A mountain toll road in Santa Clara County
Congress Springs Road in Santa Clara County began as a private toll road, cut by Chinese laborers between 1865 and 1871 through Congress Springs Canyon to reach logging camps in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It also led to the Pacific Congress Springs mineral resort, famous under Lewis A. Sage, until a 1903 fire destroyed the hotel.
Chinese laborers cut a toll road through the canyon
On Congress Springs Road, in Santa Clara County, a toll road once cut through thick forest toward logging camps in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Chinese laborers spent five years cutting it by hand through Congress Springs Canyon, following Saratoga Creek. When it opened in June 1871, the valley celebrated with a two-day festival.
The road led to Pacific Congress Springs, a mineral spring resort Jud Caldwell found in the 1850s. Darius Ogden Mills and Alvina Hayward later built a 14-room hotel there, and in 1872 Lewis A. Sage bought the property and made it famous. Guests bathed in the mineral water and drank it bottled and shipped overseas.
Building the road itself was dangerous, grinding work. Chinese laborers spent five years cutting the route through dense forest on steep canyon slopes, following Saratoga Creek the whole way.
Santa Clara County bought the old toll road from its private owners on December 29, 1879, for $5,000. From then on, the route through the canyon was public, and no toll gate stood in the way.
The springs property changed hands again later. San Jose Water Works bought it and shut it to the public in 1942, closing off a spot that had drawn paying guests for nearly eighty years.
A kitchen fire broke out at the resort hotel on June 15, 1903, and burned the whole building down. Nobody rebuilt it.
The resort didn't die right away. It limped on as a picnic ground for decades, the hotel gone but the grounds still open to day visitors.
Congress Springs Road still follows Saratoga Creek through the canyon the toll road builders cut by hand.
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