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Forbes Mill Museum

Los Gatos, United States of America

Forbes Mill Museum

Forbes Mill is a now-defunct flour mill originally built in 1854 located in Los Gatos, California, which served as the History Museum of Los Gatos after having been saved from destruction in 1982. The museum closed in 2014, and its collections are now part of New Museum Los Gatos. The building is cu

rrently owned by the city. The mill is the first commercial building to be established in the city of Los Gatos. The existing two-story building is actually a storage annex, which was added to the original four-story stone mill building in the fall of 1880. Forbes Mill was built as the Santa Rosa Flour Mill by James Alexander Forbes, who was born in Scotland in 1805. He came to California in about 1831 and served as Vice-Consul in San Francisco for the British government. The California Gold Rush gave James the idea to put up a flour mill because there were none in this area at the time, and the price of flour was running at $50/barrel. He found a location on Los Gatos Creek that he thought would provide sufficient water power. In 1850, he purchased 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) in the area of the Los Gatos Creek and proceeded to build a mill. In 1853, he raised the money for the construction, borrowing...

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