Glossary · History & People
Charles Henry McKiernan (about 1825-1892), an early Santa Cruz Mountains settler and stage-road builder who survived a grizzly attack; his name lived on in a downtown Los Gatos saloon.
McKiernan was a hunter, rancher, teamster and stage-line operator. In May 1854 a grizzly bear mauled him, and a doctor patched his skull with a silver plate.
Mountain Charlie Road roughly follows his old stage road, and Mountain Charley’s Restaurant and Saloon ran in downtown Los Gatos for more than fifty years.
Charles Henry McKiernan, a pioneer of the Santa Cruz Mountains known for surviving a grizzly attack in 1854.
The saloon named for him ran downtown for more than fifty years.