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Chemeketa Park, Los Gatos, California

Unincorporated communities in CaliforniaUnincorporated communities in Santa Clara County, CaliforniaUse mdy dates from July 2023

Chemeketa Park is an unincorporated community of approximately 150 homes located in Lexington Hills, in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County, California, that is now effectively a rural neighborhood of Los Gatos, California. The postal designation for Chemeketa Park is "Los Gatos 95033", although it lies approximately five miles South of the official boundaries of the incorporated town of Los Gatos. The community is in area codes 408 and 669. Nearby communities are Redwood Estates, Aldercroft Heights, and the ghost town of Holy City. Chemeketa Park is accessed off of State Route 17, on Old Santa Cruz Highway along the Big Moody Curve.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Chemeketa Park, Los Gatos, California (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Chemeketa Park, Los Gatos, California
Cherokee Trail,

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N 37.1625 ° E -121.97972 °
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Cherokee Trail 17635
95033
California, United States
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Redwood Estates, California
Redwood Estates, California

Redwood Estates is a rural unincorporated community along State Route 17 in the coastal Santa Cruz Mountains in Los Gatos, California, United States. The Census Bureau includes it in a census-designated place named Lexington Hills. It lies inside the confines of Santa Clara County. The area is about eight miles from downtown Los Gatos and nine miles from the Santa Cruz County community of Scotts Valley. Nearby Summit Road is roughly the dividing line between the counties: Santa Cruz County areas being generally west of Summit Rd. The Butano Fault (also known as the Butano Rift Zone), roughly follows Summit Road through the area. The ZIP code for post office boxes in Redwood Estates is 95044, although the city and ZIP code for street delivery is Los Gatos, 95033. Street addresses are usually five digits. The U.S. Geological Survey, National Geographic Names Database, lists the NAD27 coordinates of the community as 37°09′23″N 121°59′08″W. The community is inside area code 408 while communities further west (but outside Redwood Estates) are in the coastal area code 831. The architecture of homes in the community varies widely. The roads are paved, but narrow and winding when compared to modern urban streets. While area housing prices have been buoyed by rising real estate prices in Silicon Valley, the area is quiet and informal. There are few lawns: most homes have redwood duff in the front yard. Poison oak is evident in the area. There are very few storm drains, curbs, or sidewalks. Roads are framed by vegetation and wind along the contours of the area's hills. As the name implies, the area is populated by the towering redwood trees ubiquitous to the occasionally fog-shrouded areas of the California coast. Redwood roots seem to serve as informal speed bumps on many of the narrow community roads. Business occupancies in the community include: Nonnos Italian Cafe, 21433 Broadway; Redwood Estates Store, 20121 Broadway; San Jose Water Co., Santa Clara County Fire Department Redwood Station at 21452 Madrone Dr.; and the Redwood Estates Post Office. A traffic focal point is the SR17 interchange with Madrone Drive. Summit Road has an interchange with SR17 and approximates the southern extent of the community. The area has a history with ties to railroading. Until the 1940s, a Southern Pacific Railroad line to Santa Cruz passed through Holy City east of Redwood Estates. A factor in the removal of the rail line was its high maintenance cost. The portals of three tunnels along this line were closed during World War II in case an invading military force might use them as cover.

Alma, California
Alma, California

Alma is a ghost town and drowned town in Santa Clara County in California, United States. It lies beneath the waters of the Lexington Reservoir above Los Gatos. The location is latitude 37.18N and longitude 121.98W. It was 551 feet (168 meters) above sea level.There are two different possible origins for the name of the town. The first is that the town was the location of a branch road that led to the New Almaden mine. The second, and more fanciful, origin is that the town was named after a local prostitute. The original town name registered with the Postal Service in 1861 was Lexington. It was re-registered as Alma in 1873.The town was mostly demolished when the James J. Lenihan Dam was constructed there in 1952. Alma, at the time, had a population of fewer than 100 people. The town was an important rail stop for the logging industry in the Santa Cruz Mountains as well as a stop for vacationers heading to the coast from the Santa Clara Valley. Just north of Alma was the town of Lexington, which had greatly declined by the time that dam and reservoir were constructed. Alma had a stage stop, hotel, saloons, small agricultural operations, general merchandise store, and lumber mills, as well as other establishments. The South Pacific Coast Railroad served Alma between 1880 and 1940, providing service between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz via Wrights, also known as Wrights Station or Wright's Station.Some foundational structures are only visible when the water levels drop in the reservoir, and some old roads and a bridge dating from 1926. The bridge can only be viewed when the water level is unusually low, such as the summer of 2008 when construction on the dam lowered the water level to 7% capacity. Modern day State Route 17 passes by the reservoir—beneath which lie the former towns of Lexington and Alma. A U.S. Weather Bureau cooperative weather station in Alma reported average annual rainfall of 22.60 inches (574 millimeters).

Summit, Santa Cruz County, California

Summit is a small unincorporated community more frequently referred to by locals as the Loma Prieta Community located partially in Santa Clara County but predominantly in Santa Cruz County, California, in the mountain ranges of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It lies at the summit along Highway 17 from which is gets its name. Home to a series of abandoned railroad towns and tunnels from the South Pacific Coast Railroad which operated until the 1940s, Public transportation by bus is also no longer available from the Summit Road area. VTA route 76 has been cancelled since June 2010, and the Highway 17 Express only stops in Scotts Valley. It is one of the few places in the San Francisco Bay Area to receive snowfall and the mountain pass which links the Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay is closed at this spot when snowfall is too heavy. The next town to the south is Scotts Valley and to the north Redwood Estates. The area serves as a rest stop with food for people traveling across the mountains. Before 1906, there were lakes in the area around Summit that locals used for recreation and fishing, but these lakes dried up after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake diverted their sources. The original road between Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties passed somewhat east of the current site of Summit, which came into being when California State Route 17 was constructed in the 1930s. Several businesses can be found in Summit today, most of them dating from the 1950s.Summit straddles the county line with Santa Clara County and is south of the unincorporated area of Lexington Hills with which it shares a zip code. The ZIP Code is 95033 and the community is inside area code 408.

Lexington, California

Lexington, California, is a ghost town in Santa Clara County, now submerged by the Lexington Reservoir. Originally located along Los Gatos Creek, the town was 550 feet above sea level.Lexington started out as a sawmill built in 1848 by Isaac Branham and Julian Jank. Zachariah "Buffalo" Jones bought the mill for $3000 and laid out a town called "Jones Mill". In 1860 John P. Hennings bought some of the property and changed the name to Lexington, after his home town of Lexington, Kentucky.Lexington was a stop on the stagecoach route from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz. In the 1860s, the saw mills moved up into the hills and Lexington began to lose importance. In 1880, a narrow gauge railroad from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz was completed, bypassing Lexington and accelerating its decline; its post office had already been transferred to Alma, a mile south, where the trains stopped and which was the transfer point to stagecoaches until the line was completed.The railroad ceased operations in March 1940, following major damage by a winter storm and the completion of State Route 17 that same year. When the Lexington Reservoir was created in 1952, both Lexington and Alma were officially abandoned and SR 17 was rerouted to its present location. The visible ruins under Lexington Reservoir are actually those of Alma, not Lexington; building foundations and original pavements of roads are sometimes visible during droughts. The nearby unincorporated town of Lexington Hills is a reminder of the former town; it combines several villages in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Lexington Murders was one of the most notable crimes in California during the 19th century. Three men were responsible for the brutal murders of William Peter Renowden and Archibald McIntyre in Lexington, on March 11, 1883.