History of Santa Clara County, California
Encyclopedia
Santa Clara County, California
, is one of California
's original counties, but its history extends far back into prehistory
.
, residing on Coyote Creek
and Calaveras Creek
, although Santa Clara Valley
undoubtedly had known earlier Indian inhabitants and migrations, now lost to history and prehistory. Archaeological discoveries place Ohlone settlements in the region as early as 8000 BC. Sometime around 4000 years ago, according to anthropologists, the ancestral Ohlone, along with the culturally interrelated people of the greater Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region, developed a system of social ranking and institutional religions. Within the greater San Francisco Bay
region, people of social prominence were interred in what has become known as the "shellmounds".
explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake
, who landed on July 17, 1579, in the San Francisco Bay Area and claimed the region for England. After Drake's departure it took nearly two centuries before any European power settled the region. The arrival of the Spanish
started when Russia
n exploration into California alarmed the Spanish viceroy
in Mexico City
. The Russians had settled Alaska
and were exploring the West Coast
for trading posts within striking distance of the rich Spanish mines. They were a presence at Fort Ross
in Northern California from 1812-1841. José de Gálvez
, the visitor-general of New Spain, wanted to increase New Spain's territory for the Spanish crown. He sent the Spanish forward into Alta California
(present day California). Encountering the native Ohlone people, the Spanish gave them the name of Costeños, or People of the Coast. José Francisco Ortega
gave Santa Clara the name "Llano de los Robles" ("Plain of the Oaks") in 1769 as he scouted the region on the behalf of Captain Gaspar de Portolà
.
Father Junípero Serra
also came into present-day California, establishing a chain of Franciscan missions
. It was in 1777 that Father Serra gave Santa Clara Valley its lasting name when he consecrated the Mission Santa Clara de Asís
, which is named for Saint Clare of Assisi
, Italy
. The name "Clare" or "Clara" means "clear" or "bright." The 8th of the 21 established missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís claimed land from San Francisquito Creek
in present day Palo Alto
to Llagas Creek at Gilroy
.
San Jose
was California's first town. On November 29, 1777, on orders from the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, nine soldiers, five pobladores (settlers) with their families, and one cowboy were detailed to found the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, named in honor of St. Joseph. The already existing Spanish Catholic missions were not pleased with this, but could do nothing to stop it. By 1825, Mission Santa Clara offered rest for the travelers from Monterey
and San Francisco
. Although Mexico
broke with
the Spanish crown in 1821, it was not until May 10, 1825, that San Jose acknowledged Mexican rule. The Mexican government soon began selling off church lands in a process known as "secularization." Although originally intended to return church lands to the native population, this practice soon entailed a selling of church lands to the highest bidders. By 1839 only 300 Indians remained at the Mission Santa Clara. The time of the Californio
s, the rural land owning gentlemen, was short lived in California, however. American immigrants began arriving in California, followed by the Mexican-American War.
, leading 19 men, entered San Jose on July 14, 1846, and raised the United States flag over the town hall. San Jose consisted of a small town of Spanish Californians, Mexicans, Peru
vians, Chile
ans, and Indians. After the completion of the Mexican-American War, in 1848, California, along with most of the western states, was added to the United States, first as a territory, but later as a state
on September 9, 1850. In addition to the change of government, the California Gold Rush
altered Santa Clara's political landscape. Suddenly swarms of immigrants arrived in California, looking to strike quick fortunes. The Gold Rush changed San Jose, which became a supply city for the numerous miners arriving in California. Many residents, alarmed by the arrival of so many Americans into the valley, fled to Mission Santa Clara. The Catholic bishop of California took an interest in the location, and by 1851 the Jesuits had set up the first college in the new state: Santa Clara University
, on the rebuilt site of the old mission.
San Jose became the first capital of the state of California and the first California State Legislature
convened there on December 15, 1849. Santa Clara County was one of the original counties of California, formed at the time of statehood. Other towns began to spring up in Santa Clara County after the gold rush. In 1852 Santa Clara
became a town with duly elected trustees. The city of Mountain View
is reported to have received its name when Jacob Shumway, a storekeeper, looked across the valley eastward and poetically named the place where he was standing "Mountain View." In September of 1855 a small town, originally named McCarthysville, but later named Saratoga
, came into existence 12 miles (19.3 km) west of San Jose at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Saratoga became famous for its wine
and spa
, while Cupertino
, which possessed a post office by 1882 and named after the original Spanish name for Stevens Creek, Arroyo de San Josè Cupertino, was famous for horse breeding. Los Gatos
was formed from land originally owned by the British vice-consul to Mexican California, James Alexander Forbes
. When Forbes went bankrupt, many pioneer lumbermen came down to the banks of Los Gatos creek and established the nucleus of the town. Gilroy
, in the southern part of the county, was named after British settler John Gilroy, who wed Maria Clara, granddaughter of the man who claimed San Francisco for Spain in 1769.
In 1849 Martin Murphy, Jr. controlled six of Santa Clara's largest ranchos
. After Murphy's death real estate developer W. E. Crossman purchased 200 acre (0.809372 km²) of orchard land, which eventually became Sunnyvale
in 1901. Palo Alto
's original townsite was laid out in 1888 from land owned by Rafael Soto. It was here in the 1890s that California Senator Leland Stanford
established the Leland Stanford Junior University
in Palo Alto. The railroads soon followed the establishment of Palo Alto and the university. Paul Shoup
, a Southern Pacific executive, spotted a good site for a township and organized the Altos Land Company. By 1908, the railroad began service and Los Altos
filled up with buyers.
success in the Santa Clara Valley was fostered by access to distant markets that the railroad made possible. This, combined with the discovery that artesian well water
underlay the whole valley, created the conditions for the sudden wealth to be found in the agricultural business. Santa Clara County was soon producing carrot
s, almond
s, tomato
es, prune
s, apricot
s, plum
s, walnut
s, cherries
, and pear
s for the world market. With the establishment of seed
farms in the last half of the 1870s, a new aspect of the agricultural business began. The Ferry-Morse Seed Company
, founded by Charles Copeland Morse
, became the world's largest flower and vegetable seed producer.
Santa Clara Valley was also experimenting with other sources of income. Oil well
s once dotted the valley, and from 1866 until the discovery of other sources in 1880, the county produced nearly all of California's oil. Lumber also played a part in the county's economy; the town of Santa Clara saw the Pacific Manufacturing Company producing such items as Cyclone windmills and coffin
s. This company eventually became the largest manufacturer of wood products on the West Coast. Several wineries, such as the Picchetti Brothers Winery
and the Paul Masson Mountain Winery were operating, and the area southwest of Cupertino was a winemaking region for years. Santa Clara County, with its farms, orchards and ranches remained largely rural and agricultural until after World War II.
By 1939 San Jose, with a population of 57,651, was the largest canning
and dried-fruit
packing center in the world, with 18 canneries, 13 dried-fruit packing houses, and 12 fresh-fruit and vegetable shipping firms. San Jose also served as a distribution point for the prune and apricot industry. Already, however, new technologies were developing—San Jose was one of the first California cities to create industries for making all the mechanical equipment for specialized farming.
. Palo Alto became, in the early twentieth century, a testing ground for radio
equipment, and later the locale for development of continuous-wave transmission powered by arc convertors, largely the work of Cyril Elwell. Elwell employed a radio research team that included Lee De Forest
, who had invented a three-element vacuum tube
in New York. In 1912 this team discovered that the tube could be rigged as an amplifier
, which was a major breakthrough for long distance telephone
and radio use. Later radar
, television
and computer
systems would benefit from this discovery. By 1912 San Jose was receiving the first regularly scheduled radio broadcasts. Palo Alto was a technical beacon. It was here that the Federal Telegraph Company
, created by Elwell, created ocean-spanning networks, which supplied US Naval communications during World War I.
Already in the 1930s the US military saw the strategic advantages of Santa Clara Valley. Admiral William A. Moffett
, appointed by President Warren G. Harding
on July 25, 1924, as the first Chief of the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics, believed a naval aviation presence on the West Coast necessary for the nation's security. In the 1920s Moffett was fascinated with the lighter than air technology of the dirigibles. Northern California politicians, realizing the opportunities to be created, seized the initiative from San Diego, California
, and money was found to purchase the 1750 acres (7.1 km²) of what would become Moffett Federal Airfield
. Two Naval Air Stations were commissioned in the early 1930s to port the two US dirigibles. Hangar #1, built in 1932 and designed to house the USS Macon
, remains one of the two largest structures in the United States without internal support. The military presence in the Bay Area in Northern California increased during World War II. On August 9, 1945, the same day the press recorded the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, the San Jose Mercury Herald ran a front-page article under the headline Building Code Aims Listed which stated: "At least 60 percent of the county's wartime influx of people is expected to remain after hostilities cease, giving the county an estimated 210,000 population."
The growth of post World War II suburban development in the valley caused the disappearance of the orchards. Sunnyvale, which in 1939 was described as "a quiet ranchers' trade center," with a population of 3,094, grew to a suburb with a population of over 107,229 by 1990, with a population rise of 10% in one decade (1980–1990). Santa Clara County was, by 2000, home to 1,682,585 and still growing. Santa Clara (1939 population 6,303), Mountain View (1939 population 3,308) and other Santa Clara County cities also grew to many times their 1939 population size. However, vestiges of the old orchards remained, throughout the county, and as late as 1970 San Jose was still classified as partly rural by the United States Census
, although the city had a population of 443,950. By 1990 San Jose's population reached 782,248 people, according to the census, and was the 11th most populated city in the nation, surpassing San Francisco in population.
Santa Clara County's growing suburbs can be tied to nationwide trends. The advent of the automobile
and larger freeways and highways helped in the creation of suburbs. By the 1920s a cultural reaction against Victorian architecture
and the creation of the affordable bungalow
also helped this trend, as the middle class could afford homes outside the cities. Already in the 1920s, suburban areas were growing at a faster rate than central cities and after World War II, the suburban population exploded nationwide. During the 1940s, core cities grew by an average of 14 percent while the suburbs grew by 36 percent. Returning World War II veterans, getting married and settling down produced a baby boom
unprecedented in American history. Already by 1960 more metropolitan residents lived in the suburbs than in the central city, and by 1990 the majority of all Americans lived in suburban areas. With the shift from an agricultural county to a large suburban one, Santa Clara County was following national trends. Its next move, with the creation of Silicon Valley, would lead national trends in creating the computer revolution, which would sweep the nation and the world.
Era, when research and development strove to keep abreast of the Soviet Union
, helped. In response to Stanford University's financial problems around the mid-century, Professor Fred Terman of Stanford University's Department of Electrical Engineering leased parts of the university to high tech companies for 99 years, a move that is generally considered the start of the computer revolution in Santa Clara County.
In 1953, William Shockley
left Bell Labs
in a disagreement over the handling of the invention of the transistor
. After returning to California Institute of Technology
for a short while, in 1956 Shockley moved to Mountain View, California, and created Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
. Unlike many other researchers who used germanium
as the semiconductor material, Shockley believed that silicon was the better material for making transistors. Shockley intended to replace the current transistor with a new three-element design (today known as the Shockley diode
), but the design was considerably more difficult to build than the "simple" transistor. In 1957, Shockley decided to end research on the silicon transistor. As a result, eight
engineers left the company to form Fairchild Semiconductor
. Two of the original employees of Fairchild Semiconductor, Robert Noyce
and Gordon Moore
, would go on to found Intel
. In 1971, Intel created the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004
. The next step in the Silicon Valley revolution occurred in March 1975, when the Homebrew Computer Club
in Menlo Park
was created by students with an interest in technology and a desire to experiment with building home computers. Steve Wozniak
, a founding member, built a home computer from a cheap microprocessor, and showed it to his fellow club members, who included his friend Steve Jobs
. Together, in Steve Job's garage in Cupertino, Wozniak and Jobs formed Apple Computer
. By 1976 Apple's first personal computer
, the Apple I
, was being sold.
Even after the recent collapse of the dot-com bubble
, "about 4,000 IT-related companies located along Highway 101 from San Francisco to San Jose generate approximately $200 billion in IT-related revenue annually" reported Gregory R. Gromov, in The Roads and Crossroads of Internet History. Other technical advances also occurred in the field of biotechnology
, a new industry, springing from discoveries of gene splicing and gene cloning at the Bay Area universities. The local four-year colleges and two-year community colleges met the demands for supplying high technology companies with engineers. San Jose State University
leads the field in supplying these industries with more engineering graduates then all other colleges combined.
Overall, Santa Clara County's scientific/commercial renaissance has, with justification, been compared to the earlier European Renaissance
. The creation of laser
s, nuclear magnetic resonance
, random access
computer storage, disk drives, integrated circuit
s, personal computers, open-heart surgery, inkjet printer
s, gene-splicing and other advances in such a short span of time has placed Santa Clara County firmly in history as a unique location whose creative energies have changed the world.
Santa Clara County, California
Santa Clara County is a county located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 it had a population of 1,781,642. The county seat is San Jose. The highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley...
, is one of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
's original counties, but its history extends far back into prehistory
Prehistory
Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...
.
Early history
The first documented inhabitants included the OhloneOhlone
The Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American people of the central California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley...
, residing on Coyote Creek
Coyote Creek
Coyote Creek is a river that flows through the Santa Clara Valley in California, United States.-History:Coyote Creek was originally named Arroyo del Coyote by Padre Pedro Font when the de Anza Expedition reached it on Sunday, March 31, 1776....
and Calaveras Creek
Calaveras Creek
Calaveras Creek is a waterway that starts near Martinez, Texas and runs for fifteen miles to its mouth at the San Antonio River. It is the source of Calaveras Lake where it is dammed near Elmendorf. Calaveras means skulls in Spanish....
, although Santa Clara Valley
Santa Clara Valley
The Santa Clara Valley is a valley just south of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California in the United States. Much of Santa Clara County and its county seat, San José, are in the Santa Clara Valley. The valley was originally known as the Valley of Heart’s Delight for its high concentration...
undoubtedly had known earlier Indian inhabitants and migrations, now lost to history and prehistory. Archaeological discoveries place Ohlone settlements in the region as early as 8000 BC. Sometime around 4000 years ago, according to anthropologists, the ancestral Ohlone, along with the culturally interrelated people of the greater Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region, developed a system of social ranking and institutional religions. Within the greater San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
region, people of social prominence were interred in what has become known as the "shellmounds".
Europeans arrive
The European presence in the region began with the EnglishEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
explorer and privateer Sir Francis Drake
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...
, who landed on July 17, 1579, in the San Francisco Bay Area and claimed the region for England. After Drake's departure it took nearly two centuries before any European power settled the region. The arrival of the Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
started when Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n exploration into California alarmed the Spanish viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
. The Russians had settled Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
and were exploring the West Coast
West Coast of the United States
West Coast or Pacific Coast are terms for the westernmost coastal states of the United States. The term most often refers to the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Although not part of the contiguous United States, Alaska and Hawaii do border the Pacific Ocean but can't be included in...
for trading posts within striking distance of the rich Spanish mines. They were a presence at Fort Ross
Fort Ross, California
Fort Ross is a former Russian establishment on the Pacific Coast in what is now Sonoma County, California, in the United States. It was the hub of the southernmost Russian settlements in North America in between 1812 to 1841...
in Northern California from 1812-1841. José de Gálvez
José de Gálvez
José de Gálvez y Gallardo, marqués de Sonora was a Spanish lawyer, a colonial official in New Spain and ultimately Minister of the Indies . He was one of the prime figures behind the Bourbon Reforms...
, the visitor-general of New Spain, wanted to increase New Spain's territory for the Spanish crown. He sent the Spanish forward into Alta California
Alta California
Alta California was a province and territory in the Viceroyalty of New Spain and later a territory and department in independent Mexico. The territory was created in 1769 out of the northern part of the former province of Las Californias, and consisted of the modern American states of California,...
(present day California). Encountering the native Ohlone people, the Spanish gave them the name of Costeños, or People of the Coast. José Francisco Ortega
José Francisco Ortega
José Francisco Ortega was soldier and early settler of California.-Early life:Ortega was born in 1734 at Zelaya, Guanajuanto, Mexico, where he worked as a warehouse clerk. In 1755, he enlisted and served at the Presidio at Misión Nuestra Señora de Loreto. In 1759 Ortega married María Antonia...
gave Santa Clara the name "Llano de los Robles" ("Plain of the Oaks") in 1769 as he scouted the region on the behalf of Captain Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà
Gaspar de Portolà i Rovira was a soldier, governor of Baja and Alta California , explorer and founder of San Diego and Monterey. He was born in Os de Balaguer, province of Lleida, in Catalonia, Spain, of Catalan nobility. Don Gaspar served as a soldier in the Spanish army in Italy and Portugal...
.
Father Junípero Serra
Junípero Serra
Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M., , known as Fra Juníper Serra in Catalan, his mother tongue was a Majorcan Franciscan friar who founded the mission chain in Alta California of the Las Californias Province in New Spain—present day California, United States. Fr...
also came into present-day California, establishing a chain of Franciscan missions
Spanish missions in California
The Spanish missions in California comprise a series of religious and military outposts established by Spanish Catholics of the Franciscan Order between 1769 and 1823 to spread the Christian faith among the local Native Americans. The missions represented the first major effort by Europeans to...
. It was in 1777 that Father Serra gave Santa Clara Valley its lasting name when he consecrated the Mission Santa Clara de Asís
Mission Santa Clara de Asís
Mission Santa Clara de Asís was founded on January 12, 1777 and named for Santa Clara de Asis , the foundress of the order of the Poor Clares. Although ruined and rebuilt six times, the settlement was never abandoned.-History:...
, which is named for Saint Clare of Assisi
Clare of Assisi
Clare of Assisi , born Chiara Offreduccio, is an Italian saint and one of the first followers of Saint Francis of Assisi...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. The name "Clare" or "Clara" means "clear" or "bright." The 8th of the 21 established missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís claimed land from San Francisquito Creek
San Francisquito Creek
San Francisquito Creek is a creek that flows into southwest San Francisco Bay in California, United States of America. Historically it was called the Arroyo de San Francisco by Juan Bautista de Anza in 1776...
in present day Palo Alto
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
to Llagas Creek at Gilroy
Gilroy, California
Gilroy is the southernmost city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 48,821 at the 2010 census. Gilroy is well-known for its garlic crop and for the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, featuring various garlicky foods, including garlic ice cream. Gilroy also produces...
.
San Jose
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
was California's first town. On November 29, 1777, on orders from the Spanish viceroy of Mexico, nine soldiers, five pobladores (settlers) with their families, and one cowboy were detailed to found the Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, named in honor of St. Joseph. The already existing Spanish Catholic missions were not pleased with this, but could do nothing to stop it. By 1825, Mission Santa Clara offered rest for the travelers from Monterey
Monterey, California
The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
and San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
. Although Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
broke with
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
the Spanish crown in 1821, it was not until May 10, 1825, that San Jose acknowledged Mexican rule. The Mexican government soon began selling off church lands in a process known as "secularization." Although originally intended to return church lands to the native population, this practice soon entailed a selling of church lands to the highest bidders. By 1839 only 300 Indians remained at the Mission Santa Clara. The time of the Californio
Californio
Californio is a term used to identify a Spanish-speaking Catholic people, regardless of race, born in California before 1848...
s, the rural land owning gentlemen, was short lived in California, however. American immigrants began arriving in California, followed by the Mexican-American War.
Transition to U.S. territory
On May 13, 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico. Captain Thomas FallonThomas Fallon
Thomas Fallon was an Irish-born, Canadian-raised American capitalist and politician, the tenth Mayor of San Jose, California.-Biography:...
, leading 19 men, entered San Jose on July 14, 1846, and raised the United States flag over the town hall. San Jose consisted of a small town of Spanish Californians, Mexicans, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
vians, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
ans, and Indians. After the completion of the Mexican-American War, in 1848, California, along with most of the western states, was added to the United States, first as a territory, but later as a state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
on September 9, 1850. In addition to the change of government, the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
altered Santa Clara's political landscape. Suddenly swarms of immigrants arrived in California, looking to strike quick fortunes. The Gold Rush changed San Jose, which became a supply city for the numerous miners arriving in California. Many residents, alarmed by the arrival of so many Americans into the valley, fled to Mission Santa Clara. The Catholic bishop of California took an interest in the location, and by 1851 the Jesuits had set up the first college in the new state: Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private, not-for-profit, Jesuit-affiliated university located in Santa Clara, California, United States. Chartered by the state of California and accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, it operates in collaboration with the Society of Jesus , whose...
, on the rebuilt site of the old mission.
San Jose became the first capital of the state of California and the first California State Legislature
California State Legislature
The California State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of California. It is a bicameral body consisting of the lower house, the California State Assembly, with 80 members, and the upper house, the California State Senate, with 40 members...
convened there on December 15, 1849. Santa Clara County was one of the original counties of California, formed at the time of statehood. Other towns began to spring up in Santa Clara County after the gold rush. In 1852 Santa Clara
Santa Clara, California
Santa Clara , founded in 1777 and incorporated in 1852, is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. The city is the site of the eighth of 21 California missions, Mission Santa Clara de Asís, and was named after the mission. The Mission and Mission Gardens are located on the...
became a town with duly elected trustees. The city of Mountain View
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
is reported to have received its name when Jacob Shumway, a storekeeper, looked across the valley eastward and poetically named the place where he was standing "Mountain View." In September of 1855 a small town, originally named McCarthysville, but later named Saratoga
Saratoga, California
Saratoga is a city in Santa Clara County, California, USA. It is located on the west side of the Santa Clara Valley, directly west of San Jose, in the San Francisco Bay area. The population was 29,926 at the 2010 census....
, came into existence 12 miles (19.3 km) west of San Jose at the base of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Saratoga became famous for its wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
and spa
Spa
The term spa is associated with water treatment which is also known as balneotherapy. Spa towns or spa resorts typically offer various health treatments. The belief in the curative powers of mineral waters goes back to prehistoric times. Such practices have been popular worldwide, but are...
, while Cupertino
Cupertino, California
Cupertino is an affluent suburban city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census. Forbes...
, which possessed a post office by 1882 and named after the original Spanish name for Stevens Creek, Arroyo de San Josè Cupertino, was famous for horse breeding. Los Gatos
Los Gatos, California
The Town of Los Gatos is an incorporated town in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 29,413 at the 2010 census. It is located in the San Francisco Bay Area at the southwest corner of San Jose in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains...
was formed from land originally owned by the British vice-consul to Mexican California, James Alexander Forbes
James Alexander Forbes (1805-1881)
James Alexander Forbes was the British vice-consul to Mexican California as well as the first British consul to the U.S. state of California...
. When Forbes went bankrupt, many pioneer lumbermen came down to the banks of Los Gatos creek and established the nucleus of the town. Gilroy
Gilroy, California
Gilroy is the southernmost city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 48,821 at the 2010 census. Gilroy is well-known for its garlic crop and for the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, featuring various garlicky foods, including garlic ice cream. Gilroy also produces...
, in the southern part of the county, was named after British settler John Gilroy, who wed Maria Clara, granddaughter of the man who claimed San Francisco for Spain in 1769.
In 1849 Martin Murphy, Jr. controlled six of Santa Clara's largest ranchos
Ranchos of California
The Spanish, and later the Méxican government encouraged settlement of territory now known as California by the establishment of large land grants called ranchos, from which the English ranch is derived. Devoted to raising cattle and sheep, the owners of the ranchos attempted to pattern themselves...
. After Murphy's death real estate developer W. E. Crossman purchased 200 acre (0.809372 km²) of orchard land, which eventually became Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area...
in 1901. Palo Alto
Palo Alto, California
Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
's original townsite was laid out in 1888 from land owned by Rafael Soto. It was here in the 1890s that California Senator Leland Stanford
Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...
established the Leland Stanford Junior University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
in Palo Alto. The railroads soon followed the establishment of Palo Alto and the university. Paul Shoup
Paul Shoup
Paul Shoup was an American businessman, president and later vice-chairman of the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1920s and 1930s, a founding board member of the Stanford University School of Business, and founder of the community of Los Altos, California.-Family:He was the third of five children...
, a Southern Pacific executive, spotted a good site for a township and organized the Altos Land Company. By 1908, the railroad began service and Los Altos
Los Altos, California
Los Altos is a city at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 28,976 according to the 2010 census....
filled up with buyers.
Economic growth
Santa Clara County was linked to the world by the railroads and agriculturalAgriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
success in the Santa Clara Valley was fostered by access to distant markets that the railroad made possible. This, combined with the discovery that artesian well water
Artesian aquifer
An artesian aquifer is a confined aquifer containing groundwater under positive pressure. This causes the water level in a well to rise to a point where hydrostatic equilibrium has been reached. This type of well is called an artesian well...
underlay the whole valley, created the conditions for the sudden wealth to be found in the agricultural business. Santa Clara County was soon producing carrot
Carrot
The carrot is a root vegetable, usually orange in colour, though purple, red, white, and yellow varieties exist. It has a crisp texture when fresh...
s, almond
Almond
The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...
s, tomato
Tomato
The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...
es, prune
Prune
A prune is any of various plum cultivars, mostly Prunus domestica or European Plum, sold as fresh or dried fruit. The dried fruit is also referred to as a dried plum...
s, apricot
Apricot
The apricot, Prunus armeniaca, is a species of Prunus, classified with the plum in the subgenus Prunus. The native range is somewhat uncertain due to its extensive prehistoric cultivation.- Description :...
s, plum
Plum
A plum or gage is a stone fruit tree in the genus Prunus, subgenus Prunus. The subgenus is distinguished from other subgenera in the shoots having a terminal bud and solitary side buds , the flowers in groups of one to five together on short stems, and the fruit having a groove running down one...
s, walnut
Walnut
Juglans is a plant genus of the family Juglandaceae, the seeds of which are known as walnuts. They are deciduous trees, 10–40 meters tall , with pinnate leaves 200–900 millimetres long , with 5–25 leaflets; the shoots have chambered pith, a character shared with the wingnuts , but not the hickories...
s, cherries
Cherry
The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy stone fruit. The cherry fruits of commerce are usually obtained from a limited number of species, including especially cultivars of the wild cherry, Prunus avium....
, and pear
Pear
The pear is any of several tree species of genus Pyrus and also the name of the pomaceous fruit of these trees. Several species of pear are valued by humans for their edible fruit, but the fruit of other species is small, hard, and astringent....
s for the world market. With the establishment of seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
farms in the last half of the 1870s, a new aspect of the agricultural business began. The Ferry-Morse Seed Company
Ferry-Morse Seed Company
The Ferry-Morse Seed Company is a supplier of seeds, and was at one time the largest such company in the world. It is currently part of Jiffy International.-D.M. Ferry & Co.:...
, founded by Charles Copeland Morse
Charles Copeland Morse
Charles Copeland Morse was an American businessman known as the "American Seed King". He co-founded the Ferry-Morse Seed Company, which became the world's leading flower and vegetable seed producer....
, became the world's largest flower and vegetable seed producer.
Santa Clara Valley was also experimenting with other sources of income. Oil well
Oil well
An oil well is a general term for any boring through the earth's surface that is designed to find and acquire petroleum oil hydrocarbons. Usually some natural gas is produced along with the oil. A well that is designed to produce mainly or only gas may be termed a gas well.-History:The earliest...
s once dotted the valley, and from 1866 until the discovery of other sources in 1880, the county produced nearly all of California's oil. Lumber also played a part in the county's economy; the town of Santa Clara saw the Pacific Manufacturing Company producing such items as Cyclone windmills and coffin
Coffin
A coffin is a funerary box used in the display and containment of dead people – either for burial or cremation.Contemporary North American English makes a distinction between "coffin", which is generally understood to denote a funerary box having six sides in plan view, and "casket", which...
s. This company eventually became the largest manufacturer of wood products on the West Coast. Several wineries, such as the Picchetti Brothers Winery
Picchetti Brothers Winery
The Picchetti Brothers Winery, also known as the Picchetti Ranch, is a winery located at 13100 Montebello Rd., Cupertino, California in the Picchetti Ranch Open Space Preserve...
and the Paul Masson Mountain Winery were operating, and the area southwest of Cupertino was a winemaking region for years. Santa Clara County, with its farms, orchards and ranches remained largely rural and agricultural until after World War II.
By 1939 San Jose, with a population of 57,651, was the largest canning
Canning
Canning is a method of preserving food in which the food contents are processed and sealed in an airtight container. Canning provides a typical shelf life ranging from one to five years, although under specific circumstances a freeze-dried canned product, such as canned, dried lentils, can last as...
and dried-fruit
Dried fruit
Dried fruit is fruit where the majority of the original water content has been removed either naturally, through sun drying, or through the use of specialized dryers or dehydrators. Dried fruit has a long tradition of use dating back to the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia, and is prized...
packing center in the world, with 18 canneries, 13 dried-fruit packing houses, and 12 fresh-fruit and vegetable shipping firms. San Jose also served as a distribution point for the prune and apricot industry. Already, however, new technologies were developing—San Jose was one of the first California cities to create industries for making all the mechanical equipment for specialized farming.
Industrialization
With the establishment of Stanford University, the changes were beginning which would create Silicon ValleySilicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. Palo Alto became, in the early twentieth century, a testing ground for radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
equipment, and later the locale for development of continuous-wave transmission powered by arc convertors, largely the work of Cyril Elwell. Elwell employed a radio research team that included Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest
Lee De Forest was an American inventor with over 180 patents to his credit. De Forest invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that takes relatively weak electrical signals and amplifies them. De Forest is one of the fathers of the "electronic age", as the Audion helped to usher in the widespread use...
, who had invented a three-element vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
in New York. In 1912 this team discovered that the tube could be rigged as an amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
, which was a major breakthrough for long distance telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
and radio use. Later radar
Radar
Radar is an object-detection system which uses radio waves to determine the range, altitude, direction, or speed of objects. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain. The radar dish or antenna transmits pulses of radio...
, television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
and computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
systems would benefit from this discovery. By 1912 San Jose was receiving the first regularly scheduled radio broadcasts. Palo Alto was a technical beacon. It was here that the Federal Telegraph Company
Federal Telegraph Company
The Federal Telegraph Company was a United States communications company that played a pivotal role in the 20th century in the development of radio communications. Founded in Palo Alto, California in 1909, it would eventually merge in August 1927 with the Mackay Companies...
, created by Elwell, created ocean-spanning networks, which supplied US Naval communications during World War I.
Already in the 1930s the US military saw the strategic advantages of Santa Clara Valley. Admiral William A. Moffett
William A. Moffett
William Adger Moffett was an American admiral notable as the architect of naval aviation in the United States Navy.-Biography:...
, appointed by President Warren G. Harding
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding was the 29th President of the United States . A Republican from Ohio, Harding was an influential self-made newspaper publisher. He served in the Ohio Senate , as the 28th Lieutenant Governor of Ohio and as a U.S. Senator...
on July 25, 1924, as the first Chief of the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics, believed a naval aviation presence on the West Coast necessary for the nation's security. In the 1920s Moffett was fascinated with the lighter than air technology of the dirigibles. Northern California politicians, realizing the opportunities to be created, seized the initiative from San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
, and money was found to purchase the 1750 acres (7.1 km²) of what would become Moffett Federal Airfield
Moffett Federal Airfield
Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale, California, USA. The airport is near the south end of San Francisco Bay, northwest of San Jose. Formerly a United States Navy facility, the former...
. Two Naval Air Stations were commissioned in the early 1930s to port the two US dirigibles. Hangar #1, built in 1932 and designed to house the USS Macon
USS Macon (ZRS-5)
USS Macon was a rigid airship built and operated by the United States Navy for scouting. She served as a "flying aircraft carrier", launching Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters. In service for less than two years, in 1935 Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off California's Big Sur coast,...
, remains one of the two largest structures in the United States without internal support. The military presence in the Bay Area in Northern California increased during World War II. On August 9, 1945, the same day the press recorded the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, the San Jose Mercury Herald ran a front-page article under the headline Building Code Aims Listed which stated: "At least 60 percent of the county's wartime influx of people is expected to remain after hostilities cease, giving the county an estimated 210,000 population."
The growth of post World War II suburban development in the valley caused the disappearance of the orchards. Sunnyvale, which in 1939 was described as "a quiet ranchers' trade center," with a population of 3,094, grew to a suburb with a population of over 107,229 by 1990, with a population rise of 10% in one decade (1980–1990). Santa Clara County was, by 2000, home to 1,682,585 and still growing. Santa Clara (1939 population 6,303), Mountain View (1939 population 3,308) and other Santa Clara County cities also grew to many times their 1939 population size. However, vestiges of the old orchards remained, throughout the county, and as late as 1970 San Jose was still classified as partly rural by the United States Census
United States Census
The United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding. The United States Census Bureau The United States Census...
, although the city had a population of 443,950. By 1990 San Jose's population reached 782,248 people, according to the census, and was the 11th most populated city in the nation, surpassing San Francisco in population.
Santa Clara County's growing suburbs can be tied to nationwide trends. The advent of the automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
and larger freeways and highways helped in the creation of suburbs. By the 1920s a cultural reaction against Victorian architecture
Victorian architecture
The term Victorian architecture refers collectively to several architectural styles employed predominantly during the middle and late 19th century. The period that it indicates may slightly overlap the actual reign, 20 June 1837 – 22 January 1901, of Queen Victoria. This represents the British and...
and the creation of the affordable bungalow
Bungalow
A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...
also helped this trend, as the middle class could afford homes outside the cities. Already in the 1920s, suburban areas were growing at a faster rate than central cities and after World War II, the suburban population exploded nationwide. During the 1940s, core cities grew by an average of 14 percent while the suburbs grew by 36 percent. Returning World War II veterans, getting married and settling down produced a baby boom
Post-World War II baby boom
The end of World War II brought a baby boom to many countries, especially Western ones. There is some disagreement as to the precise beginning and ending dates of the post-war baby boom, but it is most often agreed to begin in the years immediately after the war, ending more than a decade later;...
unprecedented in American history. Already by 1960 more metropolitan residents lived in the suburbs than in the central city, and by 1990 the majority of all Americans lived in suburban areas. With the shift from an agricultural county to a large suburban one, Santa Clara County was following national trends. Its next move, with the creation of Silicon Valley, would lead national trends in creating the computer revolution, which would sweep the nation and the world.
Growth of Silicon Valley
There are numerous reasons why Silicon Valley came into being. The early collaboration between Stanford professors and nearby industry aided the process. The increasing military presence, which began just before World War II, also contributed to this hi-tech corridor. Certainly America's defense spending during the Cold WarCold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
Era, when research and development strove to keep abreast of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, helped. In response to Stanford University's financial problems around the mid-century, Professor Fred Terman of Stanford University's Department of Electrical Engineering leased parts of the university to high tech companies for 99 years, a move that is generally considered the start of the computer revolution in Santa Clara County.
In 1953, William Shockley
William Shockley
William Bradford Shockley Jr. was an American physicist and inventor. Along with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain, Shockley co-invented the transistor, for which all three were awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s...
left Bell Labs
Bell Labs
Bell Laboratories is the research and development subsidiary of the French-owned Alcatel-Lucent and previously of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company , half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary.Bell Laboratories operates its...
in a disagreement over the handling of the invention of the transistor
Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...
. After returning to California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
for a short while, in 1956 Shockley moved to Mountain View, California, and created Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, the primary lab of the Shockley Transistor Company, was the first company to work on silicon semiconductor devices in what came to be known as Silicon Valley. It was purchased by Clevite in 1960, and officially closed shortly after being sold to ITT in 1968...
. Unlike many other researchers who used germanium
Germanium
Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors tin and silicon. The isolated element is a semiconductor, with an appearance most similar to elemental silicon....
as the semiconductor material, Shockley believed that silicon was the better material for making transistors. Shockley intended to replace the current transistor with a new three-element design (today known as the Shockley diode
Shockley diode
The Shockley diode is a four layer semiconductor diode which was one of the first semiconductor devices invented. It was a "pnpn" diode...
), but the design was considerably more difficult to build than the "simple" transistor. In 1957, Shockley decided to end research on the silicon transistor. As a result, eight
Traitorous Eight
The Traitorous Eight, as they became known, are eight men who left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to form Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957. More neutral terms include the "Fairchild Eight" and the "Shockley Eight." They have sometimes been called "Fairchildren," although this term has been also...
engineers left the company to form Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. is an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957, it was a pioneer in transistor and integrated circuit manufacturing...
. Two of the original employees of Fairchild Semiconductor, Robert Noyce
Robert Noyce
Robert Norton Noyce , nicknamed "the Mayor of Silicon Valley", co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and Intel in 1968...
and Gordon Moore
Gordon Moore
Gordon Earle Moore is the co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of Intel Corporation and the author of Moore's Law .-Life and career:...
, would go on to found Intel
Intel Corporation
Intel Corporation is an American multinational semiconductor chip maker corporation headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most...
. In 1971, Intel created the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004
Intel 4004
The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor...
. The next step in the Silicon Valley revolution occurred in March 1975, when the Homebrew Computer Club
Homebrew Computer Club
The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist users' group in Silicon Valley, which met from March 5, 1975 to December 1986...
in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
was created by students with an interest in technology and a desire to experiment with building home computers. Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
, a founding member, built a home computer from a cheap microprocessor, and showed it to his fellow club members, who included his friend Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
. Together, in Steve Job's garage in Cupertino, Wozniak and Jobs formed Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
. By 1976 Apple's first personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, the Apple I
Apple I
The original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer...
, was being sold.
Even after the recent collapse of the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
, "about 4,000 IT-related companies located along Highway 101 from San Francisco to San Jose generate approximately $200 billion in IT-related revenue annually" reported Gregory R. Gromov, in The Roads and Crossroads of Internet History. Other technical advances also occurred in the field of biotechnology
Biotechnology
Biotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
, a new industry, springing from discoveries of gene splicing and gene cloning at the Bay Area universities. The local four-year colleges and two-year community colleges met the demands for supplying high technology companies with engineers. San Jose State University
San José State University
San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States...
leads the field in supplying these industries with more engineering graduates then all other colleges combined.
Overall, Santa Clara County's scientific/commercial renaissance has, with justification, been compared to the earlier European Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
. The creation of laser
Laser
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of photons. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation...
s, nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance
Nuclear magnetic resonance is a physical phenomenon in which magnetic nuclei in a magnetic field absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation...
, random access
Random access
In computer science, random access is the ability to access an element at an arbitrary position in a sequence in equal time, independent of sequence size. The position is arbitrary in the sense that it is unpredictable, thus the use of the term "random" in "random access"...
computer storage, disk drives, integrated circuit
Integrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
s, personal computers, open-heart surgery, inkjet printer
Inkjet printer
An inkjet printer is a type of computer printer that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost up to thousands of...
s, gene-splicing and other advances in such a short span of time has placed Santa Clara County firmly in history as a unique location whose creative energies have changed the world.