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Saratoga () is a city in Santa Clara County, California, USA. It is located on the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 29,843 at the 2000 census.

Saratoga is an upper-class bedroom community in the southwestern corner of the Santa Clara Valley. Saratoga also has many antique shops, French restaurants, and European-themed bakeries. Well-known vineyards in the Saratoga foothills include the Garrod Estate Vineyards and the Mountain Vineyard, both of which are founded in the 1800s.

In July of 2005, CNN/Money and Money magazine named Saratoga the twenty sixth-best place to live in the United States. It is locally known for its affluence, vineyards, and excellent school system. In 2004, the median home price in Saratoga was $1.1 million.

History

The first European settlement of what is now Saratoga occurred in 1848, when William Campbell (father of Benjamin Campbell, the founder of nearby Campbell, California) constructed a sawmill about 2.5 miles southeast of the present downtown area. An early map noted the area as Campbell's Gap. In 1851, Martin McCarty, who had leased the mill, built a toll road down to the Santa Clara Valley. The toll gate was located at the present day intersection of Big Basin Way and 3rd St., giving the town its first widely used name: Toll Gate. In 1855 the town received a post office under the name of McCartysville.

Industry soon sprung up: at its height the town had a furniture factory, grist mill, tannery, and a paper factory. To commemorate this newfound productivity, the town was renamed yet again in 1863, this time as Bank Mills. Shortly after this, however, a spring was discovered which had a mineral content similar to the springs at Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1865, the town received its final name, Saratoga. At the same time, a resort hotel was constructed at the springs, and it attracted tourists to the area until it burned down in 1903.

Saratoga then became quietly agricultural, along with much of the rest of the valley. A few vineyards and orchards from this period remain today. After World War II, the town quickly became urbanized, and it incorporated in 1956, partially to avoid being annexed to San Jose. A slogan during the campaign to incorporate the city of Saratoga was "Keep it rural," according to historian Willys I. Peck. Today the city serves as a bedroom community for upper-middle class Silicon Valley tech workers.

Telephony history

Saratoga was initially served by the Saratoga Telephone Company. By 1924, the company had been purchased by a Bell System company, Pacific Telephone. This was subsequently purchased or renamed Pacific Bell, SBC, and finally AT&T.

Manual service 1900(?)-1924
The Saratoga Telephone Company's exchange was once located in the building that today houses church offices at the corner of Park Place and Saratoga Avenue. It was a manual exchange and, in the early 1900s, subscribers rotated a magneto crank on phones to ring the operator. As of 1924, telephones had numbers starting with Saratoga followed by one to four digits and a letter. Numbers like Saratoga 107 J were typical.

The letters appended were J, M, R, or W. Their purpose may have been to tell the operator which party to ring on a party line. One circuit serving the Mount Eden Road area had F and a number appended, (example: Saratoga 8 F 3). This may have reflected the unique ring needed to alert a particular subscriber. Other Bay Area towns with magneto (hand crank type) phones had schemes where subscribers answered patterns such as "two short rings and two long rings."

It's unclear when the telephone exchange moved from Park Place and Saratoga Avenue.

Dial Service 1942-present
Saratoga converted to dial service in 1942, about seven years before San Jose upgraded. Telephone numbers began with UNion 7. The first assigned numbers followed the pattern UNion 7-34xx and went up from there. As the North American Dialing Plan evolved in the 1950s, these became today's 867-numbers.

Dial service came from a 1939-technology Western Electric Number 5 Crossbar electromechanical switch. This was the primary machine switching Saratoga's calls until the mid-1980s. Touchtone service was an added-cost option until the early 1980s. Advanced services such as call waiting arrived in the late 1970s when Pacific Telephone installed a 1ESS electronic switch and began offering 741-numbers in the area. While the crossbar was still around, in order to get the new features a subscriber would have to switch over to a 741- telephone number.

Today, some of the old telephone numbers are still around but the town is served by modern, digital switching equipment with all modern features.

Sources
  • Garrod, R. V. "Vince", "Saratoga Telephone Company," Saratoga Story, (Saratoga, Calif.: self-published, 1962).
  • Peck, Willys I., "When Ma Bell Spoke With a Human Voice," Saratoga Stereopticon: A Magic Lantern of Memory, (Cupertino, California: California History Center and Foundation, 1998, pp. 41-42.

Government

Saratoga is a general law city under California law, meaning that the organization and powers of the city are established by state law. It has a council-manager form of government.

The city council is made up of five members elected by the public. The council appoints a mayor and vice-mayor from its membership, with the vice-mayor serving in the absence of the mayor. The mayor has no veto power, but acts as chairman for council meetings, and serves as a visible head of government. Council members serve four-year terms, with the election of two and three members staggered every two years.

The city manager is the administrative head of the government, and also serves as city treasurer. The manager's duties include preparing financial reports, submitting an annual budget, managing city employees, seeing that city ordinances are enforced, supervising city property, and investigating complaints against the city. The manager also appoints the city clerk and finance director.

In addition to the council and manager, the city has a number of commissions, which are permanent committees that serve to advise the council on various issues. Commission members are appointed by the council, and serve four year terms. Currently, the city has commissions for finance, heritage preservation, the library, parks and recreation, planning, public safety, and the arts. Also, the city has a Citizen Oversight Committee, created to oversee library renovation, and a Youth Commission, which consists of middle and high school students who represent Saratoga youth in government and serve one or two year terms.

Geography

Saratoga is located at (37.272443, -122.019538).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 31.4 km² (12.1 mi²), all land.

Within its borders, Saratoga includes lush redwood forests, foothills suitable for wine grapes and sunny valley floor once covered with prune and apricot orchards, now with suburban homes, schools and churches.

Neighborhoods in Saratoga include Brookview in northeastern part of the city, Blue Hills in the northwest area, and Congress Springs in the southwestern corner of Saratoga. The Golden Triangle, a name invented by real estate agents, is an area bounded by Saratoga Avenue, Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road and Cox Avenue. The Golden Triangle consists mostly of affordable (1 to 2.9 million dollars) three-bedroom ranch homes gradually being replaced by Mediterranean custom designs.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 29,843 people, 10,450 households, and 8,600 families residing in the city. The population density was 951.5/km² (2,465.3/mi²). There were 10,649 housing units at an average density of 339.5/km² (879.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 67.39% White, 0.39% African American, 0.15% Native American, 29.08% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 0.57% from other races, and 2.33% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.14% of the population.

There were 10,450 households out of which 38.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 75.0% were married couples living together, 4.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 17.7% were non-families. 14.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.83 and the average family size was 3.13.

In the city the population was spread out with 26.0% under the age of 18, 4.0% from 18 to 24, 23.8% from 25 to 44, 29.9% from 45 to 64, and 16.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 43 years. For every 100 females there were 96.5 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.6 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $139,895, and the median income for a family was $155,246. Males had a median income of $75,000 versus $66,240 for females. The per capita income for the city was $65,400. About 1.8% of families and 2.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.2% of those under age 18 and 2.6% of those age 65 or over.

Transportation

Saratoga has several major roads, including Sunnyvale-Saratoga Road, Cox Avenue, Saratoga Avenue, Pierce Road, Saratoga-Los Gatos Road, and Congress Springs Road. Highway 85, completed in 1994, passes through northeast Saratoga, and a railroad, now rarely in use, travels parallel to the highway. The railway, which from 1908 to 1964 delivered commuters to San Francisco in as little as 90 minutes, now only sees an occasional freight train. Highway 85 has one onramp/offramp within the city, at Saratoga Avenue. Local streets and roads in Saratoga are fairly well maintained, but they are generally not as often re-paved as San Jose's streets. Street signs, unlike those in San Jose, are brown in color.

Saratoga also has a zoning code comparable to that of Los Altos, which requires that houses must be spaced farther away from each other and that trees must be properly taken care of to preserve a semi-rural appearance. Saratoga emphasizes its semi-rural appearance by foregoing steet lights and sidewalks on most residential streets. This, in addition to the excellent schools, causes Saratoga to have very high housing costs.

The Blue Hills neighborhood of Saratoga has many hiking trails that are privately owned by the City of Saratoga for use by residents.

Sister cities

Muko, Japan (1983) Harlem, New York (1956)

Notable natives

Attractions

Education

Saratoga has some of the best performing schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among them, Saratoga High School is best-known for academic excellence.

Primary:

Secondary:

Colleges:

External links

Cities in California | Santa Clara County, California | Towns in California

Саратога | Saratoga (Kalifornien)

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Saratoga, California".

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