Aaaaaall Aboard...

May 8, 2021 Michèle Jubilee

It’s National Train Day! These hats are just a sample of the numerous railroad related objects that NUMU has in its permanent collection. They were traditionally worn by those who drive and operate the engines, and ensure that everything runs smoothly. This now-classic style was invented in the early 1900s by train engineer George Kromer and his wife, Ida. At the time, and as baseball was increasing in popularity, George took time off from the railroad industry to play semi-professional and professional baseball. When he returned to engineering, he wore his baseball caps to work, but they didn’t quite fit his needs. So he and his wife designed a more practical cap that he could wear to work, which she made out of the blue and white pinstripe pillow ticking that she had on hand.

Los Gatos train depot, 1900. Courtesy of Los Gatos Library.

Los Gatos train depot, circa 1880. Courtesy of Los Gatos Library.

George and Ida Kromer. Courtesy of Union Pacific Railroad Museum.

The railroad industry played a large role in the development of Los Gatos, which was still a small, relatively unknown community before the Southern Pacific Coast Railroad chose the town to be the site of an important freight and passenger train depot on the line connecting the Bay Area with Santa Cruz in 1876. It took two years to build the depot, and once they were done, Los Gatos became part of a busy and thriving railroad network, attracting not only industry, but tourists as well. The Los Gatos station was also critically important as a water-refueling stop for steam locomotives about to make the trek up and over the mountains to Santa Cruz.

There is more to this history we want to explore through the Los Gatos History Project. Particularly the stories of the Chinese laborers and other under-represented communities of color who were integral to the success of the railroad industry, not only locally, but nationally as well.

-Alexandra Schindler, Collections Registrar

Train passing Los Gatos depot, 1955. Courtesy of Los Gatos Library.

Spring Cleaning!

April 15, 2021 Michèle Jubilee

Happy National Laundry Day! This unique-looking iron was used at Gem City French Laundry in the 1930s. At that time, washing machines were not as ubiquitous as they are today; they were very expensive and considered a luxury item. This meant the most practical option for many Los Gatos residents was to employ the services of Gem City French Laundry, which operated at 11 University Ave. from the 1930s to the 1960s. Established by Jacques and Therese Libante, French immigrants who came to Los Gatos via San Francisco, the couple prided themselves on the individual care they gave to their customers’ clothing and other specialty fabrics and linens - Jacques was especially proud of his custom starch formulas.

Operating a laundry service was no easy task, and this Better Laundering book, also in our collection, would have been extremely helpful to businesses like Gem City French Laundry. As it states, “the successful power laundry of today is a business of infinite detail. It must be laid out on a production basis to operate in a highly specialized and systematized manner.” The book lays out standards, methods, and formulas for everything a laundry service would need to know, from the variety of fibers and fabrics and their properties to proper rinsing techniques. It even provides advice on what laundry services can do to maintain quality amid the rationing that took place during World War II.

-Alexandra Schindler, Collections Registrar

Gem City French Laundry, 1937. Courtesy of Los Gatos Library.

Happy National Beer Day from your friends at NUMU!

April 7, 2021 Michèle Jubilee

It’s National Beer Day! If you were living in Los Gatos around 1900, you might have celebrated by pouring yourself a drink out of a bottle like this one. This bottle in our permanent collection was previously identified as a wine bottle, but upon further investigation, we found that it is, in fact, a beer bottle! This particular bottle was made by Rudolph Scherf, a San Jose resident who ran his own beer-bottling and distributing business out of his house on N. Sixth Street. Scherf worked with a variety of breweries, including the Fredericksburg Brewing Company, one of the earliest “craft” breweries in the South Bay.

Prevailing public sentiment toward beer, at the turn of the 20th century, was very different from today’s. In 1904, The Ladies’ Home Journal endorsed beer as a more suitable substitute to patent medicines, stating “A mother who would hold up her hands in holy horror at the thought of her child drinking a glass of beer, which contains from two to five per cent of alcohol, gives to that child with her own hands a patent medicine that contains from seventeen to forty-four per cent of alcohol.”

Although The Ladies’ Home Journal was partial to Budweiser - as it “contains only 3 89/100 per cent of alcohol. It is better than pure water because of the nourishing qualities of malt and the tonic properties of hops” - San Jose and the surrounding areas had a number of their own “healthy” brews, including the ones Rudolph Scherf bottled and distributed.

-Alexandra Schindler, Collections Registrar