‘Gateway’ cedars provide a lush history
Driving along the scenic stretch of Hecker Pass Highway between
Goldsmith’s and Bonfante Gardens, one cannot help but notice the
stately line of Deodar Cedar trees alongside the roadway. The
admirable project that culminated in the trees’s planting began
more than 75 years ago with an idea spurred by the Gilroy
Rotary.
‘Gateway’ cedars provide a lush history
Driving along the scenic stretch of Hecker Pass Highway between Goldsmith’s and Bonfante Gardens, one cannot help but notice the stately line of Deodar Cedar trees alongside the roadway. The admirable project that culminated in the trees’s planting began more than 75 years ago with an idea spurred by the Gilroy Rotary.
On Arbor Day, March 7,1930, local Rotarians, assisted by the Elks, American Legion Auxilliary, Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, school children and civic-minded Gilroyans, all turned out to do the planting. The day’s project was headed by a committee made up of Postmaster Tracy Learnard, Lloyd Smith, nursery owner Harold Crow and Gilroy Advocate newspaper owner W.F. Blake.
With regular motor travel still a novelty, highway beautification was in its infancy in 1930. California’s state highway system, only a little more than a decade in progress, had made automobile tourism a favored pastime. That auto travel could be made pleasurable by seeing beautiful sights along the way, something we take for granted along our berm-sculpted interstates today, was considered innovative during the early 1930s.
When the Deodar Cedars were planted, Hecker Pass Highway was itself only two years old. At its dedication ceremonies, held on May 27, 1928, a crowd of more than 6,000, including many dignitaries, gathered at the Mt. Madonna summit to witness the new highway’s opening. Seen as a part of the Yosemite-to-the-Sea route connecting the Central Valley to Santa Cruz, Hecker Pass Highway constituted the final link in the process. The highway was named to honor local Santa Clara County supervisor Henry Hecker, whose dream it had been to make a direct connection from Gilroy to Watsonville providing a faster journey than the old way through Chittenden Pass.
For drivers en route inland from the coast, an added bonus for the South Valley communities would be the Hecker Pass “gateway.” Besides its scenic approach, welcoming drivers into Gilroy and beyond, the road would provide a link to San Benito County, with added regional attractions to entice would-be newcomers.
At the time, highway beautification projects were going on all over the state. Numerous communities undertook either a block, or a mile, of tree plantings to enhance their town’s appearance. Deodar cedars, which mature to an average 70 feet in height, are also known as “Living Christmas Trees.” They were popular because they could be used for seasonal outdoor holiday decoration.
The species, which originated in the Himalayas, were often used for street trees because they were suited to the California climate, required low maintenance, and grew quickly. Deodars were liberally planted in or around Watsonville, Santa Cruz, San Jose, Castroville, Salinas, in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and Central Valley towns.
Today, with many of those original plantings long gone, the value of Gilroy’s historic Tree Row is the only one in the area left largely intact. Of the 145 trees planted between 1930-31, 115 are still standing.
The Arbor Day tree planting movement, which had begun in 1872 in Nebraska and several prairie states, had grown over the decades. Children around the nation were encouraged to engage planting projects as participation in community endeavors. Public support of Arbor Day activities grew along with the expansion of state highway systems.
The day was observed regionally in California until the state’s first official statewide Arbor Day observance took place, on March 7, 1930. The date was chosen in memory of Luther Burbank, the California horticulturalist who had developed more than 800 varieties of plants at his Santa Rosa greenhouse and nursery.
On March 7, 1930, when Gilroy’s Rotary led the planting project on Hecker Pass Highway, similar planting events were going on simultaneously in other towns around the state. By the end of the day, across California, about 25,000 trees were planted. In Gilroy, the event was observed with great ceremony, beginning with a parade along Monterey Street from Seventh to First streets. Accompanied by the high school band, cars bearing speakers and dignitaries were followed by flatbed trucks containing the trees.
Marchers along the parade route, besides members of civic organizations, included more than 600 school children. At First Street the children were driven on school busses to Morey Avenue (now Santa Teresa Blvd.) There, following speeches and songs, everyone pitched in with shovels to plant a total of 75 trees. The following year on Arbor Day, an additional 65 cedars were set into the ground.
Unfortunately, after 1932, Arbor Day observances dwindled. By then the Depression had made a dent in the event’s cost. Then in 1933, the county gave control of Hecker Pass Highway and its right-of-way to the state.
The turnover to state control had been foreseen as a hopeful sign to encourage local growth. Two years earlier, in December 1931, an enthusiastic editorial over the area’s potential expansion had appeared in the Gilroy Dispatch, suggesting that within the next 25 years, Mt. Madonna Park would become a haven for tourists from the Bay Area, a spot where throngs of city dwellers who could and camp, making use of the locale for side trips to the coast and inland valleys.
Skyline Boulevard was seen as a major transportation route, a highway bringing multitudes down from Saratoga to Mt. Madonna Park. “The possibilities are unsurpassed. Thousands who now go to Big Basin are looking for new spots. There is some suggestion that turning [Mt. Madonna Park] over to the state would aid in development.”
Today, with a different current view on the environmental impact of thousands of visitors thronging to the area via a highway threading along the Santa Cruz Range summit, we can perhaps be grateful the Skyline Boulevard never made it to Mt. Madonna. But as trees of historic interest, locals and visitors alike still enjoy and appreciate the stately Deodar Cedars which line Hecker Pass Highway, forming for us a link to the civic endeavors of 75 years ago.
