Hicks Creek, also known as Reynolds Creek, is a perennial northeast flowing stream in

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, United States. It is tributary to Guadalupe Creek, which is in turn, tributary to the Guadalupe River and south

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History

Hicks Creek is named for Thomas Pascoe Brown Hicks, a native of

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, born in 1825, who immigrated to California in 1854. He was naturalized in

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in 1862 and settled in Santa Clara County later that year. Hicks owned various lands about the Guadalupe Mine and operated a store there until his death in 1901. He paid for the survey of Hicks Road, which until 1956 ran from Camden Avenue to Alamitos Road. Hicks Road runs along Guadalupe Creek, and Hicks Creek is the first significant tributary of Guadalupe Creek below Guadalupe Reservoir and Dam. This portion of the upper Guadalupe River watershed below the Dam was near the Guadalupe Mine, part of the New Almaden Mercury Mining District, established in 1845 in the hills south of San Jose, California, which hosted the first and most productive mercury mines in the state. Hicks Flat, at the confluence of Hicks Creek with Guadalupe Creek, is the location of a recent mercury mine-waste clean-up. Hicks Creek is also known as Reynolds Creek, and the creek is just west of Reynolds Road which intersects with Hicks Road. Reynolds Creek is likely named for Judge John Reynolds, who was born in Bedford, Westchester County, New York in 1825, came to California in 1853 and practiced in

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until 1871 when he moved his law practice to Santa Clara County. He became a judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court and was elected to the

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in 1880. In a record of Santa Clara County court cases, there was a land ownership title dispute between T. P. B. Hicks, his brother William John Hicks, and John Reynolds, which are likely the persons mentioned above given the proximity of the roads and creeks named for them.

Watershed

Hicks Creek begins on the north slope of

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in the southern

Santa Cruz Mountains The Santa Cruz Mountains, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges, are a mountain range in central and Northern California, United States. They form a ridge down the San Francisco Peninsula, south of San Francisco. They separate the Pacific Ocean from ...

, about north-northwest of

Mt. Umunhum Mount Umunhum (Ohlone for "Resting Place of the Hummingbird") is a peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, located in Santa Clara County, California. It is the fourth-highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains, after Loma Prieta, Crystal Peak, and Mt. ...

. The southern Santa Cruz Mountains were originally named by the Spanish as the

Sierra Azul The Sierra Azul is a mountain range in Santa Clara County, California. It is the southern half of the Santa Cruz Mountains range, which is divided into two parts by California Highway 17 into what the colonizing Spanish called the Sierra Morena or ...

or "Blue Mountains", which is the namesake for the Sierra Azul Open Space District. Hicks Creek flows north-by-northeast about before its confluence with Guadalupe Creek about below Guadalupe Reservoir. Hicks Creek's confluence with Guadalupe Creek is just west of the intersection of Reynolds Road with Hicks Road. Cherry Springs Creek is a short, perennial tributary of Hicks Creek with its origin in man-made Cherry Springs Pond. It flows northeast through a natural channel to its mouth at Hicks Creek. Hicks Creek is defined on the

Santa Clara Valley Water District The Santa Clara Valley Water District (also known as Valley Water) provides stream stewardship, wholesale water supply and flood protection for Santa Clara County, California, in the southern San Francisco Bay Area. The district encompasses all of ...

Santa Clara County Creeks Map and the

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Creek & Watershed Map of South San Jose. Cherry Springs Creek and Hicks Creek are reversed on a 2005 Guadalupe River Watershed mercury

total maximum daily load A total maximum daily load (TMDL) is a regulatory term in the U.S. Clean Water Act, describing a plan for restoring impaired waters that identifies the maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive while still meeting water quali ...

(TMDL) report and a 2011 geologic map of a mercury mine waste inventory report.

Ecology

According to numerous reports, Hicks Creek's lower reaches host spawning

steelhead trout Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...

(''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') "in almost every pool and riffle". A 2014–2015 steelhead trout survey found "Guadalupe Creek above Hicks Road had the longest contiguous area of flowing freshwater" with appropriate conditions for residence of ''O. mykiss'' in the Guadalupe River watershed. The entire Hicks Creek watershed is protected on the

Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve Sierra Azul Open Space Preserve is managed by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District in Santa Clara County, California. It is approximately in area. The preserve is named for the Sierra Azul or "Blue Mountains", the name the colonizing Spa ...

lands.

References

External links