The first settlers, a Spanish family arriving in 1839, were scouting for a homestead in the area when they heard mountain lions roaring and fighting.

As a Caltrans magazine from the era describes it: "Included in this project is a relocation of Los Gatos Creek for a distance of 6,000 feet, requiring a concrete line channel."

Below Vasona Park, Los Gatos Creek feeds percolation ponds that are part of the groundwater recharge system built by the Santa Clara Valley Water District.

North of Lark Avenue, one can also see a structure resembling a fountain, where imported water from other reservoirs is also added to Los Gatos Creek for recharge.

While simultaneously dealing with the demands of growing cities, the water district finally managed to stop further sinking by the 1980s.

Only five fish species were documented historically in the Guadalupe River watershed including rainbow trout, Sacramento sucker, roach, prickly sculpin, and three-spined stickleback (in brackish ponds and sloughs near the bay).

Today, Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) migrate up the Guadalupe River and Los Gatos Creek from San Francisco Bay.

Chinook salmon arrived in the Guadalupe River watershed (which includes Los Gatos Creek) as Central Valley hatchery strays in the 1980s.

[14] Physical proof of golden beaver in south San Francisco Bay tributaries is a Castor canadensis subauratus skull in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History collected by zoologist James Graham Cooper in Santa Clara, California on Dec. 31, 1855.

[18] Los Gatos Creek originates at 2,350 feet (720 m) on Loma Prieta Mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains and flows west to the minor Williams Reservoir above Lake Elsman (also a reservoir formed by Austrian Dam), where it is joined from the north by Austrian Gulch.