A group of San Jose residents is savoring a recent victory in the ongoing battle to save the Willow Glen Trestle from being razed.
The California State Historical Resources Commission unanimously declared the railroad relic eligible for historic preservation at an April 18 public hearing in San Francisco.
The fate of the trestle likely won’t be settled until next month, however, when the federal government is supposed to decide whether it fits criteria for inclusion in the National Historic Register. That’s good enough at the moment for Larry Ames, leader of Friends of the Willow Glen Trestle, which has been fighting to save the bridge for several years.
“Just being judged to be eligible for listing on the National Historic Register is a major milestone, and by itself it is enough to have the city’s current EIR deemed to be inadequate,” Ames wrote in an email. “The trestle can not be simply dismissed as ‘non-historic’ if it is eligible for national listing.”
The group asked state historians to review a slew of information about the trestle several months ago. Ames said at the time that the trestle is an important link to Willow Glen’s past, including the period of robber barons and railroad company rivalries that shaped the community, and had asked neighbors to write letters in support of preserving it.
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