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PARK AND CEMETERY 
crack and crevice, laden with the substance through 
which it found its way. 
Experts who have tested the waters of this park and 
examined its resources, have declared the place too 
valuable in its health-giving properties to be used 
merely as a pleasure resort. But the people are loath 
to relinquish their claim to it. There have been over- 
tures from Eastern capitalists for the privilege of estab- 
lishing a sanitarium within its boundaries, but it evi- 
dently will be many years, if ever, before Alum Rock 
becomes a haven for the afflicted of body. 
Several years ago campers were allowed in the 
main park. Many rheumatics and people afflicted with 
divers diseases flocked to the resort. The laughter 
and music of picknickers disturbed the sick campers, 
and the sight and knowledge of suffering near at hand 
was a check on those on pleasure bent. The privilege 
for campers was withdrawn, and it is now not permissi- 
ble to pitch tent within the park proper, although 
capped, turned into stone basins and piped to bath 
houses. There are aviaries, strutting peacocks and 
cages of animals. In the paddock deer feed from your 
hand while not far beyond is the summit of the range 
where the wild doe bounds frightened from the thicket 
at the aproach of the sportsman. At one time there 
was a well-built footpath, at places precipitous and 
dangerous for timid travelers, to the narrow defile of 
the upper falls, but in winter a large volume of water, 
gathered from the hills nearer the summit, comes rush- 
ing through the canyon, and two years ago the path 
was washed out and destroyed beyond repair. It was 
an expensive piece of roadmaking which it would be 
folly to rebuild, as the succeding rainy season would 
probably see its destruction. 
Venturesome explorers can pick their way through 
the creek bed and over the bluffs to reach the falls, 
or they may find a safer transit by a longer circuitous 
route over the hills. 
THE BATH HOUSE AND FOUNTAIN. ALUM ROCK, FROM WHICH THE PARK TAKES ITS 
NAME. 
many avail themselves of the desirable locations in 
the lower canyon. 
The park commission of the city of San Jose expend 
several thousand dollars every year on this mountain 
retreat, and their object is ever to preserve, never to 
destroy, its natural beauty. 
Only in a small space in the center of the park has art 
aided nature in producing an artistic effect. Around 
bath houses and manager’s cottages are grass plots 
and flower beds of various and beautiful design. Here 
La France and Jacqueminot roses, begonias and other 
choice children of the garden grow as luxuriantly as 
do the wild flowers on the mountain sides. An artis- 
tically built pavilion, to which has been piped the 
mineral waters of the park, occupied a position not 
far from the swimming tanks, which have recently 
been enclosed in glass. Children’s swings, redwood 
bark pagodas, and rustic seats add to the picturesque- 
ness of the retreat. Footbridges span the stream. 
Paths have been cut over the hills, springs have been 
How the city of San Jose became the possessor of 
such a pleasure resort is a story beginning “before the 
Gringo came,” away back when the Spanish padres 
first came to the land which lies south of the great bay 
at the Golden Gate. 
During those days of Spanish occupation land had 
little value, and when the Dons acquired the grant for 
the pueblo of San Jose, they secured a tract of land 
four square leagmes in rectangular form, equivalent 
to thirty-six square miles, or to three thousand acres. 
After many years, American settlers came seeking 
homes, and there was a village, and it grew, and the 
adobe houses spread out over the wild mustard patches 
which surrounded the early settlements, over into the 
fields beyond, and up toward the foothills of the east- 
ern mountains. 
Evidently little was known of the canyon where the 
park lies and little interest was taken in the extreme 
eastern limit of the old San Jose grant until an enter- 
prising stranger filed a claim upon the lands embrac- 
