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Tanglewood Flag-Stop

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Location of Tanglewood with possible sites of flag-stop
(Map courtesy Duncan Nanney; annotations mine)
At the base of San Lorenzo Avenue south of Felton, a small community developed in a clearing beside the original Santa Cruz & Felton Railroad route under the name Tanglewood. Weltha A. Bell, the wife of Thomas L. Bell, designed the subdivision using the name of Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous book, Tanglewood Tales for Boys and Girls, published in 1853. The land was purchased from Frederick Augustus Hihn, who owned the majority of property south of Felton since 1889. A map of the area was filed with the county recorder entitled "Map of Tangle Wood, Near Felton, Cal" on May 13th, 1907. The area was later expanded according to a map published on June 7th, 1909 called "Bells Addition to Tanglewood", though where it expanded to is unknown. It is likely that development simply continued up San Lorenzo Avenue as the naming scheme (roads named after US presidents) was retained.

Virtually nothing is known of the train stop except that it was certainly a flag-stop, catering to the small local population located in the subdivision. The stop was operated solely by the Southern Pacific Railroad from 1907 until the line closed in 1926. No extant photographs are known to exist of the stop, though the location was undoubtedly in the clearing at the base of San Lorenzo Avenue or just to the north of that site where three houses now reside on the original right-of-way. If that latter site is to be supposed, it would have been immediately adjacent to the Highway 9 entrance to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (then called Big Trees County Park) at the base of Oak Avenue alongside Shingle Mill Creek.

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Google Street View of the intersection of Highway 9 (West San Lorenzo Road) and San Lorenzo Avenue.
The stone pillar that marked the Tanglewood subdivision can be seen at center-left under a tree.
The name or the community remains, though it is rarely used and no signage exists. A single cement and stone pillar sits on the north side of the bottom of San Lorenzo Avenue, a probable relic of the Tanglewood subdivision.

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