History of Santa Clara County, California facts for kids

Santa Clara County, California is a special place in California. It's one of the very first counties created in the state. People have lived here for a very long time, even before recorded history, and through the time when California was part of Spain.

Early People of Santa Clara County

The first people we know about living in this area were the Ohlone tribe. They lived near Coyote Creek and Calaveras Creek. We know from old discoveries that Ohlone settlements were here as far back as 8000 BC.

About 4,000 years ago, the Ohlone people and others living near the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta started to organize their societies. They also developed special religious practices. Important people in the San Francisco Bay area were buried in large mounds, which are now called "shellmounds".

Europeans Arrive and Settle

European visitors first came to this region with the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo. The Spanish arrived in California because they were worried about Russian explorers. The Russians had settled in Alaska and were looking for trading posts along the West Coast. These posts would be close to Spain's rich mines.

In 1769, José Francisco Ortega explored the area for Captain Gaspar de Portolà. Ortega named Santa Clara "Llano de los Robles," which means "Plain of the Oaks."

Spanish Missions and Towns

Father Junípero Serra also came to California and started a chain of Franciscan missions. In 1777, Father Serra gave the Santa Clara Valley its lasting name. He started the Mission Santa Clara de Asís, which was named after Saint Clare of Assisi from Italy. The name "Clare" or "Clara" means "clear" or "bright." This mission was the 8th of 21 missions built. It covered a large area, from San Francisquito Creek in Palo Alto down to Llagas Creek near Gilroy.

San Jose became California's first town. On November 29, 1777, a group of soldiers and settlers founded the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe. It was named in honor of St. Joseph. The Spanish missions were not happy about this new town, but they couldn't stop it.

Mexican Rule and Changes

In 1821, Mexico became independent from Spain. By 1825, San Jose officially recognized Mexican rule. The Mexican government then started selling off church lands. This process was called "secularization." It was supposed to give land back to the native people, but often the land was sold to the highest bidders. By 1839, only about 300 native people remained at Mission Santa Clara.

The time of the Californios, who were wealthy landowners, didn't last long. Soon, American immigrants began arriving, and then the Mexican-American War began.

Becoming a U.S. Territory

On May 13, 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico. Captain Thomas Fallon and his men entered San Jose on July 14, 1846. They raised the United States flag over the town hall. San Jose was a small town with people from Spanish California, Mexico, Peru, Chile, and native tribes.

After the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, California became part of the United States. It was first a territory and then a state on September 9, 1850.

Gold Rush and New Towns

The California Gold Rush also changed Santa Clara County. Many immigrants arrived in California, hoping to find gold quickly. San Jose became a supply city for these miners. Many local residents, worried by the large number of Americans arriving, moved to Mission Santa Clara.

In 1851, the Jesuits opened the first college in the new state: Santa Clara University. It was built on the site of the old mission.

Santa Clara County was one of California's first counties, formed when California became a state. Other towns also started to grow after the Gold Rush:

• In 1852, Santa Clara became an official town.
• Mountain View got its name when a storekeeper named Jacob Shumway looked across the valley and saw the mountains.
• In 1855, a small town called McCarthysville was formed. It was later named Saratoga. Saratoga became known for its wine and spas.
• Cupertino got a post office by 1882. It was named after the Spanish name for Stevens Creek. Cupertino was famous for horse breeding.
• Los Gatos was formed from land once owned by James Alexander Forbes.
• Gilroy, in the southern part of the county, was named after British settler John Gilroy.

In 1849, Martin Murphy, Jr. owned many large ranchos in Santa Clara. Later, a developer named W. E. Crossman bought land that became Sunnyvale in 1901. Palo Alto was planned in 1888 from land owned by Rafael Soto. In the 1890s, Senator Leland Stanford started Leland Stanford Junior University in Palo Alto. The railroads soon followed. By 1908, the railroad served Los Altos, and the town quickly grew.

Economic Growth and Farming

The railroads connected Santa Clara County to the rest of the world. This helped agricultural businesses grow because they could sell their crops far away. People also discovered that there was underground water all over the valley. This led to great wealth in farming.

Santa Clara County soon produced many crops for the world market. These included carrots, almonds, tomatoes, prunes, apricots, plums, walnuts, cherries, and pears. In the 1870s, seed farms also started. The Ferry-Morse Seed Company, started by Charles Copeland Morse, became the world's largest producer of flower and vegetable seeds.

Santa Clara Valley also tried other ways to make money. There were once Oil wells in the valley. From 1866 to 1880, the county produced almost all of California's oil. Lumber was also important. The Pacific Manufacturing Company in Santa Clara made wood products like Cyclone windmills and coffins. This company became the largest wood product maker on the West Coast. Several wineries, like the Picchetti Brothers Winery and the Paul Masson Mountain Winery, also operated here.

Until after World War II, Santa Clara County was mostly rural, with farms, orchards, and ranches. By 1939, San Jose was the world's largest center for canning and dried-fruit packing. It had many canneries and packing houses. San Jose also became a hub for the prune and apricot industries. New technologies were already developing. San Jose was one of the first California cities to create industries that made special farm equipment.

Industrialization and Technology

With the creation of Stanford University, changes began that would lead to Silicon Valley. In the early 1900s, Palo Alto became a place for testing radio equipment. Later, it was where continuous-wave radio transmission was developed. This was largely thanks to Cyril Elwell. Elwell's team included Lee De Forest, who had invented a special vacuum tube. In 1912, they found that this tube could be used as an amplifier. This was a huge step forward for long-distance telephone and radio. Later, radar, television, and computer systems would benefit from this discovery. By 1912, San Jose was receiving the first regular radio broadcasts.

Palo Alto was a center for technology. The Federal Telegraph Company, started by Elwell, created networks that spanned oceans. These networks helped the US Navy communicate during World War I.

Military Presence and Growth

In the 1930s, the US military saw the importance of Santa Clara Valley. Admiral William A. Moffett believed that a naval aviation base on the West Coast was needed for national security. In the 1920s, Moffett was interested in dirigibles (large airships). Local politicians saw the opportunity and helped secure land for what would become Moffett Federal Airfield.

Two Naval Air Stations were built in the early 1930s to house US dirigibles. Hangar #1, built in 1932, was designed for the USS Macon. It remains one of the largest buildings in the United States without internal support. The military presence in the Bay Area grew during World War II. After the war, many people who had moved to the county for wartime jobs decided to stay.

Suburban Expansion

After World War II, the valley's orchards began to disappear as suburban areas grew. Sunnyvale, which was a small farming town in 1939, grew to a large suburb by 1990. Other cities in Santa Clara County, like Santa Clara and Mountain View, also grew much larger. Even in 1970, San Jose was still partly rural, but its population was growing fast. By 1990, San Jose had more people than San Francisco.

The growth of suburbs in Santa Clara County was part of a national trend. The invention of the automobile and larger freeways made it easier to live outside cities. After World War II, many returning soldiers started families, leading to a "baby boom." By 1960, more people lived in suburbs than in central cities. Santa Clara County's shift from farms to suburbs followed this national trend. Its next big change, the creation of Silicon Valley, would lead the way in the computer revolution.

The Rise of Silicon Valley

Many things helped Silicon Valley become what it is today. Early teamwork between Stanford professors and local companies played a big part. The growing military presence, which started before World War II, also helped create this high-tech area. America's defense spending during the Cold War also encouraged research and development to keep up with the Soviet Union.

To help Stanford University with money problems, Professor Fred Terman from Stanford's Electrical Engineering Department leased parts of the university's land to high-tech companies for 99 years. Many people see this as the start of the computer revolution in Santa Clara County.

In 1953, William Shockley left Bell Labs after a disagreement about the invention of the transistor. In 1956, Shockley moved to Mountain View, California and started Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory. Shockley believed that silicon was the best material for making transistors. In 1957, some engineers left Shockley's company to form Fairchild Semiconductor. Two of these engineers, Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, later founded Intel. In 1971, Intel created the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004.

The next big step in the Silicon Valley revolution happened in March 1975. The Homebrew Computer Club was started in Menlo Park by students who loved technology and wanted to build home computers. Steve Wozniak, a member of the club, built a home computer using a cheap microprocessor. He showed it to his friend Steve Jobs. Together, in Steve Job's garage in Cupertino, Wozniak and Jobs started Apple Computer. By 1976, Apple's first personal computer, the Apple I, was being sold.

Even after the "dot-com bubble" burst in the early 2000s, the area continued to thrive. About 4,000 technology companies along Highway 101 from San Francisco to San Jose still make billions of dollars each year. Other technical advances also happened in biotechnology, a new industry that grew from discoveries like gene splicing at Bay Area universities.

Local colleges and community colleges helped provide engineers for these high-tech companies. San Jose State University is a leader in supplying more engineering graduates than many other colleges combined.

Santa Clara County's scientific and business growth has been compared to the European Renaissance. Many amazing inventions happened here in a short time. These include lasers, nuclear magnetic resonance, random access computer storage, disk drives, integrated circuits, personal computers, open-heart surgery, inkjet printers, and gene-splicing. These creative efforts have truly changed the world.

 This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Park Service.