Wrights, California | |
|---|---|
 Bridge over Los Gatos Creek, Wrights Station Road, May 2008 | |
  Wrights, California Location within Northern California  Wrights, California Location within the state of California | |
| Coordinates: 37°08′21″N 121°56′49″W / 37.13917°N 121.94694°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
| County | Santa Clara |
| Elevation | 991 ft (302 m) |
| Time zone | UTC-8 (Pacific (PST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-7 (PDT) |
| GNIS feature ID | 238202 |
Wrights, California (also known as 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.[2]
The National Weather Service maintained a cooperative weather station on the site of Wrights until May 31, 1986, which recorded rainfall and snowfall.[3] The weather station was 1,600 feet (490 m) above sea level.[4] 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.[5] Geologists observed a lateral displacement of 4.6 feet (1.4 m) at Wrights.[6]
Wrights is one of a number of ghost towns in the Santa Cruz Mountains that flourished during the last half of the nineteenth century. Laurel, Wrights, Glenwood, and Clems declined when the Los Gatos-Santa Cruz railroad ceased operations in March 1940. Later in 1940, Patchen was bypassed and isolated by the construction of State Route 17; since the late 1960s it has been a Christmas tree ranch. Alma and Lexington were submerged in Lexington Reservoir in 1952, along State Route 17 above Los Gatos.
- ^ USGS, Wrights (locale)
- ^ Wrights, California: Wrights, California Latitude and Longitude
- ^ Central California
- ^ WRIGHTS, California, USA: Climate, Global Warming, and Daylight Charts and Data
- ^ Robert Iacopi, Earthquake Country (Menlo Park: Lane Publishing, 1964)
- ^ Historic Earthquakes