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Saratoga is a city in Santa Clara County, California. Located in Silicon Valley, in the southern Bay Area, its population was 31,051 at the 2020 census. Saratoga is an affluent residential community, known for its wineries, restaurants, and attractions like Villa Montalvo, Mountain Winery, and Hakone Gardens. [edit] History
The area comprising Saratoga was earlier inhabited by the Ohlone Native Americans. European settlers imposed a displacement and created a settlement of what is now Saratoga in 1847, when William Campbell (father of Benjamin Campbell, the founder of nearby Campbell, California), constructed a sawmill about southeast of the present downtown area. An early map noted the area as Campbell's Gap. In 1851, Martin McCarthy, who had leased the mill, built a toll road down to the Santa Clara Valley, and founded what is now Saratoga as McCarthysville. 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 1867 the town received a post office under the name of McCarthysville. Early residents, who moved to Saratoga in 1881, were Mary Brown (1816–1884), widow of John Brown the abolitionist, her daughters Sarah and Ellen, and the husband of the latter, James Fablinger. All are buried in Madronia Cemetery. Industry soon sprang up and at its pinnacle, the town had a furniture factory, grist mill, tannery, and a paper factory. To commemorate this newfound productivity, the town was renamed again in 1863 as Bank Mills. In the 1850s, Jud Caldwell discovered springs which were called Pacific Congress Springs because the water had a mineral content similar to Congress Springs in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1865 the town received its final name, Saratoga, after the city in New York. At the same time a resort hotel called Congress Hall was constructed at the springs, named after the famous resort Congress Hall at Saratoga Springs, New York. California's Congress Hall attracted tourists to the area until it burned down in 1903.[1] These events would eventually lead to Saratoga being listed as a California Historical Landmark in 1950. Saratoga became agricultural, as did 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 mostly 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 and upper class Silicon Valley tech workers and executives. Saratoga drew notoriety for the suicide of Audrie Pott, a 15-year-old Saratoga High School student, September 2012. The three teenagers charged with sexually assaulting Pott pleaded guilty and served time in juvenile hall for the sexual assault. [edit] Research Tips
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