Wrights, California, Santa Clara County is a ghost town that once thrived as a bustling railroad community in the Santa Cruz Mountains. This small town was a significant stop along the South Pacific Coast Railroad during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Below is detailed information about the town.
County: Santa Clara County
Zip Code: Not available
Latitude / Longitude: 37.1356° N, 121.9878° W
Elevation: Approximately 1,100 feet (335 meters)
Time Zone: Pacific Time Zone (PT)
Established: 1870s
Disestablished: 1940s
Comments: Wrights was named after James Richard Wright, who owned the land where the town was established. It was a key point for transporting goods and passengers between the Santa Clara Valley and the Pacific Coast.
The town was notably active during the late 19th century due to the railway that passed through it, facilitating economic growth. Wrights, California (Wrights Station) is a ghost town in unincorporated west Santa Clara County, California.
It is located near Summit Road in the Santa Cruz Mountains, on the north bank of Los Gatos Creek, east of State Route 17.
Remains: Today, remnants of Wrights include the railway tunnel, which closed in the 1940s due to landslides and the eventual abandonment of the rail line. Some foundations and scattered ruins of the former structures can still be found in the densely wooded area.
The National Weather Service maintained a cooperative weather station on Wrights’s site until May 31, 1986. The station recorded rainfall and snowfall and was 1,600 ft (490 m) above sea level.
The location is on the San Andreas Fault, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, and it experienced considerable damage in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Geologists observed a lateral displacement of 4.6 ft (1.4 m) at Wrights.
Current Status: Wrights is a ghost town with no active community or residents. The site is largely overgrown, but it occasionally attracts hikers and history enthusiasts interested in exploring its past.
Wrights has so completely disappeared that today, no trace remains except the ruins of the old tunnel. However, some building foundations and debris from the town can still be found in the dense woods.
Satellite and ground photographs show thick overgrowth and forest on the site. The surrounding area is now only sparsely settled. The community’s name lives on in “Wrights Station Road,” which runs through the redwood forest from Morrill Road to Cathermola Road (also known as Metcalf Road on some maps), north of Summit Road.
Wrights Station Road crosses Los Gatos Creek on a historic bridge with iron railings (possibly dating from the 1920s), ending at the town’s site. Lake Elsman, a reservoir, is near the Wrights site.
Several miles of the original Los Gatos – Santa Cruz narrow gauge railroad have been preserved in Santa Cruz County, and trains operate year-round as a tourist attraction known as the Santa Cruz, Big Trees, and Pacific Railway.
Remarks: Wrights’ historical significance lies in its connection to the railway and its role in the region’s development. The once-thriving town is now a tribute to the transformative impacts of transportation infrastructure and the forces of nature that can render such places obsolete.
In the 1870s, a toll road from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz was built over the mountains, which stagecoaches utilized. Then, beginning in 1877, San Francisco capitalists James Fair and Alfred E. Davis, who headed the South Pacific Coast Railroad (SPCRR), constructed a narrow-gauge railroad from Alameda along the same route.
One of the stops along the line, just below the summit of the Santa Cruz Mountains, was adjacent to the property of James Richards Wright, who had a residence/hotel known as Arbor Villa in Burrell near the summit, and he maintained commercial orchards of fruit trees and grapes.
The small community that sprouted around this railroad stop became known as Wright’s Station, or simply Wrights. The Rev. Wright was the patriarch of a large family that had moved to California from Ohio and the younger brother of the well-known abolitionist Elizur Wright.
One of his sons, Frank Vincent Wright, later married Susie Davis, the daughter of SPCRR president Alfred Davis, and another son, Sumner Banks Wright, moved to southern California and established a town in the San Bernardino mountains known as Wrightwood, today a ski resort.
