By Don McDonald
Based on the number of wartime ration books officially distributed, it was estimated that the population of the Los Altos area in 1944 was 3,551.
• A typical Depression-era “Hard-Times” party was held in the Scout Hall in October 1936. It was sponsored by the Los Altos Grammar School PTA. The Boy Scouts manned the check room and sold “light refreshments” for 10¢. Admission was 33¢. Nearly 150 people attended, some in costume, to enjoy playing cards or dancing to the music of a Stanford student dance band.
• Here are the names of some autos that showed up in the 1920 Mountain View Register-Leader newspapers. See how many you recognize: Brisco, Chandler Six, Chalmers, Cleveland Six, Dort. Maxwell, Stevens Salient Six, Oakland Sensible Six, Mercer, Winton and Brewster.
• The 1915-1916 Mtn. View High School annual featured an ad by the Minton Lumber Co. offering a prefabricated, Craftsman-style, one-bedroom bungalow for $591.25. It is thought that some of these houses are still in use.
• In 1920, 12 prominent Los Altos men (and one woman) participated in a vaudeville show to benefit local Boy Scout Troop 37. As the “Los Altos Famous Players Union,” they presented a 10-act program. The opening act was “Funny Freaks from Fiji.” It would be fascinating today if we could find the script for Act 4, “Los Altos in 1950 - A Meeting of the Board of Aldermen.”
• Los Altos deserves a footnote in the history of manned flight. In 1904, Professor John Montgomery of Santa Clara College flew his gliders off a steep slope on Magdalena Avenue. The college had acquired the land as part of its purchase of 650 acres from the Hale Ranch. Their hope to build a new Loyola College there was never realized.
• Increasing automobile traffic in 1938 led to installation of stop signs on 11 streets intersecting two-lane San Antonio Road. Concurrently, the road was painted with a center line for the first time.
• The Manning home on what is now Maynard Court was built by Gilbert Smith circa 1908. Later, daughter Arah Manning Love started the popular Wooden Shoe preschool on the premises.
• During the years of the Great Depression, wild gooseberries growing along Adobe Creek were used by thrifty housewives for pies. Boys sometimes dried and smoked the flowers of a bush called Indian Tobacco, which also grew along the creek.
• The 1930 U.S. Census determined that in Santa Clara County, 54 percent of residences had radios - the sixth-highest rate of ownership among California counties. Marin County was first, with 66 percent.
McDonald is a member of the Los Altos History Museum Association.
