The Great California Outdoors: Alum Rock Park

Alum Rock Park***

Top Locations:  
1. Hot Springs Ruins
2. Eagle Rock
3. Penitencia Creek
4. Alum Rock Backcountry

Time for Visiting: 1-4 hrs
Distance: ~13km
Cost: $0 (Parking Residential), $10 (For Parking)
Best Season: Spring, Fall
Bring: Camera, hiking boots, water
Difficulty:  Moderate- : Paved or dirt roads, flat trails running along Penitencia Creek, elevated trails going into the hills.

Introduction
When farmers first visited the area what is now the park, they encountered rocks glistening in the sun.  Thinking that it was alum, the area was called Alum Rock. The shiny rock was actually thenardite, and no alum is present in Alum Rock Park.  

Alum Rock Park is one of the oldest city parks in California, and for decades has been a popular picnic spot for the Santa Clara Valley locals. The park was established 1866 as "the Reservation", courtesy of the state, and the City of San Jose devoted great expense to build a narrow 11km brick road to the park.   This turned out to be beneficial, as people soon got interested in a geothermically active spot in the Creek.  In the 1870s Alum Rock Park became a popular hot springs resort, with some 21 springs that were linked to bath houses and a large swimming pool popularized by the people of Victorian San Jose. A flood in 1911 destroyed most of the buildings, but popularity continued through WWI and WWII by troops posted in nearby military bases. The 1950s was the peak of the park, with thousands of visitors partaking in the rides, zoos, dance pavilion and the baths.  As the park grew seedy, visitation declined, and eventually most of the amusement park attractions were torn down in the 1970s. Alum Rock has been partially restored to its natural state.  The El Nino floods of 2000 destroyed the main road to Alum Rock Park, leaving only the roundabout Penitencia Entrance open, which had the benefit of leaving the park much less visited than would be expected.


To Visit 

From Downtown San Jose,take HWY 280E.  HWY 280 becomes HWY 680. Exit East at McKee Road. Make a left at Capitol Expressway. Turn right at Penitencia Creek Rd and drive to the end. The Penitencia Entrance has a pay booth, but if you turn right at the Rock Canyon Circle you can usually find a sidewalk parking spot for free.  Be careful walking the 320m to the park entrance.  An alternative (the original) route is to take Alum Rock Avenue until the very end, find a location to park, and then take the Service Road 0.6km to the Railroad Bridge and Alum Rock.

From the Penitencia Entrance, take the Penitencia Creek Trail on the right, which winds along the namesake creek. As you work your way through the rocky area of the trail, note the bridge near which Penitencia Road curves around the canyon.

This was once the site of what was known as the Alum Rock Meteor, a massive rock that may or may not have actually been a meteor. For decades, the "meteor" was a popular tourist attraction for the park.  Then WWI broke out, and the meteor was found to contain manganese, important in some forms of steel production.  Seeing a profit-making opportunity, the City of San Jose sold the 2000-ton rock to a miner for $22,000.  Only when the miner had destroyed the rock, he only managed to extract out 39 tons and went bankrupt, leaving the city with nothing.

So it goes.

Though the trail starts out in an exposed, rocky area, it quickly descends into the riparian forest. Penitencia Creek was originally quite swampy and mosquito-laden, but after the creek was dammed upstream in the 1900s, it now runs year-round.

After about 1.3km, the trail comes out at a parking lot/picnic area. 

From the picnic area, the path diverges to the North across the road.  If you continue North uphill, there is the route to Eagle Rock, while to the East the trail continues towards the hot springs. If you decide to continue East, you will cross back over the road, but on top of an old 1913 concrete railroad bridge. This bridge was one of a second set of railroads that took San Jose visitors to the park.  The first, the narrow-gauge Alum Rock Railroad, which connected from Downtown San Jose to the area in front of the gazebo.  Its short life was marred by an accident where a train flipped, killing two people, and another where a kid stuck his head out of a window right before the train entered a tunnel... In 1911 a massive flood destroyed the railroad and tunnels. The new railroad was financially unsuccessful due to the increasing prevalence of cars, but limped along until 1931. Two years later, the Peninsula Railway rebuilt the rails, including this bridge. One of the two potential "death" tunnels was located near where the bridge rejoins the Southern face of the canyon, where a rocky outcropping appears.

 

Immediately East of where the bridge crosses over the road and rejoins the creek trail is a prominent rocky outcropping juts into the canyon, narrowing the trail.  The rock is the eponymous Alum Rock of Alum Rock Park. It was the glistening minerals in the rock that gave Alum Rock its name.  Ironically it is not actually composed of Alum, a source of aluminum, but mica, the early visitors evidently having been as confused with this rock as with the "meteor" earlier.

The creek trail continues onwards alongside the creek. After another kilometer of so, the canyon widens again, and another parking/picnic area appears.  To the right is a small log cabin.This cabin was built in 1915 by the Native Daughters of the Golden West to honor California pioneers. This is the center of  the park: on a typical weekend this area would be overrun with picnickers and families and kids.

The old 1915 Natatorum (indoor swimming pool) was located where the volleyball court is now placed.  Two indoor swimming pools were built, an early 1890s version fed directly by the hot springs (as well as the reeking sulfur fumes).  This was destroyed by the 1911 floods and replaced by the 1915 Natatorium, known to locals as "the Plunge". This was torn down in 1973.

The Visitor's Center is located here, and if it is open (apparently its schedule is Tues-Fri 12-4:00, Sat 12-4:30) it is a good source of info about the park. 

After a short distance, you come to the final parking/picnic area of Alum Rock Park.  In the 1890s-1910s, this was the location of the train stations. The Youth and Science Institute is here in a 1930s era building, though I never went inside ($3 adults, $1 children).  The nature center has a few animals including birds of prey.

Continuing along the picnic area is this ornate gazebo covering for a closed spring.

After continuing past this last parking lot, Penitencia Creek Road ends with a gate.  As you go through the gate, you reach the hot springs area. This area is still a geothermically active area of hot springs, smelling of sulfur and leaching minerals into Peritencia Creek

The largest remnants of the original Victorian period resorts is located here.  There are at least four covered springs, some of the many springs converted into baths in Alum Rock Park, as well as two wading pools.

 

Three formal bridges cris-cross across the Creek.  All are designed in an ornate Victorian stone.

 

Due to misuse and fault shifting, many of the springs had stopped running.  The ones that do are now undrinkable due to agricultural contamination. Going on, the paved road gives way to a dirt path, leading first to a picnic area.  Eventually after about 1.8km, you reach the intersection of the two branches of Penitencia Creek. You can then backtrack or take a steep, exposed 4km Rim Trail as it climbs the canyon wall and then descends back into the canyon. Backtrack all the way back to the second parking lot and Eagle Rock.

From the Eagle Rock Parking lot take Eagle Rock Trail uphill.  The trail is a 1.2km, somewhat steep hike from the bottom to the top of Eagle Rock.

As you ascend, the views get better and better, until there is nowhere left to climb.

Eagle Rock is climbable and as well as an overlook a little further on, presents great views of East San Jose.

From Eagle Rock, backtrack down the Eagle Rock Trail and Penitencia Creek Trail to your parking.

The Great California Outdoors: The John Marsh House

The John Marsh Stone House**
Impressive abandoned stone house in the middle of nowhere

Located off of HWY4 immediately South of Brentwood, the John Marsh House is a sad empty building that was once one of the most important in the state of California.  It was the home of John Marsh, the first doctor in California and a pioneer known for this monumental mansion.


A Harvard graduate in 1823, Marsh studied medicine and opened the first school in Michigan Territory (Minnesota) before becoming an Indian Agent at Fort Snelling. He participated in the Black Hawk War, then fled to Illinois Territory with his wife and newborn son after controversies involving the conflict. After his wife died in childbirth, Marsh abandoned his son, became an Indian trader again, raised another scandal for selling weapons to them, and fled (again) to Missouri. After failing at business there in 1836 he took the Santa Fe Trail to California.

Marsh never completed his medical studies. However, he was the only person in Alta California with a medical education, and using his Harvard diploma as his "medical certificate", (the diploma was written in Latin which the officials could not read), Marsh was granted permission to practice. Apparently he was good at his practice, but demanded high prices for his skills.

With enemies now in the South, Marsh moved to Mission San Jose in 1838, purchasing Rancho Los Meganos. Again he prospered due to his high prices and apparently skinflint ways. As he helped the Bartleson-Bidwell Party upon their arrival in the region, the California Trail terminates at Brentwood.

In the mid-1850s, Marsh began building this massive Gothic Revival stone house, with 15 rooms and wrapping balconies. The house was likely for his new wife Alice, though she soon died in 1855. The John Marsh House was finally completed in 1856. John Marsh lived there for three weeks. While visiting Pacheco, he was ambushed and killed by three of his vaquero workers, apparently over a pay dispute.

According to local legend, soon before his father's death John Marsh's eldest son came to the door seeking shelter during a storm and had a joyous reunion with his father. Later he helped track down his father's murderers and brought them to justice.

Since then, the John Marsh Stone House has survived; apparently later tenants hated the condition of the home, the building was badly damaged by the 1868 and 1906 earthquakes, and vandalism peaked in the 1970s. Around 2000 the entire north wall collapsed. Emergency funding restored the building, keeping it in arrested decay. The John Marsh stone house is a state park, but remains closed to the public, perennially without funding to fully restore the building and open it.

The area remains almost as lonely as when John Marsh built his stone house from 150 years ago, but settlements seem to be rapidly encroaching from the North.

Journeys in Suburbia: The Frenchman's Tower

The Frenchman's Tower ***

Top Locations:
1. Mysterious Tower

Time for Visiting: N/A
Cost: N/A
Best Season: Anytime
Bring: Camera

In 1875, a mysterious Frenchman, giving himself the name monsieur Peter Coutts, arrived at the small farming town of Mayfield and purchased a massive tract of land for a stock farm. All of the area soon became abuzz with rumors, as the Frenchman, obviously a man of wealth and education, began large-scale work on his property- known as Matadero Farm- building a country house, a farm, a lake/reservoir and an intricate series of walls and tunnels connecting them all. Finally, at the edge of Matadero Creek, Coutts built this 9.75m tall, two story tower.

The tower was an object of mysterious wonder to the locals. Coutts claimed the second floor held a water tank, while the first floor held a library. Strangely though, the second floor had windows (now bricked up), while the first floor had no door, the building likely connected to the outside world through one of the tunnels. Others pointed out the obvious danger of a leak destroying the entire book collection. For eight years he lived and worked on the farm. Then suddenly in 1882, as mysteriously as he arrived, Coutts vanished, his massive work on Matadero Farm incomplete.

Rumors abounded, especially one that Coutts was a military paymaster who had stolen money from the French army during the Franco-Prussian War and absconded with the ill-gotten gains. With the French government out to arrest him, Coutts built the tower as either a fort or weapons cache or at least a lookout against Gallic agents. Yet this does not explain the poor location of the tower, hidden behind hills along a large creek.

In 1882, Peter Coutts surprised everyone in Mayfield again when he reappeared, albeit only briefly. He quickly sold his massive farm to businessman and Senator Leland Stanford, and evidently returned to France. Leland Stanford, who ran the farm as part of his extensive stables, later (1891) converted it to a University, named after his son.

Later, an interpretation of the whole incident came out. Peter Coutts was actually Paulin Caperon, a bank manager of the Bank of Bordeaux. After the Franco-Prussian War, defeat had ignited a financial panic which consumed the bank. As Gallic Law placed bank debt as the responsibility of the managers, Caperon was in danger of complete financial ruin and chose to flee the responsibility. He lived at Matadero until his situation was finally sorted out by the French government, and returned home.

Another interpretation came from Caperon's granddaughter, who claimed his flight was not over finances, but his publishing of the "La Liberte" newspaper. This came afoul of Emperor Napoleon III, causing Caperon and his associates to flee abroad.
The mysterious Frenchman's Tower sits, barely remembered, on a back road near where I work. Someone had punched a hole in the bottom of the tower, and graffiti artists have plied their hobby. The holes in the brickwork held the wooden platform that divided the first and second floors, evidently destroyed by arson at some point in the past.

To reach the Frenchman's Tower, exit HWY 280 from Page Mill Road.  Take a slight left on Old Page Mill Road, a narrow 1.5 lane road.  Continue down until you see the tower on the right.

Journeys in Suburbia: Downtown San Jose--Part 9: Visiting

Journeys in Suburbia: Downtown San Jose--Part 9: Information
The R2-D2 building, the last hanging ground in California, and a statue that looks like feces.

Top Locations:
1. Children's Discovery Museum of San Jose
2. Martin Luther King Library
3. San Pedro Market
4. Cesar Chavez Square

Time for Visiting: 1-4 hrs
Cost: ~$15 for food, $0 - $20 
Best Season: Winter, Spring, Fall
Bring: Camera, sunscreen, money

Difficulty:  Flat: Paved roads, lots of intersections

Downtown San Jose with routes (light blue) connecting each individual section.  Parking lots depicted in pink, food areas depicted in orange

Downtown San Jose is a big city traffic in a suburban setting. To visit, take HWY101 or HWY280 South of San Francisco until you exit at Downtown SJ.

Total time: ~ 3hrs, 8.8km
 
Notable restaurants:
1. Back-A-Yard: Somewhat hidden Caribbean Resturant,  makes a nice jerk chicken--$15-$30
Yelp page- http://www.yelp.com/biz/back-a-yard-san-jose

2. Los Cubanos: Best Cuban restaurant in the San Jose area: $15-30
Yelp page- http://www.yelp.com/biz/los-cubanos-restaurant-san-jose-2

Final Notes: Lots of homeless and police. Confusing traffic layout means it is better to park and walk the area on foot. Daytime generally kid-friendly, Night time more bar crowd. City festivals, concerts and Sharks games held in the area, which are nice to visit be wreck havoc on anyone trying to pass by or park.

Journeys in Suburbia: Downtown San Jose--Part 8: Discovery Meadow

Downtown
The R2-D2 building, the last hanging ground in California, and a statue that looks like feces.

Scale: ***** Must Visit
          ****   Worth Detouring
          ***     If in the Area
          **       May be Worth Visiting-Once
          *         Interest only

8. Discovery Meadow****
Discovery Meadow is a large park at the Southwest end of Downtown San Jose.  The park is dominated by the Children's Discovery Museum, an extremely popular and known as one of the best children's museum in the United States. The Guadalupe Trail continues past it, and some interesting public art round out the area.  

A. Monopoly in the Park****

At 86.4 m^2, this is the largest Monopoly Board in the world. For $300, you can don giant token hats, roll dice, and play the game:  http://www.monopolyinthepark.com/

Immediately beside it is:
 
B. Parade of Animals**

Animal sculptures by Michael Boris

As you continue down the lawn, the big purple centerpiece of Discovery Meadow looms before you.

C. Children's Discovery Museum *****

One of the top children's museums in the United States,  the Discovery Museum is filled with fun things for children about age 5-14, including a complete ambulance, fire truck, and Wells Fargo Stagecoach. A mammoth skeleton, bubbles, sound, and water exhibits, a literal sandbox, and other activities round out this place.  Cost is reasonable at $12/person, $11 seniors.

Backtracking towards San Carlos Avenue is the performance art theater.

D. Center for Preforming Arts**

The main theater of San Jose, this is an odd 1970s relic of a circle. 




The Guadalupe Trail works its way under HWY 87, then descends into a wooded area before reaching Discovery Meadow.  This area is quite nice to walk through, especially on a sunny spring day. 

Journeys in Suburbia: Downtown San Jose--Part 7: Guadalupe Park

Downtown
The R2-D2 building, the last hanging ground in California, and a statue that looks like feces.

Scale: ***** Must Visit
          ****   Worth Detouring
          ***     If in the Area
          **       May be Worth Visiting-Once
          *         Interest only

7. Guadalupe Park/River Trail **

Roughly parallel to HWY87 along the Guadalupe River, Guadalupe Park is one of the largest parks in San Jose. The entire park actually runs for 16km from Downtown San Jose South of HWY 280, past the international airport, to Alviso in the SF Bay. For now, we will focus on the middle 1km of Downtown.

Guadalupe Park in Downtown can be loosely divided into two sections: The SAP (HP/Sharks) Pavilion area, and the Discovery Meadow Area.  The first will be discussed in Part 7.

A. De Anza Hotel **

 When it was built in 1931, the De Anza Hotel was the tallest building in San Jose. It has an interesting Art Deco/Mayan/Spanish Colonial design.

If you walk to the left side of the building, you can see a mural of a diver jumping down towards what should be a tool, a 1930s-era mark signifying the building has a swimming pool, which was a rarity in those days.  The De Anza Hotel became run down by the 1970s, but seems to have been saved and restored to some of its former splendor. 

Continue East down Santa Clara Street until you reach the park on the right.



B. Arena Green ***

 The Arena Green is a large park space, and serves as a part of the greenway. This is a decently nice park, with a carousel and a few memorials and monuments.  Like much of Downtown, there is a sizable homeless population that reside here, but unlike say, St. James Park, so do children and nearby office workers.

Two playgrounds are in the park, for both toddlers and older children. It seems reasonably popular with locals.

The carousel has some interesting creatures, including a shark, courtesy of the team next door. It should operate Tues-Sun 10 am-5 pm and costs $1, but apparently has been closed for a while due to municipal budget cuts. Haven't seen it operate in a long time. 

A new Vietnam Memorial of San Jose was also recently erected.

As a final note, this is a good area to park during the day to avoid all the annoying parking fees and meters at Downtown.

Across the street on the West side of the park is a large arena. 


C. SAP Arena***

Better known as the Shark Tank (also the San Jose Arena, Compaq Center at San Jose and HP Pavilion at San Jose), the SAP Arena is the primary facility for the San Jose Sharks.Concerts and basketball tournaments are also held here.  It has the capacity to hold around 18000 people.

Southwest of the SAP Arena and the Arena Green, across Santa Clara St., and behind a sea of parking lots, is the main train station of San Jose.


D. Diridon Station**

Opened as the Cahill Depot in 1935, this was the main Southern Pacific Railroad Station in San Jose after moving away from the heavy traffic of downtown. Besides Union Station in Los Angeles, this was the last of the old passenger depots built in California. Among the multiple trains that used this station was the Coast Daylight LA-SF train. 
The Diridon has an Italian Renaissance Revival Style, one of only four such designs in California.  The station was restored in 1994 and there is talk of extending the Bay Area Rapid Transport (BART) as well as California's high speed rail system here.

On San Frenando St., south of the train station at yet another parking lot, is a lonely neon sign.


E. Stephen's Dancing Pig **

For decades, the local butcher's shop for San Jose was run by one Stephen Pizzo, who began at some point during the Great Depression.  WWII rationing benefited Pizzo, who was able to profit from a relative with a cattle ranch in the hills, and in 1948 he moved his shop to a building on this site, with three pigs drawn on the wall and a neon sign with a dancing pig.  Though Stephen continued to build on his shop, purchasing the first vacuum-sealed packaging West of the Mississippi, market consolidation soon began putting his store at a financial disadvantage. The company began promoting the strong quality of its meat products, but slowly lost ground. The store finally closed in the mid 2000s after 63 years.  A few years later the building was razed and replaced with a parking lot.  The sign with the dancing pig still remains, and remains illuminated, dancing into the night.

Continue west on San Fernando St., to the VTA Station.


F. Life is a Circus *

"Artist Iiona Malka Rich created this sculpture of three, multicolored striped lions with illuminating eyes (using fiber optics) from a bronze-like material. One has eight legs with two heads, and the other two lions have six legs each. The theme for this art feature is “Life is a Circus” which is inscribed around the base of the artwork. In addition, lion footprints are “stamped” on the ground through the plaza to replicate the natural movement of these unique animals." (Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, 2005)

Across the street from the light rail station is another mural, with some old houses.

G. San Jose Mural/Little Italy*

 Little Italy is the small remnants of an Italian community established in the 1870s.  There have been recent efforts to revitalize the district, with some success--the area looks much better than it had been for years. Still, there isn't too much here except a few restaurants at this point. The mural from the introduction is located here. 



 

 At this area, the Guadalupe Trail is fairly exposed, and HWY 87 is definitely near enough to see and hear. A few information placards are placed at periodic intervals.  You can descend onto the trail and continue South to Discovery Meadow.