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Published on 12/08/1999 All articles from this issue

A creek's long and winding history

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Voice of the Past

Adobe Creek has played an important role in the history of this area from the days of the Ohlone Indians to the settlement of Los Altos. The creek could be heavy with poison oak or dangerous when high water was running, but it was always an irresistible lure to young Los Altans.

Current Los Altos resident Waldo Griffin remembers that as a young boy he used the creek in the dry season as a daily short-cut when visiting friends. Robert Bleibler said the creekbed was sometimes used as a source of cobblestones for building purposes in the 1920s. Lillian Weitzenburg Hansen recalls surprising her parents by bringing home broken parts of Alta Mesa Cemetery tombstones she found in the creek. A piece of the tiled facade of the Stanford Memorial Church destroyed in the 1906 earthquake was also found by a young lad while he was looking for antique bottles in the creek in 1969.

Adobe Creek was sometimes used by the homeless during the Depression. Patricia Allen Scheid recalls her parents warning her in those days to, "Stay away from the Creek. Hoboes lurk there!"

In the 1920s, there were just a dozen or so homes and orchards along the banks of Adobe Creek. Since then, over 100 Los Altos family homeowners appreciate Adobe Creek as an interesting backyard neighbor. Unlike the concrete ditch it has become downstream through Palo Alto, Adobe Creek has retained its natural streambed through Los Altos. Although nearby subdivisions have largely destroyed it as a home for trout, newts, crayfish, salamanders, and frogs, its banks retain enough wild foliage for a variety of bird life. It is also a landscaping centerpiece for two Los Altos Parks - Redwood Grove Nature Preserve and Shoup Park.

Admittedly, in its semi-wild state, Adobe Creek has been troublesome when winter rains are heavy. In 1971, the Santa Clara Flood Control District proposed lining with concrete the stretch between Foothill College and Tepa Lane. Conservationists, aided by the Sierra Club, fought this action. More recently, erosion problems surfaced during 1997s El Niño rains, giving urgency to the $8 million Santa Clara Valley Water District's "Adobe Creek Watershed Planning Study." Bank stabilization work on the section between Edith and Foothill Expressway may take place as early as next summer.

Any action pertaining to Adobe Creek, such as this planning study, must take into account the legal interests of many entities (as with any other stream flowing into San Francisco Bay). Besides the residents whose property abut the Creek, these include the U.S. Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Santa Clara County Water District and the cities it flows through.

The Adobe Creek Watershed Planning Study can be viewed in the Los Altos City Engineer's Office.

Compiled by Don McDonald for the Association of the Los Altos Historical Museum. E-mail: LAHistoryHouse@aol.com