Q: What are the platforms off Monterey Road about 100 to 200
yards? They are near Coyote on the east side of Monterey, and there
are three or four of them. Some say they were parts of bridges, but
that doesn’t make sense.
Q: What are the platforms off Monterey Road about 100 to 200 yards? They are near Coyote on the east side of Monterey, and there are three or four of them. Some say they were parts of bridges, but that doesn’t make sense. I think they could be part of some kind of agricultural processing operation but I can’t imagine what.
– Frank F., Morgan Hill
A: The towers stand like quiet sentinels in a Coyote Valley field just west of Monterey a few miles outside of Morgan Hill, their past forgotten. Today they’re covered in enough dirt to grow weeds upon their elevated concrete slabs. Close up, they dwarf a man. But what are they?
Good question, say county government sources. Documents available at the County Assessor’s office show the structures and the property they sit on have belonged to the county of Santa Clara since Jan. 1, 1973.
“We don’t really know what they are,” said Mark Frederick, manager of planning and real estate for the Santa Clara County Parks Department. “The property was taken over by eminent domain, and we’ve always assumed that they had something to do with gravel production.”
Jim Clisham, a painter who lives within walking distance of the structures, isn’t so sure.
“I’ve always thought they were launch pads for rockets,” he said. “A munitions company called UTC used to be right up in these hills and there’s plumbing out there like you would need for water to cool down a launch pad.”
