POST CARDS FROM THE PAST:
Traveling through Downtown Morgan Hill
The building on the right forefront is now Huntington Station
restaurant and was for years the Morgan Hill Times office
after being turned clockwise 90 degrees and moved east
on E. 3rd Street.
Looking from W. 2nd Street east across what was known
as the El Camino Real, Main Street, the Monterey Hwy and
Monterey St. depending on to whom you were speaking.
The Votaw Building on the left still stands as today’s GVA
Café downstairs. Southern Pacific train depot visible at the
far end of E. 2nd.
Looking south from W. 1st Street. Votaw Building visible on
the left with flag pole on top. The building on the right was
the Wards mercantile and now houses Just Breakfast on the
north/west corner of Monterey and W.2nd Street.
Looking north on Monterey from mid-block between
W. 2nd and W. 3rd Streets. Votaw building on the right.
Note wooden sidewalks, high dock to load wagons.
Some hitching posts visible.
70
Written By Michael f. Brookman
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
FALL/HOLIDAY 2019
gmhtoday.com
MICHAEL BROOKMAN
I
n 1985, I told a friend’s grandmother that I had taken a job in
Morgan Hill and would be moving here from south San Jose. I
still remember what she said: “Morgan Hill. Well, at least it’s not
Alviso!” I thought it was an odd comment. What was so bad about
either Morgan Hill or Alviso?
It was only after further conversation that I was able to put her
comment into proper context. She was born in 1900 in San Jose. Her
memories began when Morgan Hill was still Burnett Township and
Alviso was a deep-water seaport! Her images were from more than
80 years earlier; from what is now over 100 years ago.
She recalled driving down from San Jose along the El Camino Real
to see the Monarch butterflies in Pacific Grove. It was a long drive on
all a dusty, rutted dirt road that took her right through the middle of
present-day Morgan Hill. Tall trees planted on both sides of the road
gave some shade and comfort between San Jose and Morgan Hill.
I asked her what she remembered most about the journey. She
said it was thrilling to be in an open automobile going at breakneck
speeds up to 25 miles per hour. Quite a change from the Southern
Pacific Railroad, although it took a full day to make the trip by auto.
The other thing she remembered was the smell! This really took me
by surprise. I wondered if it was the cherry, apricot or other fruit
blossoms from the orchards that lined the way. But no, what she
remembered was the smell of horses. Automobiles were still a novelty
and most people travelled by horse in town and by train out of town.
Horses have no emission controls. Their output just falls when and
where it happens. Mixed with the dust of the dirt roads, kicked up
by wagons, cars, trucks and other horses on a hot day, and you can
imagine the aroma, and it was walled in by buildings along both sides
of Monterey Road in downtown Morgan Hill.I began to understand
her comment about traveling through Morgan Hill, but I wondered,
why the comparison to Alviso? Well, at low tide, it seems that the
Alviso mud flats reeked with the waste of the Guadalupe River and
Coyote Creek flowing into them. Alviso was also home of the third
largest fish cannery in the United States. Back in the day, that smell
must have been so overpowering to her that the odor of the horses
was much preferred! (Alviso was also infamous in the 1920s for
illegal gambling, liquor and brothels!)
Early postcard images of downtown Morgan Hill show the dusty,
dirty El Camino Real. If you look closely, you will see here and there
in the street, evidences of horse-powered transportation that were the
basis of those memories my friend’s grandmother had of our fair city!