Talk:Alma, California

Lexington and Alma
Quoth the article: "The original town name registered with the Postal Service in 1861 was Lexington. It was re-registered as Alma in 1873." Is this accurate? I thought Lexington and Alma were two different towns. There's a separate article about Lexington,_California that says that it lost importance when the railway arrived in Alma. Eamonnca1 (talk) 20:50, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

The location looks wrong
I live nearby (in Los Gatos) and have been curious about Alma. According to the article, Alma was submerged when the Lexington reservoir was created. But the location given is some distance from the reservoir (a note on the location says that it was the weather station, which may have been outside the town). Note that the location for Lexington (another submerged town) looks accurate, and Alma was perhaps a mile south of Lexington? Curtbeckmann (talk) 23:01, 10 June 2019 (UTC)


 * Note that I just added a photo of a house from Alma being moved to Menlo Park in 1962. So there were obviously parts of the town above the lake level. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:59, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Jesuit college history
The previous history of the Jesuit college is interesting and documented in a Park history document, https://www.openspace.org/sites/default/files/AlmaCollegeHistoricResourceStudy.pdf.

Briefly, the site of Alma college was originally a sawmill in the 1850s, the principal one for that area in the timber-cutting days. The town of Alma grew up nearby, and the railroad arrived around 1881. Stillman H. Knowles, a wealthy miner, bought the property in 1887 for a rural retreat. In 1894, the property passed to Maria Rosina (Rose) Flood, daughter-in-law of "Bonanza King" James Clair Flood. Flood's wild son James L. Flood expanded the Knowles estate to a luxurious 40-room mansion. In 1905, they sold it to Dr. Harry L. Tevis, another rich man's son. The former Flood estate was badly damaged in the 1906 earthquake, and Tevis rebuilt it in California Bungalow style. Dr. Tevis passed away in 1931. The Jesuits acquired the property for a seminary in 1934. --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:44, 10 June 2020 (UTC)