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Apr. 23, 2007
Categorized in: Los Gatos History
For 150 years, Spring has meant "yardwork" in the lush Santa Clara Valley, as agriculture was - and still is - important.
But the garden has some natural enemies. Roses can get rust. Trees can get infections and weep sap. And below ground, gophers can terrorize a garden.
My grandparents, Michael and Eleanor Buckley, lived just over "the hill" in Pasatiempo near Santa Cruz in their retirement years, where my grandfather presided over a half-acre brimming with lawn, shrubs, roses and fruit trees. He composted (and they recycled) back in the 60's, before it was fashionable, and the yard was the richer for the effort. Love for the garden was only just behind faith, family, country, duty, and education. And I remember granddad's language turning a little ugly when his yard became a habitat for gophers. He became a warrior against the burrows.
The Almond Grove District of Los Gatos was once an almond orchard, and it, too, was threatened by gophers from time to time. In fact, the cute critters (have you ever seen them? they are, actually, quite adorable - even as they eradicate your prized plants like something out of a bad slapstick cartoon) nearly destroyed the Almond Grove orchards more than once.With "necessity being the mother of invention" in all times, Zephyr Albert Macabee invented and patented an effective gopher trap in October of 1900 and built it at his home at 110 Loma Alta Avenue, Los Gatos. The Z.A. Macabee Gopher Trap Company was enormously successful, producing as many as 4,000 traps a week.
What is amazing, with all the developments of technology since then, is that the same trap is still being manufactured and sold today. And the descendents of Zeph Macabee are involved with it. And even more, that very same trap is still being manufactured today at the same address. Just like in 1900.
What we have here is living history.
You expect to find the same thing happening in the same place over great expanses of time in a house of worship. That's what ritual does - it is a glue throughout time of the most important things a community believes in. But you do not expect to find it in a home-based business. That is truly remarkable.
May 5th there will be a History Walk in Los Gatos. I didn't attend last year's - I think it was the first - but I do plan to attend this year's. Los Gatos is so full of history it can't all be included, but it sure would be great to have this window into the past with the gopher trap company on the tour too. Don't you think? And if not this year...maybe next?
If you'd like more information on the history of this company, a very detailed article was written just before the company's 100th anniversary (with photos). And if you'd like to order the trap, contact Ron Fink at (408) 354-4158.
At our house, we do have fruit trees and we have rose bushes. So far, we haven't needed to order the gopher trap, thanks to our black lab, Bella. Each time she sees a squirrel or bird in the yard, she nearly crashes through the glass. So I think that for now, the gophers know better. And if that changes, I know where I can go to get some help....