What a great history lesson. I grew up there riding my bike and horse on the trails. Going back to the falls and up to Cherry Flats. I remember the zoo was awesome before being moved to Kelly Park. Thank You for this ride down memory lane. We still have horses and we work with medically fragile children and vets. The Daughters Of The Golden West named us as a California Image Award Winner and we have been a Ca. Nonprofit Of The Year. Once again, Thank You❤
I grew up in that park and as an adult lived in a small cottage above the park off of Crothers Road. I was able to walk into the park at will, that was the most special time
So informative! Never knew. Even if I lived there many years. Would walk my dog into the park from my residence just above the SJ Country Club links. Have ridden my Mtn bike way up into them hills! Just a beautiful park all the way around, w major history behind it! TY so much! 👍😁👏🏻
San Jose kid here. I remember birthday parties at ARP, "Rustic Lands" day camp in the mid-60s, where I got to swim in the Natatorium, the zoo, the small arcade there where my teacher had to buy us hot dogs when the Chicken Delight delivery never showed up for our picnic, LOL, the fountain at the gazebo (the sulfur water smell, lol), riding up to the park with friends on our bikes, riding on the back of a friend's Honda trail bike and finding out that there were people who lived beyond that gated road, running up the trail to to Eagle Rock in high school, the bridge to the falls before the storms in the 80s changed the geography, good memories.
Did I miss it or was there No mention of the falls? In the 70’s as elementary school aged kids all thru High School, we’d ride bikes from our neighborhoods around Piedmont HS up thru the Perc Ponds and into the park. We’d ride up to the bridge by South Rim Trail then hike 30-45 minutes up to Alum Rock Creek Falls. Around 1980 the trail was closed and the falls were off limits. So we’d drag our bikes over the barricade, ride as far as possible, hide our bikes in the brush off the trail so rangers/cops wouldn’t see them and sneak up to falls, sometimes even hiking up to the road to Cherry Flats for a day of fishing…..Long Live 70’s & 80’s SJ.
I hiked there at least once a month. The snakes were out last month, and so were ticks. Did you know if you hike deep into the park through the stream, there's a waterfall in there?
My Great-Grandfather’s name is on that bridge, and a short time after they completed the construction of the bridge there appeared a photo of him riding the trolley from the park down Alum Rock Ave in the newspaper. He had a Win. .270 XTR rifle in one hand, that rifle is in my gun safe as I type this, and a buck he had taken up above the park. There were woman all dressed up riding the trolley with him, smiling and havin a good time…we used to have a copy of it hangin in our glass shop that was located at 1860 Alum Rock, Fontaine Glass which we owned and operated from 1957-2010…🙂👍🙂🇺🇸
