Hecker Pass

Hecker Pass is a low mountain pass across the Santa Cruz Mountains of central California, connecting Watsonville on the Pacific coast to Gilroy and the Santa Clara Valley.[2] It is traversed by Hecker Pass Road, the western part of California State Route 152, which continues east from Gilroy across Pacheco Pass and into the Central Valley. Mt. Madonna County Park lies to the north of the pass.[3] The pass's elevation is 408 metres (1,339 ft).[4]

Hecker Pass
The pass lies west of Gilroy and northeast of Watsonville.
Elevation1,339 feet (408 m)[1]
Traversed by SR 152
LocationBetween Santa Cruz County and Santa Clara County.
RangeSanta Cruz Mountains
Coordinates36°59′40″N 121°43′02″W

Santa Clara County supervisor Henry Hecker, a nephew of Friedrich Hecker, became the namesake of the pass on May 27, 1928, at the opening of the "Yosemite-to-the-Sea Highway" over it.[5][6] In the 1930s, flooding on creeks near the highway caused the collapse of a bridge and the closing of the pass.[7] In 1941, a landslide closed the pass,[8] and in 1947 and 1959, the pass was again closed because of landslides caused by earthquakes.[9]

The Hecker Strawberry, a strawberry variety introduced in 1979 in Davis, California, is named after the pass.[10]

References
  1. Hilton, Tom (30 April 2011). "Panoche Road 06". Retrieved 2012-09-09.
  2. Taggart, Lisa (May 1, 2004), "The winding road west: parks and wineries line Hecker Pass Highway near Gilroy", Sunset.
  3. Rusmore, Jean; Spangle, Frances; Crowder, Betsy (2001), South Bay Trails: Outdoor Adventures in & Around Santa Clara Valley : From the Diablo Range to the Pacific Ocean (3rd ed.), Wilderness Press, ISBN 9780899976044.
  4. U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Hecker Pass.
  5. Gudde, Erwin Gustav (1949), California Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary, University of California Press, p. 137.
  6. Shueh, Sam (2008), South Santa Clara County, Images of America: a history of American life in images and texts, Arcadia Publishing, p. 65, ISBN 9780738558455.
  7. Salewske, Claudia (2003), Gilroy, Images of America, p. 143, ISBN 9781439614174.
  8. "Large slide on Hecker Pass Road", San Jose News, April 10, 1941.
  9. Youd, T. Leslie; Hoose, Seena N. (1978), Historic ground failures in northern California triggered by earthquakes, Geological Survey professional papers, 993, U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 88.
  10. Gordon, Don (1997), Growing Fruit in the Upper Midwest (3rd ed.), University of Minnesota Press, p. 178, ISBN 9781452901060.
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