President's Message

Greetings from NAQCPA! We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying an equally wonderful Holiday Season with family and friends!

In the midst of our crazy world, it's comforting to know we can take a walk through a beautiful park like Almaden Quicksilver, to clear our minds and reflect on the many things we have to be thankful for.

One of the things I am thankful for has been the opportunity to serve as NAQCPA President. While many organizations collapsed during the Covid Pandemic, NAQCPA managed to stay afloat, and even made many improvements during that difficult time.

In the last two and a half years, we retooled our newsletter from paper to an electronic format, drove the effort for Kitty's Trail and Memorial Table, and began collaborative projects with the La Raza Historical Society of Santa Clara Valley LRHS, the California Pioneers of Santa Clara County CPSCC, and the Santa Clara County Historical Heritage Commission SCCHHC.

We expanded our outreach through increased newsletter distribution, participation in several community activities, partnership with local media, and creation of a new social media Facebook Group to share our activities and work we are doing. As Covid restrictions allowed, the NAQCPA Wednesday Work Crew resumed their efforts to support the park and Casa Grande. Lastly, we took time to celebrate NAQCPA's 40th anniversary of serving Santa Clara County Parks by hosting a brunch at Pedro's in Santa Clara.

Given the strong foundation NAQCPA has established, I feel now is a good time for me to move on and allow others to lead the association. Upon accepting my resignation, the Board voted for Veronica Jordan to become the next NAQCPA President, effective January 1, 2024. Veronica is a current NAQCPA board member and brings a wealth of New Almaden history and genealogy knowledge to the position. We wish Veronica and the NAQCPA Board continued success in leading this great organization.

As Chair of the Santa Clara County Historical Heritage Commission SCCHHC and Santa Clara County Preservation Alliance SCCPA, I plan to stay active in promoting interest in local historic and cultural preservation.

It has been an honor and privilege to serve as NAQCPA President!



Some of NAQCPA Wednesday Work Crew: Bruce Bartlett, Rich Robertson, Tere Johnson, Scot Hayes, and Mike Cox at Almaden Quicksilver County Park near the the Rotary Furnace in the park.

Tere Johnson

NAQCPA President

408-406-3001

terenaqcpa@gmail.com

2023 NAQCPA 39th Annual Pioneer Day

by Tere Johnson

About 60 people gathered on Saturday, October 14th to celebrate NAQCPA's 39th annual Pioneer Day. As usual, a good time was had by all.



Guests had an opportunity to tour the grounds and Mining Museum of the recently re-opened Casa Grande.

The Casa Grande looked spectacular after receiving maintenance improvements including a fresh coat of paint.

Master of Ceremonies and NAQCPA Vice President, Mike Cox, began the day by introducing the Boy Scouts from Troop 290 who performed a wonderful flag raising ceremony and led everyone in the pledge of allegiance.

Several dignitaries were present to address our guests. County Parks Director Don Rocha and Casa Grande Coordinator Lynda Will shared how important NAQCPA's contributions have been over the last 40 years. Dr. Ramon Martinez from the La Raza Historical Society of Santa Clara Valley shared some of the results of the ongoing Spanishtown historic recovery project. Jennifer Thrift was on hand representing Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. NAQCPA President Tere Johnson walked through the crowd with a microphone and gave guests an opportunity to share their memories of New Almaden - it was fun to hear their stories.

Wonderful Americana music was provided by the Against The Grain String Band and a tasty lunch was provided by Cafe Rosalena.

NAQCPA Board member Veronica Jordan delivered an interesting history talk about the 19th century cemeteries that once served the New Almaden mining communities, (Her talk is provided below).

The day concluded with a drawing for several beautiful, framed photos of New Almaden generously donated by Charlie Cox and Ron Horii.

Pioneer Day takes place every 2nd Saturday of October. Mark your calendars for NAQCPA's 40th annual Pioneer Day on Saturday October 12th, 2024.

Let's Talk Cemeteries!

by Veronica Jordan

What is a cemetery? Cemeteries are grounds set aside to bury the dead, usually in convenient locations on inexpensive or free land.

The first cemetery created specifically to bury the remains of quicksilver miners and their families was the Hacienda Cemetery, located on Bertram Road. Photos taken of the cemetery by Carleton Watkins in 1850 confirm its present location, down the road from where the Reduction Works was once located at the base of Mine Hill.

This location made sense because you wanted a graveyard placed not too far from where its future inhabitants lived – which, at that time, was along Almaden Road. Even as early as 1850, with the mine having started production only a few years earlier, markers for nearly a dozen people are visible in Watkins’ photos, with graves surrounded by picket fence “cribs” designed to keep animals from disinterring the dead.

From the start of when operations began, miners died in some gruesome ways,

from getting blown to bits by dynamite, to being crushed by boulders or buried in cave-ins, not to mention death from infectious diseases and murder.

The Cornish men often died in mine accidents involving dynamite and large amounts of falling rock. Starting in the 1860s, the Quicksilver Mining Company began bringing experienced English workers from tin mines in Cornwall, where they were experts in blasting rock to reveal the ore.

One such Cornishman was Richard Wedlake, Jr. the Great-Great-Grandfather of our NAQCPA Board member, Richard Williams. Richard Wedlake and his son and daughter-in-law arrived in New Almaden about a year before his death, coming from Wales, where they had been mining iron stone. Wedlake’s obituary in the San Jose Daily Mercury for October 4, 1883 reported:

“Coroner Harris was called to Almaden yesterday afternoon to hold an inquest over the remains of a miner who was killed about 1 o'clock, and returned at a late hour last night. The facts are as follows: Richard Wedlake and his working partner, together with two Mexicans, were engaged in blasting shortly before noon in the Santa Isabel shaft, which has a length of 50 feet and a width of 10 feet, four blasts having been prepared and touched, one of which, however, did not explode. The men went to dinner at noon and returning about 1 o’clock. Wedlake commenced to investigate the cause of the failure of the blast to explode, when a heavy piece of rock, weighing about 200 pounds, fell from the roof of the chamber onto Wedlake’s head, striking him down with fatal results. Wedlake was a married man, 57 years of age, and has a son at the mine. His wife is now on her way from England to California. A verdict in accordance with the above was returned by the jury.”

That last bit about the jury verdict on Wedlake’s cause of death was

OFFICIALDOM talk for ‘it was an accident or an act of God' and therefore the

mine company is not held liable for the death. The coroner’s report noted

Wedlake did not follow proper procedures. In practical terms, this meant that

unless the dead man saved his money and paid into a burial society, his family

would be hard pressed to pay for the funeral. Wedlake was enrolled in a plan

provided by the New Almaden Mining Company, and today he lies with three other Cornish miners in a plot at Oak Hill Cemetery, which records still list as owned by the New Almaden Mining Company.

Now, this is where we veer off from causes to death for a moment to talk about exactly where the dead were sent to their final rest.

The nearest cemetery to the mine in San Jose was Oak Hill Cemetery, established on land donated by Antonio Chaboya, to bury victims of an 1847 cholera epidemic in San Jose.

In the days when wagons pulled by four or more horses were the only transportation to the cemetery, it was costly and difficult to bury your dead in a city cemetery that kept proper records. In a letter sent in 1952 to the Pioneer Society of Santa Clara, a wife and daughter of Cornish miners described daily rituals in the mining camp, in particular, how they handled death:

“The English people brought their dead to Oak Hill Cemetery. It took a whole day to make the trip – it was 15 miles by wagon, and the families usually stayed overnight in San Jose at the Russ House Hotel at First and San Antonio streets, across from the post office.”

When someone died, the family would wash and dress their loved one and lay

them out in a coffin purchased in a store on the hill. Then they traveled to the San Jose Hotel, staying overnight. The following morning a plot was purchased and a funeral service performed at Oak Hill Cemetery. Then they made the long and rough trip by wagon back to Mine Hill.

The men worked six days a week, and they were paid by tonnage mined, not by hourly wages. All in all, working members of the funeral party lost two days of tonnage (unless one of the days was Sunday) which could add up to quite a lot if a family had many working sons and son-in laws. Considering lost wages, hotel stay and food for at least several people, a coffin, a cemetery plot and a granite marker, a death in the family was pretty pricey.

When my 4X Great Grandfather, Francisco Avila, died in a tram accident a

few months before Richard Wedlake, he was not buried at Oak Hill. His death was reported in the Mariposa Gazette, and the headline read:

A FATAL RIDE - CRUSHED TO DEATH

Two Miners Killed at the New Almaden Quicksilver Mine

The shocking accident occurred at the New Almaden Mine on Friday afternoon

about 4 o’clock. Between the top of the hill to the works below are three inclines,

over each of which cars are moved by means of a cable that passes around a drum,

the weight of a loaded car as it descends carrying the empty car up the incline. The

design of the car is to carry ore exclusively, with employees being forbidden to ride

upon them. Shortly before the accident, however, foreman William Brown called to

Francisco Avila and Thomas Cornish to join him in the ascending empty car on

the middle incline. Brown, who was charged with maintaining the chain and cable

apparatus, was rejoicing over the successful repair of a chain which had been

broken. Shortly after the three climbed into the car, a link in the chain connecting

the cable to the car broke, and before the brake could be applied, the car sped

violently down the incline, flew through the air and capsized. Cornish, more

fortunate than the others, was riding on the outer edge of the car and succeeded in

jumping off without hurt, but Brown and Avila were thrown under the car with

fatal results. Brown’s skull was frightfully crushed and he died instantly. Avila’s

side was crushed and he was otherwise bruised, but he lived for a few minutes and

was able to converse a little. Avila was a native Californian, 4I years of age and a

wife and seven children. An inquest verdict of the jury being in accordance with

the facts attached no blame to anyone connected with the company.”

This came as no surprise. The Mexican miners, for the most part, did not bury their dead at Oak Hill in the 19th century. Instead, they had two burial societies one could pay into, meaning that if they died, the society held money in their names to cover funeral costs and perhaps to assist the family.

One of the societies was in charge of the Guadalupe Cemetery, situated near the Catholic Church in Spanishtown.

No official records were ever kept of the souls buried there, and the last wooden grave marker

disappeared from those grounds at some point in the 1950s.

This is where Francisco Avila, a paying member of the Society Nuestra Senora Guadalupe, lies in a now-unmarked grave.

As the mining operations began shrinking after 1900 and families moved out of Spanishtown, the cemetery was abandoned and often vandalized. Some who had been interred there were moved to other cemeteries, like my great-grandmother who was buried in the Guadalupe Cemetery in 1911; her body was moved in 1934, when her three unmarried daughters had saved enough money from their jobs at the canneries to purchase a large family plot in Calvary Catholic Cemetery on the Eastside of San Jose.

The other cemetery on the hill is the Hidalgo Cemetery, which is marked by a stand of cedars, not far from the Guadalupe Cemetery. Again, no records were kept and not much is known about the Hidalgo Cemetery except what we were told by former NAQCPA President Kitty Monahan. Kitty’s uncle Thomas Monahan was a San Jose undertaker, and members of the Hidalgo Society paid Monahan to remove the last of the remains from that cemetery in the early 1920s for burial elsewhere

All we know of burials at mine cemeteries is from when one was listed as a final resting place in an obituary or on an undertaker’s record, or from family recollections.

The Hacienda Cemetery on Bertram Road was another cemetery with no official records. It was established by the Barron Forbes Company in the early 1850s to accommodate residents of the new village of Hacienda (as Almaden Road and its environs were called). It was non-sectarian, so there you will find Catholics and Protestants buried side-by-side. Though many of the markers in the Hacienda Cemetery were stolen or destroyed by the elements, more than fifty graves, enclosed by “cribs” made from white picket fencing, still remain.

Many of those buried at the Hacienda Cemetery were children from mining

families who lived along Almaden Road, like Roberto Berryessa, a ten-year-old

descendant of the original grantee to the land covered by the mine, who was my great-grandmother’s cousin. This land was first occupied by Native Americans and then claimed by the Mexican Governor of California and awarded in 1842, to Jose Berryessa. The Berryessas lost the land (and some of their lives) to American squatters with forged documents who went on to establish the New Almaden Mining Company. After the family was chased from their home, the Berryessas lived in various miner’s cabins along Almaden Road. When Roberto passed, he was placed in the Hacienda Cemetery a short walk from the house where he was born.

There is still a marker in the Hacienda Cemetery for Daniel Aceves, a child who died not long after his first birthday. Daniel’s father, Teodoro Aceves, was a native of New Almaden and worked as a blacksmith for the mine; one of his brothers was a furnaceman and another was the Spanishtown barber.

The Aceves family had emigrated from Guanajuato Mexico to California in 1860. In addition to being Daniel’s father, Teodoro was also a great-grandfather of former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, on his mother’s side.

Not all deaths occurred in mine accidents or through infant diseases and

birth complications. Back in the day, Almaden was notorious for its frequent

murders, as vividly depicted in the local newspapers and picked up with great

interest by other papers across the United States.

As an example, another inhabitant of the Hacienda Cemetery is Joaquin Yturriaga, a native of Chile who was shot in a Spanishtown bar fight in 1890 over a late repayment of a one dollar loan. Joaquin, his shooter said at trial, was tall and menacing; he was known to have spent time in an asylum and was also known to be a “stabber.” So, when Yturriaga shoved the short borrower up against the saloon wall, demanding the return of his dollar, the little man – in righteous fear for his life – pulled out a pistol and shot Yturriaga, who died a few weeks later. The shooter got five years at San Quentin, and Yturriaga lies next to his wife Lucia, whose wooden grave markers still stands, close to the creek.

Infectious diseases were also a frequent taker of lives in the 19th century. On the east side of Bertram Road running through the Hacienda Cemetery is a gravesite with one wood marker, listing the names of the Castillo family members who are buried there. Nicholas Castillo and Sulema Cesena were the parents of nine children. The first child they lost was one-year-old Beatrice in 1899. She died of cholera caused by drinking water contaminated with sewage, which results in severe dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea. Children under the age of five were especially susceptible to its ravages.

1907 was the worst of several bad years for the Castillos: four-year-old daughter Mariana died in April, mother Sulema died in May at the

age of 34, and 16-month-old Joseph died in August. Sulema had tuberculous

meningitis, a bacterium that penetrates the body’s brain and spine, causing the

body to “waste away.” Those who were sick coughed up blood that contained the bacteria, which then spread through the air to those around them. In addition to Sulema, Mariana and Joseph’s deaths of tuberculosis that year, daughter Vivian died at the age of seven in July 1913 and her father, Nicholas, age 42, died a few months later, also from tuberculosis. At the time of his death, Nicolas was living with his mother in San Jose on Palm Street, but rather than choosing interment in a cemetery closer to their home, his family had his body taken to Almaden where he was laid to rest next to his wife and four of his nine children.

And then we have death by obesity! I hope you will see this story not as fat-

shaming, but rather focused on the logistics involved when transporting a dead

person, i.e., dead weight, to the cemetery. According to a story in the San

Francisco Call from May 26, 1902, it took seventy pallbearers to carry the casket

holding the remains of Mrs. Hilaria Dorame, proprietress of the Spanishtown

tamale parlor:

“Seventy pallbearers officiated at the funeral of Mrs. Hilaria de Dorame at New Almaden yesterday. The deceased was a very large woman, weighing 410 pounds. There is no wagon road from the town to the Guadalupe Cemetery, and this small army of pallbearers was required to carry the coffin. The distance from the Dorame home to the cemetery is more than a mile, and fourteen men were required to carry the great weight of the coffin and body. Five times the pallbearers were changed during the funeral march, making a total of 70 coffin- bearers. It was necessary to have the coffin made to order in San Francisco. Mrs. Dorame was the wife of Felipe Dorame and 73 years old when she died.”

Felipe and Hilaria, a childless couple, had resided at New Almaden since 1858. For years Hilaria earned money washing and ironing clothes for unmarried miners, until she saved enough to start her tamale parlor. Felipe died the year after Hilaria and, at the age of 70, was still an employee of the Quicksilver Mining Company with 45 years of service.

The last thing I want to mention is disrespect for the dead and their families, whether by nature or other people. Over the years, grave markers were stolen from the defunct cemeteries by presumed pranksters. The wooden marker for Roberto Berryessa is actually a replica of the original, which was returned to the Pioneers not many years ago by a contrite adult who admitted to stealing it and leaving it in his family basement back when he was a teenager. The old museum on Almaden Road displayed antique rosaries that had been buried with their owners in Guadalupe and Hacienda. The creek running alongside the Hacienda Cemetery swelled and overflowed into the cemetery during heavy rains; at those times, some claimed they saw bodies and pieces of caskets floating by.

But the worst desecration occurred on May 8, 1928 when the Hacienda Cemetery, which originally consisted of one large burial ground, had a road cut through the middle of it so that a resident, who lived on the other side of the cemetery from where he had to park his car, could drive up to his front door without having to walk past graves. Further, the cemetery fences were pulled down and monuments removed with the intent to build housing over the place of rest.

Later that May, after the road was paved across the cemetery, Maggie Moreno, a widow, travelled with her seven children from Delmas Street in San Jose to visit their father Arthuro’s grave in the Hacienda Cemetery. Arturo had been injured in a mine accident in 1913, and shortly thereafter succumbed to typhoid fever. Decades later, Maggie’s granddaughter could still remember her grandmother’s anguish as she told of arriving at the cemetery only to find her husband’s grave desecrated, and his cement marker thrown aside. It was not only Arturo’s grave that was now under the road, but also that of Maggie’s daughter Lizzie, who was just shy of her second birthday when she died in 1912. They also found the markers for Arturo’s brother Joseph and two of his children lying in the scrap heap; their graves, too, were gone. A dozen families sued the Almaden Lakefront Properties for damages. Although they lost the lawsuit, the proposed housing was never built.

The California Pioneers of Santa Clara County acquired ownership of the Hacienda Cemetery in 1974 when a generous doner bought it at a county sale where it was sold for unpaid taxes. Though it has been a struggle over these last few years to maintain the property, the Pioneers are fortunate to have self-directed volunteers from cemetery neighbors, especially Eric Johns who lives next door to the cemetery on the creek side. NAQCPA volunteers Mike Boulland, Bruce Bartlett, Rich Robertson, Mike Cox, Scot Hayes, Dave Smith and Cal Lantrip have cleared a lot of brush the last few months and are starting to rebuild the picket fences surrounding the graves.

The Pioneers are grateful to Eric and all the volunteers who have helped the Pioneers maintain the cemetery over the years. They plan to further restore the cemetery over the next year and will have a rededication ceremony for the Hacienda Cemetery when complete.

John Young

The First Superintendent at New Almaden

by Art Boudreault

“In the fall of 1847, Alexander Forbes arrived from Mexico with a sizable crew of workers, equipment, [including} John Young, who would superintend the initial operations” [of the Barron Forbes mine, called New Almaden]. (Cinnabar Hills page 9)

Amongst his accomplishments were building homes for the workers and families. He resided at Cottage 2, the second home to the south of the Casa Grande. The Clampers placed a monument at his home with the following inscription. 

“This restored house is one of the original homes in the town of New Almaden, which was originally called Hacienda. The house was built in 1847 by Barron, Forbes Mining Co. and owned by the mining company until its bankruptcy in 1912. The cottage was first occupied by John Young, a native of Scotland, who was a trader and master of vessels on the coast. In the fall of 1847, he arrived here with Alexander Forbes and a sizable crew of workers and became Superintendent of the initial mining operations. Young died in San Francisco in 1864. Erected 1981 by The Brian Ledig Family and Mountain Charlie Chapter No. 1850, E Clampus Vitus.”

In 1859, a dispute about the land owned by Barron Forbes eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which decided that the land (and the mines) was the property of the Unites States. Barron Forbes ignored the injunction and continued mining. President Lincoln signed an order to evict Barron Forbes. Leonard Swett was sent to New Almaden to enforce the order.

Swett was a secret stock owner in a competing company who was preparing to purchase the property. Swett was also Lincoln’s personal attorney. Swett arrived at New Almaden. “As dawn approached on July 10th, 1863, Young and his six leaders had made their decisions. This hot July day would decide the issue between a handful of stubborn hard rock miners and the United States Army. Unless John Young convinced Marshal Rand and Colonel Black to delay the seizure (of the New Almaden Mines), a shooting match was inevitable." So writes Norman Pope in his short story crisis at Quicksilver Hill.

The story continues to fascinate. Supposedly Young approached the government officials, singled out Swett and told him, “You have many more troops than I have fighters, so you may win the battle. When I give the order, my men are trained on you. You will not live to see your victory.”

Swett backed down. Henry Halleck, the former mine manager, and now Chief of the Union Armies, rescinded Lincoln’s order. The Civil War battle for New Almaden never occurred. (NAQCPA Issue # 24 Summer 1990)

Remembering Our Beginnings

As we celebrate NAQCPA's 40th anniversary, we hope you will enjoy an excerpt from NAQCPA's August 1984 newsletter.

ASSOCIATION OBTAINS NON-PROFIT STATUS

On June 19, 1984, the New Almaden Quicksilver Park Association became incorporated. Our Articles of incorporation were approved by the State of California and we received our non-profit status. Contributions to the Association are now tax-deductible.

Now we can proceed with our major goal of reconstruction of the mine office at the reduction works site in New Almaden to serve as a park office and visitors center. The Board of Supervisors will be soon reviewing the proposal from Larry Norris, Santa Clara County Parks Department, and we will then begin the process of choosing the architect for the development of the eleven acre site. The Board of Directors of the Association will be working closely with the architect, the director, and the association members to formulate the design for the property to coincide with the needs of the public for the use of the Quicksilver Park.

Quicksilver Night at the Opry was a terrific success. We packed the house, had a wonderful time and added much needed revenue to the Association's treasury. Now we can add more pages to our newsletters, improve on our tour guide and provide a special day for our pioneers.

2nd ANNUAL QUICKSILVER PIONEER DAY - OCTOBER 13th, 1984

The Quicksilver Park Association, in cooperation with the staff of Club Almaden, will hold its second annual Quicksilver Park Association Pioneer Day at Casa Grande in New Almaden on Saturday, October 13th from 1 to 5.

The purpose of the day will be to bring back and talk with some of the of timers who lived and worked in Englishtown, Spanishtown, or the Hacienda during the era when the mines were in operation.

Miners who worked in the New Almaden mine and members of the Pioneer families who lived up on Mine Hill in Englishtown or Spanishtown, or were early settlers of the Hacienda will be our guests for a barbeque, entertainment and tour. If you know the present whereabouts of former New Almaden miners, CCC members stationed at Almaden Quicksilver during the 1930's, or other former residents of the Hacienda, Englishtown, or Spanishtown areas please contact Kitty Monahan.

Please join us in discovering first hand the life and times of the mining era of New Almaden. The Casa Grande is located at 21350 Almaden Road.

Kitty Monahan Dedication Celebration

by Tere Johnson

A special dedication celebration was held on November 28th at the beautiful Casa Grande in New Almaden. Kitty was honored by not one, not two, but three wonderful tributes to keep her memory alive for future generations.

The event was hosted by Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian. Former Supervisor Mike Wasserman, County Parks Director Don Rocha, County Roads Director Harry Freitas and NAQCPA President Tere Johnson were also on hand to unveil Kitty's new memorial table, new trail, and new bridge.

Supervisors Simitian and Wasserman highlighted how Kitty was

instrumental in making Almaden Quicksilver into a beloved County Park and shared the lasting impact she has had on the community.

Director Rocha reflected on Kitty’s contributions to County Parks and why County Parks wholeheartedly supported renaming the Yellow Kid Trail to the Kitty Monahan trail in her honor.

NAQCPA President Johnson reflected on Kitty’s life and contributions to New Almaden and NAQCPA. Johnson mentioned that, while Kitty spearheaded many significant projects, it took a team to bring them to fruition and asked the NAQCPA Board and volunteers to stand and be recognized for their contributions and dedication.

It was a great day to honor a great lady!

Kitty's memorial table, located at the Catherine Tunnel lookout in Almaden Quicksilver County Park, was one of Kitty's favorite locations in the park.

NAQCPA created a Go Fund Me Page to generate funds for the table. NAQCPA is grateful to everyone who made a financial contribution to make Kitty's table possible.

NAQCPA spearheaded the effort to have the Yellow Kid Trail renamed in memory of Kitty.

The trail connects the former Englishtown and Spanishtown sites, and passes by the original cave location where Native Americans discovered cinnabar and which ultimately became the first major mine in New Almaden.

Kitty will forever be remembered by park guests who walk along her trail.

Those who have traveled through New Almaden the last couple of years have seen the construction of a new bridge across the Los Alamitos Creek, just north of the Almaden Reservoir.

Given Kitty's long service and many contributions to the area, a local resident suggested to County Supervisor Joe Simitian that it would be fitting to name the new bridge in Kitty's honor.

The rest of the Board of Supervisors agreed, and the new bridge is now officially designated as the Kathleen "Kitty" Monahan Bridge.