanted to save the Silicon Valley icon.

Graphic on the website of SaveHangarOne.org, founded in 2005. Photo: Courtesy of SaveHangarOne.org

In May 2008, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Hangar One as one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places. In its news release about the designation, they wrote that the Navy would probably be compelled to complete the remediation but then leave the skeletal frame exposed to the elements to avoid costly restoration. They were right.

Public Protests the Navy’s Plans

In 2011, the Navy began stripping the interior and exterior PCB-laden metal covering of Hangar One at a cost of $25 million. They had no intention of refurbishing the building, but they sprayed the remaining metal skeleton with a coating to protect it from the elements.

Meanwhile, three Google executives, chairman Eric Schmidt and co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, had been leasing Moffett Field’s Hangar 211 for a fleet of private jets since 2007. In October 2011, while Hagar One was still being stripped, they offered NASA $33 million via their company called H211 LLC, to pay for Hangar One’s restoration. In return, they wanted two-thirds of Hangar One’s floor space set aside for eight private jets. NASA could use the rest of the hangar floor area and the space above it.

NASA apparently did not respond to their offer. Perhaps it was because of previous cries of favoritism to Google that resulted because their lease of Hangar 211 was never put up for bid, and they might have purchased jet fuel at a much-reduced cost. Regardless of the reason, the local community saw H211’s offer as the last best hope to save Hangar One.

Hangar One while the outer skin was being removed, 2011. Photo: NASA

In late 2011, Congresswoman Anna Eshoo motivated 21 members of Congress, representatives of the cities of Sunnyvale and Mountain View, and several other interested groups to communicate with Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator, and implore him to accept H211 LLC’s lease offer. With such a viable solution so close, Bolden’s April 12, 2012 written response to Anna Eshoo did not go over well. Bolden replied that “…because NASA has determined that these properties no longer have a mission need and are therefore excess to the Agency, NASA’s Enhanced Use Lease Authorities are not available for these properties.” This incited a firestorm of local outrage and political maneuvering to bring the fate of hangar One and Moffett Field to the attention of all levels of the federal government.

April 27, 2012 letter from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and 10 other members of Congress to the Honorable Rob Nabors, then White House Director of Legislative Affairs. The letter expresses profound concern about NASA Administrator Charles Bolden’s plan to declare Moffett Field and Hangar One as excess property. Source: Navydocs.org

Just Google it

By mid-2013, thanks to Congressional pressure, it was decided that NASA could negotiate a lease after all. An official NASA request for proposal (RFP) to lease the entire 1000-acre Moffet Federal Airfield (including Hangars One, Two, and Three) was issued in October 2013. A $500,000 cashier’s check was required as a bid deposit (returnable to any non-successful bidders).

Hangar One with its rafters exposed and artfully lit, 2013. Photo: NASA

In February 2014, NASA announced that Google’s proposal won and the company had signed a $1.16 billion, 60-year lease for Moffett Field. The runner-up was Orton Development Inc. of Emeryville, California, which specializes in building renovation and reuse. Google plans to allocate $200 million to rehabilitate the three hangars and two runways, as well as the site’s 18-hole golf course.

As of early 2016, Google is testing three methods for removing the coating that the Navy applied to the frame of Hangar One to prevent corrosion. Some contaminants remain under the coating, and the goal is to remove them before replacing the skin and renovating the hangar. According to Lenny Siegel of SaveHangarOne.org, who is also the recipient of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s 2011 Award for Citizen Excellence in Community Involvement, Google is also in the process of seeking approval for their planned work. According to Siegel, the most significant approval will likely come from the State Historic Preservation Office.

Google intends to use the three renovated hangars as research facilities for robotics and other developing technology. It’s not clear where their eight private jets will go, but cutting edge technology will again be housed in Moffett Field’s Hangar One.

Hangar One in 2014. Photo: NASA

Skylonda is not an official town, but warrants a sign anyway. There are several variations in the spelling. Photo courtesy Janet Scwind.

The community of Skylonda is a hidden treasure amongst the winding curves and dense redwood forests of La Honda Road and Highway 35. The locally renowned Alice’s Restaurant is located there as are the Skywood Center and a real estate office you can find out how Silicon Valley tech investors have driven up land prices.

Giant Redwood Trees of California. Oil on Canvas by Albert Bierstadt, 1874.

They Came for the Redwoods

The redwoods were key to development of this area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Early timber cutters, beginning in the Spanish mission era, found redwoods in what is now nearby Woodside and Portola Valley. Later, Yankee woodsmen followed a diminishing supply of redwood timber up the steep slope to the summit and down over into La Honda. The lumber had to be transported to local mills and then to the port of Redwood City on San Francisco Bay. Several turnpikes were built to serve the timber mills, the ranching community, and to transport tourists to the coast. Old La Honda Road to the south is a remnant of the turnpike era. In 1914 a new La Honda Road, which became state route 84, replaced them. In 1929, the junction of the two state highways became an important crossroads when Skyline Boulevard (state route 35) passed through on its way along the summit from San Francisco.

The intersection of Skyline Boulevard and Highway 84 to La Honda.

A Community Forms

The Chapman family who owned the surrounding timberland, took advantage of the new highways and filed a series of subdivisions under the names of “Sky L’Onda,” “Sky-Londa,” and “Sky Londa,” combining the names of Skyline and La Honda. The lots, about one quarter acre in size, were marketed to middle class families in San Francisco. The down payment was low, and with the right financing, a log cabin could be built for only $750. More affluent city dwellers had already established large estates nearby. By 1932 there were about 60 summer cabins that could, if you were hardy, be used in the winter. The community grew as more lots were sold, and a mutual water company was formed. Today, most of the cabins have been remodeled and updated into permanent residences for commuters to the Santa Clara Valley.

A portion of a realtor’s promotional flyer for lots and cabins at Sky-Londa, 1932. Courtesy of Joyce and Ed Rosenstiel.

Not the Alice’s Restaurant

The first commercial building at Skylonda was a small store that predated the state highways. It catered to the local logging community. In the 1960s, Alice Taylor opened a coffee shop in the little building now called Alice’s Restaurant. There is no relationship to Alice Brock and her Massachusetts restaurant made famous by Arlo Guthrie’s famous 1967 song of the same name.

Alice’s Restaurant at Skylonda is a gathering place for tourists and locals alike, 2015.

Nevertheless, the several owners over the years kept the name because it was good for business. Motorists who grew up in the ‘60s can’t help but remember the song and tend to stop and eat. The Kerr brothers, the present owners, went so far as to install a “Group W Bench.” For those not familiar with the Vietnam War protest song, this bench was the place at the army recruiting center where you were sidelined if you had ever committed a crime. Songwriter Guthrie and his buddy landed there because they had been fined $50 for illegally dumping garbage, and thus evaded the draft during the Vietnam War – according to the song (and movie) anyway.

The Group W bench at Alice’s Restaurant in Skylonda.

The Skywood Center

Across Skyline Boulevard one finds the newer Skywood Center, which is within the Town of Woodside. The center was completed in 1950 by Joseph Stadler and his nephew, Ralph Oswald. The low ranch style complex has housed a series of restaurants, a coffee shop, real estate offices, and the Skywood Market.

The Skywood Center at Skylonda in 1960. Photo courtesy Janet Schwind.

The market, formerly a general store, now specializes in food and offers a deli counter for picnickers. It also sells gas, as does Alice’s across the way. To the northeast of the Skywood Center lies the subdivision of Skywood Acres where the country lots, ranging from one to ten acres, purposefully snake around the largest redwood trees.

The Skywood Center at Skylonda in 2015.

Take the Self-Guided Mobile Tour

This piece is part of the South Skyline Boulevard (Highway 35) Tour by the Skyline Historical Society. Download the free app with many tours of the Santa Cruz area and beyond.

Much of the information in this tour comes from a book called The South Skyline Story by Janet Schwind and the Skyline Historical Society, 2014. It is a well written, fun and informative read from the Native Americans, through the early loggers and ranchers, commune dwellers, wine makers, conservationists and homebuilders. You can get a copy at Alice’s Restaurant in Skylonda (the junction of Highways 35 and 84) or by contacting Skyline History President Chuck Schoppe, email: chuck_sch@hotmail.com or phone: 408-867-9229.

1. Sources Used

   • The South Skyline Story. Janet Schwind and the Skyline Historical Society. 2014.

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]]> /blog/highway-35-alice-in-skylonda-land/feed/ 14 /blog/san-andreas-and-the-linear-lakes-of-californias-i-280/ /blog/san-andreas-and-the-linear-lakes-of-californias-i-280/#respond Thu, 27 Aug 2015 13:48:04 +0000 /?p=4414 The 7.44 million people of the San Francisco Bay Area live surrounded by several large faults within the active San Andreas Fault System. Most of us who live here are very aware of this and are even survivors of the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake centered near Santa Cruz. We know the next big quake is a huge potential bummer that will one day happen. Some of us prepare with stored food, water and first aid, some don’t — but we all get over the fear and live our lives. The evidence of the faults and the impact of millions of years of plates grinding past each other is pretty easy to find if you go looking. My favorite proof lies along a beautiful stretch of Interstate 280 in San Mateo County.

Photo is courtesy of and © MultiRotorCam.com. Check out his stunning aerial videos.

One way to cope with the threat of earthquakes: poke fun at it with a t-shirt!

Linear For A Reason

There is a sign along I-280 that declares it as the World’s Most Beautiful Highway (see it here). While I-280 does not make Fox News’ list of the World’s 10 most beautiful Highways, I agree with the sign. I often commute on this highway and am always amazed at the rolling greenery and sparse development along this freeway that serves so many. One beautiful and very striking feature is a series of long, linear lakes that parallel I-280 for about 7 miles. Their shape is no coincidence. The main trace of the San Andreas Fault runs right under these lakes.

Map of the San Andreas Fault and other major faults in San Mateo County, California. Image adapted from USGS Open-File Report 2005-1127.

There are two bodies of water that clearly define the main trace of the San Andreas Fault, San Andreas Lake and the Crystal Springs Reservoir. Both were created in the late 1800’s by the Spring Valley Water Company to supply drinking water to San Francisco. The first dam, constructed in 1869, created San Andreas Lake which had been a small natural lake known as a sag pond. Sag ponds form along fault zones because the grinding of the rocks over millennia make the bedrock less permeable, allowing water to pond. However, these reservoirs were built long before anyone knew what a sag pond was or about the San Andreas Fault System and its impacts!

Crystal Springs Reservoir contains two dams. The first one was built in 1877 to create Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir and the second was built in 1888 to create Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir. The second dam, however, effectively impounds water from the watersheds of both lakes so the first dam became a causeway (today’s Highway 92) between the two lakes. In 1924, culverts were installed through this first dam to allow water to flow freely between the upper and lower reservoirs.

Water From the Sierra!

Beyond being clear harbingers of a major fault system these two lakes are also unique because most of the water they store doesn’t come from within their natural watersheds. They are the end of the line for water transported via the 167-mile Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct. Completed in 1934, the aqueduct moves water from the peaks of Yosemite National Park in the high Sierra, across the Central Valley and ends by putting water into Crystal Springs Reservoir at the site of the Pulgas Water Temple (click for a great video and history). The two lakes are connected by tunnels and pumps so water from Hetch Hetchy can be stored in Crystal Springs Reservoir or San Andreas Lake.

Map of the Hetch Hetchy Project which in 1934 began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco. Map by Shannon1.

Dams Survive Two Big Quakes!

Built in the 19th century with no knowledge of the mighty fault beneath, and on top of some rather fractured bedrock, all three dams in this reservoir system survived the large magnitude 1906 San Francisco and 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquakes. The 1906 quake actively cut through Crystal Springs Reservoir, San Andreas Lake, and the stream valley that connects the two bodies of water. The oldest Upper Crystal Springs Dam (current Highway 92) was actually offset 8 feet (the west side went north) but, amazingly, held. The offset has been removed by repairs over the years. The Lower Crystal Springs Reservoir was undamaged even though the fault rupture was less than 1,000 feet away. Finally, at the San Andreas Dam there was 8 feet of movement immediately to the east of the dam, again with no compromise to the dam! The fact that these three dams survived so close to the 1906 rupture zone and then again survived the 1989 Loma Prieta Quake when they were all over 100 years makes these lakes even more incredible.

The causeway on highway 92 across Crystal Springs Reservoir. It was offset 8 feet (with the west side going north) buy the 1906 earthquake. Since then the causeway has been rebuilt and the offset can no longer be seen.

This monument along San Andreas Dam was installed in 1991 and marks the area that underwent 8 feet of displacement.

San Andrés Forgive Us Our Misspellings

Perhaps you have noted that San Andreas Lake has the same name of the fault I am making so much of? Again this is no coincidence! The San Andreas Fault takes its name from the very same lake. When the Spring Valley Water Company built the San Andreas Dam in 1869, the dam, reservoir and lake were called San Andrés. The name derives from the first Spaniards in Alta California. Gaspar de Portola’s expedition camped above present day San Andreas Lake on November 4th, 1769. Four years later on November 30th, 1773, several from the expedition returned to the site and named the area Cañada de San Andrés after the name of the saint whose feast day it was. The name became established and was seen on late 18th century Spanish maps of the area.

Corruption of the Spanish spelling seems to have started around the 1850s with the change from San Andrés to San Andreas. The accent on the e was intermittently (though often) used through the 1890s and even had occasional use from holdouts through the mid-1960s. The main switch seems to be due to University of California geology professor Andrew Cowper Lawson, who started calling the valley that drained San Mateo Creek the the San Andreas Valley in a published paper in 1893. He was a respected geologist and trained generations of students about what came to be called the San Andreas Rift Valley after the clear offsets from the 1906 quake.

Plaque above San Andreas Lake commemorating the camping spot of Gaspar de Portola’s expedition on November 4th, 1769.

Further Information

If you want to take a hike between San Andreas Lake and Crystal Springs Reservoir and see evidence of movement from the 1906 quake check out the book Geologic Trips: San Francisco and the Bay Area by Ted Konigsmark. He has a guide to where to hike and what to look for. The book, along with other great geologic tours can be found at his website Geologic Trips.

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1. Sources Used

   • San Francisco Bay Area Wikipedia.
   • Interstate 280 (California) Wikipedia.
   • A History of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy System. San Francisco Public Utilities Commission; 2005.
   • Chapter 2: Existing Regional Water System. San Francisco Public Utility Commission Water System Improvement Program EIR, Case No. 2005.0159E; ESA Orion / 203287; 2007.
   • Geologic Trips: San Francisco and the Bay Area. Ted Konigsmark. GeoPress Gualala California; 1998.
   • The San Andreas and San Greogorio Fault Systems in San Mateo County: Selected Field Trip Destinations in the Northern California Santa Cruz Mountains and Along the Coast. By Philip W. Stoffer. USGS Open-File Report 2005-1127.

]]> /blog/san-andreas-and-the-linear-lakes-of-californias-i-280/feed/ 0 /blog/the-pulgas-water-temple-and-the-hetch-hetchy-water-system/ /blog/the-pulgas-water-temple-and-the-hetch-hetchy-water-system/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2015 00:13:01 +0000 /?p=3124 The Pulgas Water Temple sits in striking contrast to the coastal oak woodland that surrounds it in Redwood City, California. A huge stone structure, it’s majestic and very neoclassical-lofty. It’s pretty cool in an over-the-top 1960s epic historical movie kind of way. I half expected Julius Caesar and Cleopatra to come walking across the water of the sky blue reflecting pool, climb the formal stone steps of the circular temple, and loudly proclaim the magnificence of the flowing water for the people of the Nile River Delta.

This is exactly the feeling that the temple builders were going for. The Pulgas Water Temple was designed to be a grandiose monument to the wide-ranging achievements culminating in the Hetch Hetchy water system. It marks the end of the 167-mile Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. The aqueduct moves water from the majestic peaks of Yosemite National Park in the high Sierra Nevada mountain range across the parched Central Valley of California to the San Francisco Bay Area. The system involves more than 60 miles of tunnels and several reservoirs and pump stations.

The full inscription on the Pulgas Water Temple reads “I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people.” Isaiah 43:20. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The temple is at the southern edge of the Upper Crystal Springs Reservoir, which is one of a system of four reservoirs built between 1865 and 1888 by the Spring Valley Water Company to provide water for San Francisco. It straddles the spot where waters from the Tuolumne River watershed mix with local water within the San Francisco and Peninsula watersheds.

Century-long Controversy over Moving Water to San Francisco

Acquiring the necessary land, capital, and permits for the Hetch Hetchy water system required not only impressive feats of structural engineering but also feats of political maneuvering and deft public relations. The story begins in the 1880s when San Francisco’s leaders realized they needed more water than their local watersheds could provide.

Bringing water west from the Sierra was an idea that had started as early as the 1860s when a former Spring Valley Water Company employee decided to try to bring Sierra water to both the Central Valley and the Nevada desert for irrigation. Although he had little success, the idea took root of moving water across huge distances, not to mention challenging geography.

In 1882, getting water to San Francisco from the Tuolumne River watershed was seen as a real possibility, so numerous investigations and several studies were conducted. In 1900, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) recommended the Hetch Hetchy Valley, at the headwaters of the Tuolumne River, as the best source for San Francisco’s water supply. It was during this time, in 1890, that Congress established Yosemite National Park, which includes the Hetch Hetchy Valley.

View across Hetch Hetchy Valley, early 1900s, before the O’Shaughnessy Dam was built. Photo: Isaiah West Taber, Sierra Club Bulletin, Vol. VI, No. 4, January 1908.

James Phelan, then the mayor of San Francisco, was so convinced that Tuolumne water was essential that he and city engineers privately funded surveys and filed for water rights as private citizens. From past experience with the Spring Valley Water Company, they were afraid that if what San Francisco was up to became known, private investors would move in for a profiteering land grab.

San Francisco’s first attempt to secure a permit from the US Department of Interior to develop Hetch Hetchy, in 1903, was denied by E. A. Hitchcock, who was then Secretary of the Interior. Major issues concerned whether he had the authority to approve such a permit and the fact that Hetch Hetchy was in a national park.

The next 10 years were a decade of fierce political maneuvering and hardball plays by the City of San Francisco, which wanted to develop Hetch Hetchy, as well as other water companies that wanted to sell San Francisco a different water system (getting water from other Sierra watersheds: the American and Consumnes), irrigation districts in the Toulomne watershed that also wanted rights to the water, and the legendary John Muir and the Sierra Club who wanted to save Hetch Hetchy Valley from being dammed.

The city applied for another development permit in 1905 and was again turned down. In early 1906, the city supervisors voted to abandon the Hetch Hetchy project. But the 1906 earthquake quickly changed their minds. The quake caused fires that burned for days, and the failure of the water system to provide enough water to fight the fires became fuel to reignite the city’s commitment to secure water rights to Hetch Hetchy.

In 1907, the city began courting the latest Secretary of Interior, James R. Garfield. The Sierra Club, which formed in 1892, saw what the city was trying to do and began a serious campaign to save Hetch Hetchy Valley. When the city applied for a permit again in 1908, Garfield approved it but only conditionally. He stipulated that Lake Eleanor, a much smaller water source, had to be developed first, before they could develop Hetch Hetchy Valley, the real prize.

Map of the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct, which began to deliver water 167 miles west to San Francisco in 1934. Map:  Shannon1

In 1910, San Francisco began development of Lake Eleanor but insisted that it needed to develop Hetch Hetchy at the same time. In response, the opposition successfully lobbied the new Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, to visit Hetch Hetchy Valley himself and reopen the issue. Ballinger forced the city to show cause why they truly needed to develop Hetch Hetchy Valley and to again investigate alternatives. He also created a special Board of Army Engineers to investigate the issue.

In 1911, Ballinger resigned due to poor health. In 1912, the next Secretary of the Interior, Walter L. Fisher, convened more hearings. In 1913, the Board of Army Engineers recommended approving the project. Fisher then backpedaled by deciding that he did not have the regulatory authority to grant such a permit after all and declared that it would require an act of Congress.

Final approval for the project came down to the 1913 Raker Act. Testimony in the Senate became national in scope, with letters and newspapers from coast to coast weighing in on the issue. The act passed on December 6, 1913, probably because on December 2, William Randolph Hearst created a 16-page Washington edition of the San Francisco Examiner in support of its passage and put it on every Senator’s desk. After winning, the city started work on damming Hetch Hetchy within four months.

Pulgas Water Temple: Grand Finale to an Epic Battle

Twenty years later, the first rush of water from Hetch Hetchy Reservoir came through the Pulgas Water Temple. The assembled dignitaries proclaimed the achievement and reminded San Franciscans how much safer the city was from future earthquake fires with this new reliable water supply. It turns out the dignitaries were assembled around only a temporary temple that was an exact replica of the Sunol Water Temple built in 1910.

Dignitaries surround the temporary temple to celebrate water from the Hetch Hetchy water system coming to San Francisco, October 28, 1934. No one seems to know exactly what happened to this temporary structure. Photo: Onsite interpretive sign, Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The permanent temple was built in 1938 and, like the Sunol temple, was designed in the Beaux Arts style. The idea for both temples was to reflect the architecture of ancient Greeks and Romans whose engineering inspired the new water systems. For decades, the Hetch Hetchy water actually went through the Pulgas Water Temple. Stories abound of people jumping down into the temple and riding the waters through the tunnel into the reservoir. Whether these tales are true or urban legend is unclear, but in 2004, such a feat became impossible when the main water water flow was diverted to a treatment plant. Now, water that flows through the temple is just a small, symbolic amount and clearly flows to pipes.

The Sunol Water Temple. The first Pulgas Water Temple was an exact replica. Photo: Courtesy of Ike9898

Some of the details on the ornate Beaux Arts style of the Pulgas Water Temple. Photo: Julia Gaudinski/Mobile Ranger

The Fight Isn’t Over Yet

The Sierra Club has never forgotten Hecth Hetchy Valley. Beginning with a 1955 movie called Two Yosemites, they portray the Hetch Hetchy water system as a mistake. That opinion has gained a lot of traction since 1970 when the Sierra Club first began calling for O’Shaughnessy Dam, the dam that impounds Hetch Hetchy Valley, to be removed and the valley to be restored.

In 1999, the organization called Restore Hetch Hetchy was formed by a consortium of environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, to intensify lobbying for that goal. They have been so successful that, in 2012, San Francisco residents were asked to vote on Proposition F, which would have required the the City of San Francisco to evaluate how to drain and restore the Hetch Hetchy Valley and to identify replacement water and power sources. However, only 23% voted in favor, so that initiative failed.

Restore Hetch Hetchy advocates contend that numerous studies have shown the idea is feasible. They are regrouping and plan to continue the nearly 100-year fight. You can watch their short Restore Hetch Hetchy video on YouTube.

Restore Hetch Hetchy logo

1. Sources Used

   <i>The Battle Over Hetch Hetchy: America's Most Controversial Dam and the Birth of Modern Environmentalism</i>, by Robert W. Righter. Oxford University Press, 2006.

   <i>A History of the Municipal Water Department & Hetch Hetchy System</i>, by San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. San Francisco Water and Power, 2005.

   Chapter 2: Existing Regional Water System. San Francisco Public Utility Commission Water System Improvement Program EIR, Case No. 2005.0159E. ESA+ Orion / 203287, 2007.

   <i>Local Girl Makes History: Exploring Northern California’s Kitsch Monuments</i>, by Dana Frank. City Lights Foundation Books, 2007.

   Hetch Hetchy: Timeline of the Ongoing Battle over Hetch Hetchy . Sierra Club website.

   Sunol Water Temple. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., December 2015.

   Hetch Hetchy. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., March 2016.

    

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