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Cupertino Chronicle
CALIFORNIA HISTORY CENTER
DE ANZA COLLEGE
1975
Local History Studies • Volume 19
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CUPERTINO CHRONICLE
To Ralph Rambo, who has brought meaning out of the past and
into the lives of many of us through his vivid -frequently mischie-
vous —recollections of Santa Clara Valley's orchard days.
This book was set and printed by Edwards Brothers, Ann Arbor,
Michigan. The editors were Seonaid L. McArthur and David W.
Fuller. The cover was illustrated by Tom Gilbertson.
Through the assistance of the .Cupertino Chamber of Commerce,
and a grant from the Soroptimist International of Foothill Cities.
Copyright 0 1975 by the California History Center.
All rights reserved.
Walter G. Warren Director
PREFACE
As the nation approaches its Bicentennial year, we are turning
to celebrate the anniversary of these first two hundred years of
growth and development. While troubled by both ancient and modern
problems of human society, it is an opportune time to reinterpret
and reaffirm the values of the American Revolution. Despite the
limitations of the historic event to the original thirteen colonies,
the Bicentennial embraces all of America. It recognizes that the
American Revolution is a permanent process of renewal, change,
and improvement in American life. One dimension of the national
celebration is Heritage '76, whose basic premise is that "in 1976,
as in 1776, social, economic and political systems must serve the
ultimate purposes of a democratic nation to free men from the
tyranny and oppression, from injustice, from human deprivation
and the denial of human rights, and from degradation and destruction
of the natural habitat and social environment. " The American
Revolution is a continuing revolution and the "pursuit of happiness"
is to be reasserted in 1976 in a renewed concern for the "quality
of life."
The heritage and values of the nation are common traditions
defined, in part, by the story told in the Cupertino Chronicle.
Cupertino's pioneer families came to the "new land" with the
ideals of the union blazoned on their souls: the individual rights
of men to themselves and to their posterity were guaranteed by
their constitution. Many of the pioneers were oppressed people
who came from foreign soil to the shelter of a government forged
to protect and secure individual liberty, and to respond to the
will of the majority. The immigrants came and stayed, as did future
generations, to thrive on the rich fertile soil and realize the full
meaning of the American dream. The story of these early settlers,
along with the story of Cupertino's growth and development, reflects
the unique ability of the American culture to adapt to the changing
needs of contemporary society, while reaffirming the aspirations
of the American Revolution.
iii
We have been honored to assist the California History Center
and the Cupertino Bicentennial Commission with assembling the
story of Cupertino. We hope the spirit with which students and
local citizens contributed to the Chroncle will mark the beginning
of the pride and enthusiasm with which the community celebrates
its 200 years.
Seonaid L. McArthur
David W. Fuller
i
iv
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. An American Dream Surrounds the Arroyo San Joseph
Cupertino
1
The Cupertino Wineries
By Robert C. Reese
5
An American Dream
By Ellen Stokes
27
Reflections
On Orchard Life
43
II. Life at The Crossroads
57
Cali: The First Million Dollar Business
By Margeret Dugan
64
Reflections
On Early Commerce
73
III. Enriching the Community
81
Cupertino's One -room Schoolhouses
By Martin J. Morgado
81
Early Community Worship
Notes by Karl A. Friedrich and Sara Merithew
Dunbar
104
Cultural Enrichment: The Cupertino de Oro Club
By Darlene Haynes Thorne
107
Reflections
On Community Organizations
113
IV. The Orchards Wane
119
Monta Vista: A Small Piece of Paradise
By Louis Stocklmeir
120
The Independent City
130
Vallco Park: From Orchards to Industry
By David W. Fuller
135
vll
I
AN AMERICAN DREAM SURROUNDS THE
ARROYO SAN JOSEPH CUPERTINO
Monday, March 25. I said Mass. We set out from Arroyo de
las Llagas at quarter to eight in the morning, and at four in the
afternoon halted at the Arroyo of San Joseph Cupertino . . . Along
the way many Indians came out to us. On seeing us they shouted
amongst the oaks and then came out naked like fawns, running
and shouting and making many gestures, as if they wished to stop
us, and signaling to us that we must not go forward. Although they
came armed with bows and arrows, they committed no hostility toward
us . . . I saw some with beards, one or two with long moustaches,
and . . . long beards. Many had their hair tied, wearing a branch
around the head, perhaps to fasten it with, and others had their
hair cut short. They had their ears pierced (like those of the Channel)
and wore little reeds in them. I think that I must have seen more
than a hundred Indians . . .
This place of San Joseph Cupertino has good water and much
firewood, but nothing suitable for a settlement because it is among
the hills very near to the range of cedars which I mentioned yesterday,
and lacks level lands. Near it begins a very dense grove of abro jos
which they call El Bosque Espinoso . . . From the camp we already
descried the estuary of the port and the island at its extremity.
Petrus Font's Complete Diary of the
Second Anza Expedition
March, 1776
On March 25, 1776, Petrus Font, diarist and cartographer for
Don Juan Bautista de Anza, stood on the plateau of land on the
present westerly boundary of Monta Vista High School. Gazing
down into the Llano de los Robles ("Plain of Oaks") and toward
the southern arm of the San Francisco Bay, he recorded the day's
journey through the Santa Clara Valley. The earliest description
of life in and around Cupertino is recorded in Font's diary.
Having successfully brought a community of men, women, and
children hundreds of miles from Sonora to Monterey, the 1776
expedition was almost at its end. Having left the weary travelers
on the coast, Anza had taken Font and eighteen men to explore
the Port of San Francisco to found the prgsidio of "St. Francis. "
Cupertino, to Font, was not fit for a settlement such as the Spanish
desired, but the Indians flourished in the lush valley, especially
along the fresh water creeks. Font christened the creek next to the
93rd encampment site, the Arroyo San Joseph Cupertino, after his
patron San Guiseppe (San Joseph) of Copertino, Italy.
The legacy of the Spanish in Cupertino remained unchanged during
both the Spanish and Mexican governments in Alta California.
Throughout the rest of the Santa Clara Valley, the California Dons
raised cattle or harvested wheat on the extensive acreage granted
to them by administrating governors. It was not until California
became a state, in 1848, that the Americans and European immi-
grants realized the agricultural value of Cupertino's land. The
discovery of gold in California, coupled with the economic hardships,
and political turmoil in Wales, France, Italy, Germany and Yugosla-
via, made California appear to be a virtual paradise of opportunity.
Cupertino's first settlers -were typical of the courageous, steadfast,
pioneer stock who struggled to tame the frontier. Enduring souls,
they bore the hardships of breaking trails across the unknown Sierra
Nevada; the 3-5 month ship ride from New York to San Francisco,
with its walk across the Isthmus of Panama; or the exhausting
"tour" around the Horn. But, to the men and women who arrived
to grasp a handful of the rich loam of the valley floor, all hopes
for the future were rekindled.
By the 1860's, fervent efforts were made to employ the latest
advances made in agriculture due to the industrial and scientific
revolutions. New machines, advances in the science of botany and
graftage, and Pasteur's discoveries, were invaluable tools in working
the new land. Pierre Pellier, a French immigrant who settled in
San Jose, established a nursery and as early as the 1850's was
actively seeking out the finest European fruit tree slips and vine
root stocks. Upmost pride was taken in the development of hybrid
fruits and vegetables and the production of wines to surpass the
finest French varieties.
Throughout the valley, communities such as Cupertino sprang
up as family holdings began to cluster about central crossroads,
where church, general merchandise store, blacksmith shop, and
post office serviced everyday needs. The village of Cupertino, which .
sprang up at the intersection of Sunnyvale -Saratoga Road and
Stevens Creek, became known as "West Side. " By 1898, the "West
Side" post office, located at the intersection of Stevens Creek
Boulevard and Saratoga -Sunnyvale Road, needed a name change
to differentiate it from towns bearing the same name. John T. Doyle,
having revived Father Font's christening of the land in honor of
St. Joseph of Cupertino, adopted Cupertino as the name for his
winery and houses on McClellan Road. By 1904, the name had
become popular and was applied to The Crossroads and to the
post office when the old Home Union Store incorporated under
the name, "The Cupertino Store, Inc. "
In many ways, Cupertino's story reflects the transition from the
society of old world agriculturalists to the highly decentralized, mobile
populace of the late twentieth century. The early pioneer settlers,
such as Montgomery, Dixon, Sutherland or Picchetti, experienced
a commonality of cultural background. As people of the earth,
their families were united in their mutual concerns for a temperate
climate and profitable marketing for their crops. Ethnic groups
such as the Yugoslavians or Italians, or social organizations such
as the Cupertino de Oro Club or the King's Daughters, served
to foster a community united around common goals and ideals.
The role of the family was vital, as to economic survival each
member played his or her role in the completion of the task at
hand. Competitive pride was taken in the cultivation of the finest
quality of fruit, but human understanding and assistance reached
out during periods of crisis. It was a time of unlimited opportunity,
when a man with ingenuity and courage could use his foresight
and vision to reap the maximum profit from his environment. The
Mariani or Samuel R. Williams were the archetypes of the highly
principled old world settler who began with a soul filled with the
American dream and later left a legacy of that dream fulfilled.
The commerce which developed around The Crossroads was
equally ambitious and important. From the Cali brothers' million
dollar feed and grain business, to the butcher who brought sides
of beef to the family doorstep, each member was vital to the
harmonious operation of the whole. It is seemingly appropriate that
the one -room school houses doubled as a setting for religious worship.
The intimacy of life within a rural environment made learning,
spiritual or other, an extension of everyday life.
It was inevitable that this pattern of life would change. The Santa
Clara Valley's strategic situation next to San Francisco, should
have forewarned the peninsulans that their agricultural lands would
be needed to either locate industry or its, transient community of
employees. Cupertino didn't need a chamber of commerce to encour-
age people or industry to locate here. With the promotion schemes
of such men as George Hensley, premier of real estate developers
in Monta Vista, "they came, they looked, and they stayed. " The
result, is a new generation of Cupertinans, who enjoy the few
remaining fruit trees which effectively line their street, or the
"country" atmosphere of the rolling hillsides. Fortunately, there
are still a few faint voices crying out to preserve —a Victorian house,
an orchard, and most of all a sense of community spirit and identity.
HERITAGE OF THE VINE
by
ROBERT C. REESE
An important segment of Cupertino's pioneer settlers arrived
from Europe with a thorough knowledge of their homeland's
precious fruit of the vine: wine. Almost every parcel of land acquired
in Cupertino between 1850 and 1900 was planted with varying
amounts of the fruit. The early popularity of the vine among Valley
growers was, in part, due to the relatively quick maturing of the
grapes as a cash crop. Grapes were ready in about three years,
which compared to a much longer maturing period for fruit trees
before they were ready to bear a marketable crop.
As in most frontier communities, families of similar cultural
heritage selected parcels of land near one another. As a result,
French and Italian families such as the Perrone, Picchetti, Klein
and Gemello families acquired acreage on Montebello Ridge, over-
looking the Cupertino flatlands. On the peaks of this western foothill,
where soil and climate were comparable to their homeland, they
planted hundreds of acres in the root stock. Along the lower foothills
and in the flatlands, wine production was just as popular. In this
area, the wineries and family vineyards were as varied as their
owners' cultural backgrounds.
In The Lowlands
Elisha Stephens
The earliest vineyard in Cupertino dates to the area's first settler,
Captain Elisha Stephens, hunter, trapper and explorer. Stephens
was born in South Carolina in 1804 of French and English parents.
In 1844, he led the Murphy Party across the Sierra Nevada over
the same trail used by the ill-fated Donner Party. Stephens is credited
with leading the first successful passage of wagons over the Sierra.
By 1859, Stephens had settled on the banks of the little creek
Y known as the Arroyo de San Joseph de Cupertino. His homesite
u was only a few hundred yards from the spot where Anza and
his men had encamped seventy-three years earlier, although the
8 historical coincidence probably was unknown to the crusty Stephens
75 who, no doubt, wouldn't have cared anyway. Stephens purchased
155 acres along the creek for $855 and established a small vineyard.
He planted the blackberry patch which now is the namesake of
x the Blackberry Farm Golf Course. For several years, he shared
his home with Nathan Hall, who subsequently purchased some
acreage across the road from Stephens." 10�
a But, by 1864, the Santa Clara Valley had become "too durn
L civilized" for the likes of Stephens .(17: ") Fearing that the area
was fast becoming overpopulated, he sold his ranch to W. T.
McClellan and George McCauley and headed out for the Kern
I River area, where he died in 1887.
3
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Villa Maria
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Obviously, not many people shared Stephens' view of
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overpopulation in the middle of the nineteenth century, perhaps
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least of all, the Jesuit priests of the College of Santa Clara. In
A1870,
the College arranged for the purchase of 320 acres of a
v
beautiful oak -covered plateau above Stevens Creek to be used as
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a summer retreat and vineyard. They called the retreat Villa Maria
o
and it consisted of the villa, a chapel, dormitories, dining rooms
xand
approximately 100 acres of vineyards. The Fathers also planted
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pine and olive trees and lined the road to the Villa with some
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of the first eucalyptus trees to be introduced into the region from
Australia.(3 3) The chapel was the first house of organized Christian
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worship in the Cupertino area and served as the location for mail
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distribution for the first few families in the area. �s:2�
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A winery was constructed in 1875 to produce altar wines for
the religious ceremonies and to produce commercial wines to provide
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revenues for the College. Around 1945, Y the winery was closed
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and the remaining vineyards were leased to local families for use
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in their personal winemaking.(3:2) Today, all that remains is the
west wall of the winery, bearing the inscription: "Villa Maria
Winery." Buck Norred Stables now occupy the site of the old
Villa Maria.
Henry Farr's Grandview
One of the first viticulturists to come to the gently rolling hillsides
was a German farmer, Henry Farr, who came to America after
Germany experienced a succession of crop failures prior to 1845.
Before long, he was off to the gold fields of California where
he established a ranch in Colusa County. He maintained the ranch
for 13 years before coming to Cupertino in 1868 with his wife,
Mary, and their first four children.
At the intersection of what are now Prospect and Stelling Roads,
he bought 240 acres of rolling hills for $5,000.(16:3) The following
year, the ranch was increased to 343 acres. Farr called his 'ranch
Grandview because the ranch house was located on a ridge with
a panoramic view of the Valley. Even though the Farr children
eventually numbered nine, the family never was able to get all
of the 343 acres into crops.
Between 1881 and 1886, forty-five acres of vineyards were planted
in Cabernet, Matero, Burger, Zinfandel and Reisling varieties.(16:5)
Orchards of_prunes, olives, pears and apples also were started,
but Farr's main crop was 200 acres of hay. Along a creek which
runs through the property, Farr constructed three small dams to
supply water to a tank and to drive a grape crusher.(16:7)
Around the year 1905, the ranch was divided among the Farr
children, although Henry Farr retained the ranch house and some
surrounding acreage. The children had little interest in carrying
on the ranching operations and, gradually, the land was sold and
subdivided. Henry Farr sold his portion in 1910 and it eventually
ended up in the hands of Painless Parker, a San Francisco dentist,
known nationally because of his widespread advertising and large
chain of offices. The Farr ranch soon became known as the Painless
Parker Ranch. In 1913, Henry Farr, "while seated near the store
. . . was strucken with apoplexy and a second stroke . . . hastened
the end. ,(14)
Today, the ranch is owned by a syndicate of lawyers and is
operated as a horse ranch.
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John T. Doyle —Cupertino Wine Company and Las Palmas Winery
One of the most successful and expansive early wineries of
Cupertino was that of John T. Doyle, a prominent San Francisco
attorney and businessman. Doyle was born to Irish parents in New
York City in 1819. His father was a respected bookseller who
saw to it that his children received the best possible education.
Doyle graduated as valedictorian from Georgetown College in 1838.
He arrived in San Francisco in 1852 and went to work at a large,
blue chip, law firm.
In 1863, he married Antonia Pons and they subsequently raised
eight children. By 1866, he was the owner of a beautiful mansion
in Menlo Park and commuted to San Francisco. It was around
1880 that Doyle decided to purchase a country estate in the Villa
Maria area. The estate today corresponds to the area in Monta
Vista bordered by Orange Avenue in Monta Vista, Foothill Boule-
vard and McClellan Road and Stevens Creek Boulevard in �Cuper-
tino. Stevens Creek runs through the acreage.
I;
Doyle had a two-story home built adjacent to McClellan Road. y
The entrance was from Foothill Boulevard down Palm Avenue,
which was lined by Doyle with California fan palms in 1882.(6:2)
Doyle constructed a winery on the east side of the creek and
j began operation under the name of "Cupertino Wine Company,"
with himself as president. About 1886, Doyle constructed.a larger
winery across the creek from the Cupertino Wine Company. The
new Las Palmas Winery was of the latest architectural design and
had four floor elevations. It also contained such innovations as
a concrete floor and concrete walls which extended ten feet above
-operated inclined elevator carried the
the ground level. Asteam
filled grape boxes to the fourth floor where the grapes were
discharged automatically into the presses and then crushed. The
juices were then carried automatically to various cooperage tanks
(wine barrels) on the lower levels until a clarified condition was
reached in the tanks in the basement level. From this basement
level the fermented juices were transported through a glass -lined
four -inch galvanized lead pipe to the older Cupertino winery —a
third of a mile across the creek —for aging and bottling.(6:a.6)
Doyle's modernized and automated wine production processes
made his wineries among the most advanced at the time. He
constantly was experimenting and searching for ways to make a
superior product. At first, he used the glass -lined lead pipe to
transport juices across the creek. After a while, he felt that the
wine would taste better if it were piped through bamboo, so he
imported bamboo poles from China.(19:6)
Having enough water for irrigation and production was quite
a problem in the Santa Clara Valley, with its Mediterranean climate
and wet and dry seasons. Doyle was among the first to recognize
the need for irrigation and in 1890 had a small dam constructed
on Stevens Creek to impound ,the water run-off for use in the
summer.(6:7) Pits were dug along the banks and steam -driven pumps
brought the water to a series of storage tanks in one tower adjacent
to the Cupertino Winery. This water system is still partially in
use today as part of the Cupertino Municipal Water System.(6:6)
The methods Doyle employed were apparently excellent, as he
produced award winning wines. He was appointed for three terms
as a State Commissioner of Viticulture and, during his last term,
served as President of the Board. His wines were sold on the
East Coast and on the European Market as well. In 1904, his
wines were entered in the Chicago World Fair where they took
second place.(19:6)
The 1906 earthquake, coupled with Doyle's death later that same
year, resulted in a deterioration of the wineries. The foundations
of the wineries shifted and the buildings were severely damaged.
The water storage tanks were completely demolished. Upon Doyle's
death, the wineries were left to two sons whose business heads
were "not the best. "09:2') The sons were not too interested in
viticulture and the wineries were leased out to a succession of
people and firms.
After the earthquake, some excavation work was being done
to repair parts of the destroyed wineries. It was during this work
that a leaden plate left by the first Spanish expedition into the
area was unearthed.
By 1912, no wines were being produced at Las Palmas or Cupertino
Winery; grapes were simply being boxed and sold. In 1915, the
land was sold to the Peninsula Land and Investment Company,
headed by George Hensley, the developer of the Monta Vista area.
Hensley was quite a businessman and managed to acquire the Doyle
estate for a relatively low price.
Richard Heney's "Chateau Ricardo"
A few miles down the road from Las Palmas, another successful
Irishman was dabbling in viticulture. Richard Heney Jr., a San
Francisco furniture dealer, came to the Santa Clara Valley in 1884
to regain his health in the moderately warm climate. He purchased
one hundred acres of chaparral in an area which is west of Interstate
280 and northwest of Foothill Boulevard.
He cleared the brush and established a vineyard of Isabella,
Tocay, Petit Sirah and Zinfandel grapes.0':') All in all, he had
about fifty-five acres in vineyards and seventeen acres in French
prunes. After several years, Heney built a winery on a creek which
traversed his property. His wine was bottled under the "Chateau
Ricardo" label which also was the name of the ranch. The wine
was recognized for its superior quality and received medals at
the Paris Exposition.(15:3)
Baldwin—Millefleurs Winery
In 1892, Charles A. Baldwin purchased approximately 137 acres
in Cupertino at what is now the De Anza College campus. Baldwin
came to his "Beaulieu" (good earth) estate to lead the life of
a country gentlemah. He had travelled around the world many
times before landing in San Francisco and marrying Ella Hobart,
daughter of the banking and mining tycoon, William Hobart.
Baldwin was one of Cupertino's first millionaires and probably
was the community's first suburbanite. He often traveled to Burlin-
game to enjoy the luxurious social entertainments there. But, not
to be outdone by his wealthy cohorts, Baldwin soon set about
turning his Cupertino estate into a Peninsula showplace, adding
the first swimming pool in the area and a replica of the Petit Trianon,
the French architectural masterpiece. Beaulieu and the Baldwins
were anomalies in the Cupertino of the 1890's, which still was
a community of hard-working, persevering agriculturists.
Millefleurs (thousand flowers), the winery and vineyards on the
Baldwin estate, were among the most beautiful in the West Valley.
The seventy acres of grapes stretched from Stevens Creek Road
to McClellan Road on a plateau of gravelly deposit from Stevens
Creek. Because the rich soil and fine climate closely resembled
conditions of Bordeaux, France, efforts were made to produce
the vines of that locality. The finest varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon,
and Cabernet Merlot grapes were imported.
The winery used several progressive methods of wine production.
The stone structure contained a wine cellar which was built
underground to insure even temperatures and humidity, essentials
for the proper aging of wine. The wine was stored in oak barrels,
rather than in the large tanks used in most other large wineries
in the county. Great care was taken in the aging, bottling, and
exporting of the Millefleurs label. Select harvest years were aged
up to three or four years. The wine was then exported to New
York, London and Central America, where it was met with flattering
reception in competition with French wines.
Around 1900, phylloxera devastated Baldwin's vines along with
many of the vines of his fellow viticulturists. Baldwin surely could
have afforded the massive replanting and vine grafting which many
of his neighbors could not afford, but the ill health of his wife
and other factors led to his closing the winery shortly after the
phylloxera plague.
Eventually, the Baldwins moved to Colorado Springs and, around
1920, they sold the estate to Francis Pullman Carolan, an heiress
to the Pullman railroad car fortune. Baldwin died in Colorado Springs
and, at age 70, Mrs. Baldwin married a Balkan prince, only to
get a divorce shortly afterwards. She died several years later in
San Francisco.
There were many other early Cupertinans who engaged in viticul-
ture in the Valley lowlands. Alex Montgomery had a small distillery
at the Cupertino Crossroads where prune brandy and Sacramental
Kosher wine were made; artist Thomas Duncan Benrimo had
fifty-six acres of vineyard surrounding his home at what is today
the Gemco parking lot. Three ship captains —William Porter, Joseph
Merithew and Daniel Henry Blake —established homes and vine-
yards after learning of the Santa Clara Valley during their many
sea voyages. Family vineyards in the lowlands also were maintained
by John Henry Snyder, W. T. McClellan, Jose Ramon Arguello,
George McCauley, J. B. J. Portal and Enoch J. Parrish.
12 1 13
The Montebello Ridge
Vincenso Picchetti
Other pioneers took to the rugged slopes of the Montebello Ridge
where, some of them believed, the climate, soil and other conditions
were even better than in the lowlands.
One of the earliest mountain viticulturists was Vincenso Picchetti,
who had been foreman of the vineyard and winery at Villa Maria.
Picchetti came to the Santa Clara Valley in 1872 at the age of
24 and began working as a dairyman before putting the viticultural
skills he had learned in his native Italy to work at Villa Maria.
Picchetti worked hard for the Jesuits and, before long, sent for
his brother, Secondo, to come and join him. Together, and with
the Jesuits' encouragement, the Picchetti brothers purchased 160
acres on Montebello Ridge for $1,500. After purchasing the property,
Picchetti continued as foreman at Villa Maria, while his brother
and sister-in-law moved up to the ridge. Secondo worked on clearing
the land, planting the vines, and harvesting the timber which
provided revenues needed to start the ranch.
Vincenso was doing well in America and now it was time for
him to return home and bring back a very important part of his
life. Before coming to America, the mother of Theresa, the girl
he loved, admonished him "you go to America, do well, then
come back and I will let you marry my Theresa. "118:') Accordingly,
Vincenso and Theresa were married in Italy in 1882. After bringing
his bride back to America, Vincenso continued as foreman at Villa
Maria for several more years.
In 1884, Secondo sold his half interest in the Montebello Ridge
acreage to Vincenso. The event that precipitated Secondo's sale
of the land was an encounter between his wife and a bear near
the ranch house. Secondo's wife was so frightened that she insisted
that they move to the Valley.(") With Secondo's departure to
San Jose, Vincenso, Theresa and their newly born son moved to
the ridge ranch house.
Everyday life on the ranch continued to center around clearing
the lands of timber and hauling it down the winding mountain
road by horsedrawn wagons, planting the grape vines and the prune
and apricot trees, and growing all the needs for living. According
15
to H. V. Garrod, the ranch was a miniature park, with chickens,
geese, hogs, ducks, pheasants, peacocks, usually a raccoon or a
wild badger and an aviary of canaries which is still there. The
grounds around the home were thick with orange, lemon and
pomegranate trees.(' :6) Hired hands came to live on the ranch
and were boarded on the second floor of the Picchettis' house
until a second home was built in 1886. In 1888, Mrs. Picchetti's
sister, Louisa, arrived from Italy to assist with the raising of the
children and chores on the ranch.
The young vineyards of Zinfandels, Garignane and Petite Sirah
grapes necessary for red clarets; and Columbard and Golden Shasta
grapes necessary for white sauternes became mature and began
producing about three years after planting. For the first few years,
the produce was sold in bulk to local wineries. But, in 1896, Mrs.
Picchetti suggested: "We need a winery, and that money we have
in the bank will look better to me on our own land than in a
bank where someone else has control of it."(2:") Vincenso followed
his wife's advice and took their $8,000 from the Union Bank of
San Jose to construct a winery. This turned out to be a very fortunate
move, as a short time later the bank failed and it would have
been several years before the money could have been recovered.
The winery, a two story red brick building, was built into the
side of a hill at the upper end of the main yard area. A creek
ran directly behind the winery and was used for various operations
in wine production°. The Picchettis bottled and sold their limited
output of red and white wines under the "Montebello" label. They
let their wines age naturally for at least three years, creating a
wine that was still alive and even produced a sediment in the
bottle which did not affect the flavor.(2:8)
The Picchettis also were instrumental in planning for the Monte-
bello School which was constructed in 1892. James Coreless donated'
a one acre parcel of land for the school site while Vincenso Picchetti
contributed about $250 dollars for the construction of the school. " )
Vincenso also served on the first board of trustees and supplied
a room for the teacher at his ranch. Since its inception, the school
board always has had a Picchetti member.
The Picchetti sons—Antone, John, Attilio, and Hector —all at-
tended Montebello School and then went on to business college
in San Jose. After college, Attilio and Hector opened a livery
stable which went on to become the first Nash Automobile Agency
16
in* San Jose.(183) The other sons—Antone and John —stayed at
the Montebello ranch and assisted with the winery while raising
their own families.
Vincenso died in 1904 at the age of 56. John and Antone took
over management of the winery and the vineyards expanded to
about 500 acres. When Prohibition arrived, it spelled trouble for
the winery —the brothers were forced to sell acres of vineyards
just to meet expenses. Even after Prohibition was rescinded, there
were new laws regulating production. The Picchettis could not afford
to update their equipment to meet the government standards and
compete against the corporate wineries. Also, farming techniques
were changing from manual labor involving intensive planting and
harvesting to more efficient methods involving expensive mechan-
ization. This all but ended the Picchetti wine -making for the
commercial market, although they still continued producing for
their own use. By 1971, the winery was closed, after seventy-two
years of business.
Today, the Picchettis are plagued with other sorts of problems.
They would like to see their property turned into a park for public
use, but, unless quick action is taken, selling the land becomes
necessary to keep living. Due to taxes, keeping the land as open
space is a financial drain which becomes increasingly difficult for
the Picchettis to cope with.
Osea Perrone
Vincenso Picchetti was not the only Italian on the ridge with
a passion for winemaking. In 1886, Dr. Osea Perrone purchased
180 acres at the crest of Montebello Ridge for 1,550 gold coins.
Dr. Perrone was practicing medicine in San Francisco at the time
and one of his patients bought the land only to sell it to the doctor
the next day.('o:i)
For Dr. Perrone, viticulture was a profitable hobby. He had
a huge stone cellar sunk into the earth for aging the wines and
in the 1890's he commissioned an Italian architect to construct
a summer house over the cellar. The house was made from the
plentiful supply of redwood, madrone, and oak that covered the
area."':') Despite the supply of materials, wielding stones aNd timber
up the side of a mountain which had no roads was an enormous
18
task. Dr. Perrone had to cut through the chaparral so that wagons
laden with building supplies could make it up the eight mile haul.
Every weekend, his foreman would meet him at Mountain View
and take him up the rugged mountain road, a ride that took half
a day. On these weekend trips to Montebello, Dr. Perrone often
would bring his patients down from San Francisco to rest and
recuperate on his "beautiful mountain."(1o:3-a)
In 1898, Dr. Perrone arranged for his brother, Joseph, and his
family to come to San Francisco. Joseph's son, also named Osea,
helped out at the Montebello Vineyards for a few years before
establishing a winery in San Francisco.
Dr. Perrone would often go west (toward the Pacific Ocean)
across rugged trails on journeys to San Francisco. On one such
occasion, his buggy overturned and he was injured. He was taken
to San Francisco where he died on January 2, 1912.(10=4) Upon
his death, his nephew Osea inherited Montebello Vineyards and
took over its operations.
Young Perrone increased the vineyard to about 500 acres and
had a large mansion built on the hillside in the 1920's. He held
onto the property until his death in 1943 at the age of 70. Visable
remains of the Perrone estate are the young Perrone's mansion
and Dr. Perrone's wine cellar and country home which continue
to serve in the production of wine under the Ridge Winery label.
Pierre Klein
Pierre Klein, a native of the Alsace region of France, surpassed
his Italian counterparts in gaining recognition for his Montebello
wines from Europe and San Francisco.
Klein immigrated to Ohio in 1872 at the age of seventeen. Hearing
of California and its many opportunities, he left Ohio after three
years and headed for San Francisco. In 1879, he opened the
Occidental Restaurant on Washington Street along with John Bergez.
By 1881, he was the sole proprietor. About this time, he married
a German woman, Victorine, who came from the same region in
Europe where Pierre was born. They had four children, none of
whom ever married.
In 1888, Klein purchased one hundred and sixty acres on Monte-
bello Ridge for $3,800 in gold coin. Some of the land already was
19
ii
cleared and under cultivation. Klein opened up twenty to thirty
more acres for olive, walnut, and prune trees and his vineyard.
In his judgement, Montebello soil was similar to that of the "Medoc"
region of France —a volcanic formation which was perfect for the
varieties of grapes he intended to raise: Cabernet Sauvignon and
Cabernet Franc.
Klein was very enthusiastic about the California wines. He offered
them through his Occidental Restaurant and his Viticulture Caf6
at Platt's Hall in San Francisco.18:�1 In 1896, he opened San Francisco
offices for his Mira Valle Winery corporation.
The wines Klein produced were highly praised by local connois-
seurs. His "Claret X" was described as being "of a light character,
mellow, and with a delicate bouquet." The "Grand Vin" he
produced was referred to as the "Chateau Lafitte of America"
in his advertisements, a boast supported by an enthusiastic connois-
seur: "of a `Chateau' type, rich, delicate, bouquet and refreshing,
it is perfect." He also made a sauterne and a chablis, which, along
with the Claret X and Grand Vin, were available at "leading
restaurants, hotels and clubs."
In 1895, Klein entered an exhibit of his wines at Bordeaux,
France, where he achieved an honorable mention. He was informed
that the International Association for the Progress of Hygiene was
having an exposition in Brussels, and was asked to participate.
Klein sent an exhibit, which won the highest award given: a gold
medal with an effigy of Leopold II, and a gold and white cross
representing the "Goddess of Health," which was suspended by
a purple ribbon bordered with yellow. Klein and the Mira Valle
Winery became celebrities of a sort, since his wines were interna-
tionally acclaimed.
At the 1900 Paris Exposition, Klein won two gold medals, one
in open competition for clarets, the other for his Grand Vin, referred
to as the highest type of Burgundy made, "not excepting the famous
wines of the Cote d'Or district." t131 This was a distinctive recogni-
tion, since the wines which Klein exhibited were made from grapes
grown on his own vines, crushed and prepared in his own winery,
and bottled by himself. The medal was given to the grower, an
apparently unusual practice, and therefore "distinctive."
In his advertising, Klein used facsimiles of the medals he won
in the Brussels and Paris exhibitions, and the cross presented him
at Brussels. He incorporated these three figures onto the labels
20
Thanksgiving Dinner, circa 1898. The rural isolation of 19th century Cupertino was not without
its social refinements. A good bottle of family label wine, roasted fowl and fine crystal graced
the table at Captain Joseph Merithew's McClellan Road residence. The community's only
doctor, Dr. Durgin and his wife are shown with the family. Courtesy of J. C. Dunbar
for his wine bottles, and on his business statements and order
forms. He also claimed in his advertising that his wines were "honest
wines under an honest label."*
In December 1907, Klein gave his wife Victorine his one hundred
and sixty acres of land on Montebello Ridge. No reason for the
change was given in the deed. On March 19, 1913, Victorine and
Pierre Klein sold the entire one hundred and sixty acres along
with whatever crops and buildings were on the land to John M.
Williams for $10. It can only be speculated as to why Klein decided
to sell his land and winery for such a token sum. The idea of
prohibiting the use of intoxicating beverages had been around since
the mid 1800's, but had not been a nationally accepted policy.
In 1913, the Webb -Kenyon Act was passed, which may or may
not have affected Klein's wine business.t In any event, the days
of commercial wineries and distilleries were numbered; Klein's
selling or closing the winery would have been inevitable. Neverthe-
less, Klein's $10 sale of one hundred and sixty acres is still a
mystery.
Klein and his family eventually moved to Mountain View. In
1920, Mrs. Klein was struck with a sudden and fatal illness; she
was operated on but did not survive. Two years later, on September
9, Klein died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.":4-'1
*Many problems arose regarding the labels and names of California wines. At
the Paris Exposition,' it was rumored that the French juries would not consider
the California wines which used the names of Chablis, Sauterne, Chateau, etc.,
maintaining that it was not right to try to pass off their wines as copies of French
wines; the French names were given because of the areas they were produced
in, while California growers maintained that the names were used to describe the
wines in relation to what they most closely resembled. They said no dishonesty
was intended or produced through this practice. In California much criticism was
given to the growers and producers of wine for using French names; many claimed
that it was for sales purposes only, obviously a "French wine" would be more
desirable than a local wine, and more money could be obtained because of the
name. It was also stressed that there was a need to build a reputation for local
wines so that this type of "dishonesty" would be unnecessary. In response, perhaps,
Pierre Klein began using this slogan in his advertising.
tThe Webb -Kenyon Act prohibited the shipment of intoxicating liquor intended
to be used in any violation of state law from one state to another. This act was
later strengthened to forbid any person to order or cause intoxicating liquor to
be transported for beverage purposes into any prohibition state.
22
John Gemello
In 1915, John Gemello, established a winery on Montebello Ridge
and began producing his own choice wines. Previously, Gemello
had worked as caretaker of Paul Masson's Evergreen Vineyards.
By 1925, Prohibition had pretty well ruined Gemello's chances
on the ridge and he moved to Mountain View where he subsisted
as a farmer and orchardist. He was able to establish another winery
in Mountain View in 1933.(5:41
There were other families which attempted to start wineries on
the ridge. For most, the problems were the same as those encoun-
tered by Gemello and Picchetti. Some of these families were the
Torre's, the Sylvester Panighetti's, the Joseph Gautier's, and the
Rousten's.
Charles Rousten's family came to the ridge in the early 1900's
and established a winery which remained in operation until about
1952. He feels that revenue agents and Prohibition were more
responsible for the passing of the small family wineries than
competition of the large corporate wineries.
The Vines' Demise
Between about 1895 and 1905, all of the vines in Cupertino were
plagued with the phylloxera microbe. This microbe attacked and
ate the fine roots of the grape vines, causing them to die. Only
years after this disaster was a rootstock resistant to phylloxera
found in Central America, and then grafted to the native vines
to enable them to grow. Following the ravages of the phylloxera
attack, all of the families oriented their energies toward the orchard
industry and the marketing of apricots, cherries, prunes, walnuts
and other fruits. This changeover was encouraged by the Prohibition
laws which virtually halted the production of all alcoholic beverages
between 1919 and 1933.
The early producers of wine were beset with the problems of
phylloxera, the 1906 earthquake, the water table lowering, prohibi-
tion, revenue agents, government regulations, property taxes, sub-
divisions, and competition with the highly mechanized larger win-
eries. The cumulative effect of these diverse forces was the
23
disappearance of virtually all small scale family wineries in Cuper-
tino, indeed, in most of California. Some were able to continue
producing a limited output for family and friends. Only the Picchetti
"Montebello" label, and a group of Stanford graduates, whose
wine making hobby blossomed into commercial production, under
the "Ridge" label, have been able to hold their ground in the
face of the continuing trend toward monolithic corporate "vitino-
mics".
With the rise of the large corporate wineries and the demise
of the smaller, individualized wineries, it is interesting to ponder
whether quality is sacrificed for expediency and profit. With a
product as delicate and volatile as the fruit of the vine, can corporate
ingenuity furnish the necessary care for a really outstanding variety?
With the small family wineries fading out of the commercial wine
production scene, goes that special ineffable ingredient which only
comes from an intense personal pride in nurturing the grape from
the earth and transforming it into a wine which is an extension
of the grower/producer.
Sources
1. Adamski, Valerie. "Pierre Klein; Founder of the Mira Valle Winery." Unpub-
lished report, California History Center, De Anza College, 1972.
2. Beard, Lisa. "The Pioneer Picchetti Family of Cupertino." Unpublished' report,
California History Center, De Anza College, 1973.
3. Bella, Karen and Encisp, Cathy. "Villa Maria: A Historical Landmark."
Unpublished report, California History Center, De Anza College, 1969.
4. Christopherson, Richard and Ebrahimini, Hamid. "Enoch J. Parrish House."
Unpublished report, De Anza College, California History Center, 1969.
5. Crist, Rosemary. "Montebello Ridge: Its Vineyards and Wineries." Unpublished
report, California History Center, De Anza College, 1974.
6. Gowan, J. M. "The Avocation of J. T. Doyle." Unpublished report, California
History Center, De Anza College.
7. Hanahan, Mike. "The Meyerholz Family." Unpublished Report, California
History Center, De Anza College, 1969.
8. Hudson, Amelia. "Pierre Klein —Mira Valle Winery." Unpublished report,
California History Center, De Anza College.
9. Miller, Marilyn. "Cupertino and Charles A. Baldwin, Circa 1900." County
Chronicles, California History Center, De Anza College, 1969.
10. Mitchell, Mary. "Montebello Ridge." Unpublished report, California History
Center, De Anza College, 1972.
25
11. Paul, Diane. "Montebello Ridge." Unpublished report, California History
Center, De Anza College, 1973.
12. Phillips, Carol. "Montgomery Place." Unpublished report, California History
Center, De Anza College, 1971.
13. San Francisco Examiner, January 17, 1901.
14. San Jose Mercury Herald, Monday, December 29, 1913.
15. Stead, Greg. "Chateau Ricardo." Unpublished report, California History Center,
De Anza College.
16. Stephenson, Gary T. "The Farr Ranch." Unpublished report, California History
Center, De Anza College.
17. Taylor, Darnell. "Old Scout." Unpublished report, California History Center,
De Anza College.
18. Tole, Raymond. "The Picchetti Family." Unpublished report, California History
Center, De Anza College, 1973.
19. Wiscavage, Deborah. "John Thomas Doyle: His Life and Major Accomplish-
ments." Unpublished report, California History Center, De Anza College, 1974.
AN AMERICAN DREAM
by
ELLEN STOKES
The early pioneers of Cupertino, the majority of whom were
of American, Dutch, English, German, Irish, Italian, Mexican, and
Yugoslavian origin, comprised anything but an homogenous group.
The conditions that brought them here were as diverse as their
cultural backgrounds. Some came in search of better soil, others
were lured by the attraction of gold. Some came to the Valley
fleeing foreign political oppression, and others to find a lost brother
or girlfriend. As divergent as their backgrounds and ideologies may
have been, however, there was one important characteristic shared
by the Cupertino pioneers: they all sought a better way of life.
By hard work, sheer determination, and steadfast courage, many
of them were to realize even their most remote dreams. In this
time of opportunity, the "American Dream" was cherished by
every arriving immigrant. For several of Cupertino's pioneers and
their offspring, this "dream" became a reality.
Alex Montgomery
One such lucky individual was Alex Montgomery, born in Kern
County Downs, Ireland, in the year 1840. At nineteen, he came
to the eastern United States and remained there until 1865, when
a search for his long -lost brother, John, took him to California.
Starting in San Francisco, Alex followed his instincts to Virginia
City. From there, he traveled to the Yukon, finally locating his
brother in a general store. John was in poor health and was having
difficulty managing the store. For this reason, Alex managed the
store for John, making a few improvements until his brother's
26 27
,4
Eio
3a
o ,L
C
.0 7
death. Instead of remaining in the Yukon or returning to the East,
Alex set out for California and eventually found himself in a little
town called, "West Side.""')
Was it in the Yukon managing his brother's general store or
perhaps prospecting while in Virginia City that Alex Montgomery
established his fortune? No one knows for sure. It is known, though,
that by 1867, when Alex reached West Side, he had enough money
to buy 40 acres of land on Mountain View -Saratoga Road (Highway
9).(14) In 1870, he planted and harvested his first successful crop
of wheat and by 1874 be bought an additonal 100 acres. The new
property, presently bounded by Stevens Creek Boulevard and
McClellan, Stelling, and Saratoga -Sunnyvale Roads, was purchased
at $5,000—a mere 50 dollars an acre."') Around this time, Alex
married Mary Jane McIrrath (also of Northern Ireland) and moved
from his first home (situated directly behind the present day Texaco
Station at the corner of Stevens Creek and Highway 9) to one
in which, his granddaughter Pauline Woodruff would later recall,
"they lived like the aristocracy."
Everything about the new two-story Victorian house seemed to
personify the flair that was such an integral part of Alex's character.
It was equipped with everything from a zinc bathrub (a luxury
in those days), to an elegantly styled Cupola -roofed dining room
with a huge stove. It housed five bedrooms, a parlor, and one
"special room" called the "William McKinley Room." Replete
with tiger and bearskin rugs, the room was kept in readiness just
in case Alex's "beloved President" should ever pay him a call.
Alex's hospitality was not confined to the political elite, however.
For upon the fence bordering his property was plainly displayed
a large "X"—the signal that promised a warm meal and perhaps
a night's lodging to any passing hobo."')
Nor was Alex's flair for the unusual confined to his house alone.
Besides being an enthusiastic buggy racer, he also raised greyhounds.
He was the proud owner of six or eight peacocks that strutted
beneath the towering oaks, that graced his front grounds."')
Located about 500 feet from the house was the Montgomery
distillery. Here, Alex produced several types of wines, including
plum wine and Kosher Sacramental wines for the Jewish communi-
ties. The distillery remained successful until around 1900, when
phylloxera, a parasitic microbe accidentally imported from France,
destroyed nearly all of the Valley's vineyards. Alex then converted
OW
most. of his land to fruit orchards, and by 1922 the distillery had
disappeared.(")
In 1898, the West Side Branch of the San Jose Home Union
Store was opened in West Side. Alex owned the building, constructed
by Enoch Parrish, and leased by the San Jose Home Union.(15)
When the store opened, Alex became West Side's first Postmaster
and distinguished himself as one of West Side's most prominent
citizens.(14)
He also distinguished himself by generous contributions of land
(one acre each) to the Horticulture Viticulture Association, and
the Protestant as well as Catholic Churches. Having no children
of his own to share in his good fortune, Alex sent for his nephew,
Arch Wilson. Arch was to become not only the inheritor of the
Montgomery tradition but also one of Cupertino's most outstanding
and best -loved citizens.
The element of "change" played an uncanny role in the life
of Arch Wilson and usually proved beneficial. By, the time he
arrived in 1902, the town of "West Side" had been transformed
into the town of Cupertino. Arch, himself, by the help of his uncle
Alex, had been transformed from an accountant in Morgan Hill
to the half -partner of the Home Union Store. A mere two years
later, in 1904, the store's name would be changed to the Cupertino
Store, Inc. and Arch would find himself in a dominant role as
the store's president.(14)
Business was not the only change to affect Arch's life, for at
this time he also married a pretty, young school teacher of the
first Doyle school, Miss Pauline Grove. Arch and Pauline moved
into the house that had been Uncle Alex's first home, and where
their two children, Pauline and Warren, would be born.
Besides his role as president of the Cupertino Store, Arch also
carried the title of Postmaster, as had his uncle Alex. In the early
days, the mail had been delivered by Arch in a "sulky," a one
seater cart. I") By 1905, the mail system was converted and delivered
by the Peninsular Interurban Railroad thus affording Arch more
time to devote to the office work in the store, now the hub of
the town's activities. As Postmaster in the Cupertino Store, he
came into daily contact with most of the citizenry. He became
interested in local politics and in later years was one of the chairmen
of the Fremont High School District.(14)
Arch's free time also afforded him the chance to work on family
projects. In 1927, Arch began the building of his Montgomery Place
home still standing today on Stevens Creek Boulevard near the
post office. It was designed by Alex, and its flair and sheer elegance
were reminiscent of Alex's "Victorian" house. All of the bricks
and most of the lumber for Arch's new home came from Alex's
former mansion. It had shiny oak floors, crystal chandeliers, and
the gutter and downspouts were made of copper.«a)
As successful financially and socially as Arch Wilson was, he
never seemed to forget the less fortunate members of his community.
When the farmers' crops were not doing very well, he extended
credit until their conditions improved. When the Depression hit
in 1929, he did not hesitate to offer assistance to his fellow
Cupertinans.(12) As late as 1956, Arch was practically "donating"
land for the expansion of the Union Church by selling four acres
of his land at a fraction of its worth. He would be remembered
by many for his generosity. One of his greatest appreciators was
Paul Mariani Jr., son of another pioneer, who said, "Arch Wilson
was one of the finest men I've ever met . . . he had a feeling
of true community and there are very few men like that left."c12)
The Dixon Family
The road to success was not as easily paved for all Cupertino's
pioneers as it had been for Alex and Arch, as is evidenced by
the story of one of their close contemporaries —James Knox Polk
Dixon.
James K. P. Dixon's father, Matthew had come to California
from Missouri in 1849, at the beginning of the goldrush. (5:874)
Eventually, the family settled on a 300-acre ranch in the Warm
Springs District, (then called Harrisburg) near Milpitas.(1:57) Besides
raising livestock and grain, Matthew Dixon, built warehouses along
Coyote Creek at the port in Milpitas where hay was stored and
later transported to San Francisco by barge. Dixon's Landing Road
and Dixon's Landing are both named for him. Matthew also was
actively involved in California politics. In his political career,
spanning the years from 1869 to 1888, he served as a member
of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, as an Alameda County
Assemblyman, and, later, State Senator. In the annals of "The
30 31
History of Alameda County," Matthew Dixon was described as
" : . one of those men, who, from small beginnings, has sprung
into prominence by his own indomitable perseverence and unaided
efforts. "c5:874>
However, Dixon's prominence. was not to last. After cosigning
a note, and guaranteeing it for a friend who was doing some costly
construction work, the friend died, leaving Matthew to make the
note good. It took all the money he could raise to pay off the
debt. Upon his death in 1915, the legacy he left his son, James,
was not so much a monetary one, as one of a different nature.
Matthew Dixon's example of "indomitable perseverence" was to
be an inspiration throughout his son's life. Like his father, James
Knox Polk Dixon would rise from "small beginnings" before he
would pass on the Dixon legacy through his son, Harold, ultimately
contributing to the development of Cupertino.14)
James Knox Polk Dixon, born in 1855 and named for the 11th
President of the United States, was the eldest son, of Matthew
W. Dixon. Like his father, James, he experienced his share of
pitfalls on the bumpy road to success. These pitfalls —beginning
at the age of ten with his mother's death and the eventual financial
ruin of his father —only served to strengthen James' character and
determination. Ultimately, this strength was to serve as an inspira-
tion to his children and indirectly influence their attainment of
the American dream.
During the administration of Grover Cleveland, young James
worked in the United States mint in San Francisco. Because his
position there was considered a political one, upon Harrison's
j entrance into office, James was invited to leave. It was 1890, and
James K. P. Dixon was thirty-five years old, married with one
son, and jobless. From the bustling city of San Francisco, he chose
to settle in the more placid community of West Side where, once
again, "from humble beginnings" he would set new goals.
In 1892, James' luck changed. When the West Side branch of
the San Jose Home Union Store was completed, James became
its first manager. Located on the southwest corner of the cross-
roads of Stevens Creek Boulevard and Saratoga -Mountain View
Road (approximately where the Standard Station now is) the Home
Union Store housed every conceivable notion a West Side resident
could want. For $80 a month (a sizable wage in those times), James'
job entailed the sale of everything from groceries and hardwares
32
to fertilizers and explosives.(') In 1892, James became West Side's
first notary public and the father of a second son, Harold Wheeler
Dixon. In the same year, the Post Office was relocated from the
Doyle Ranch to the back of the Home Union Store.
James was the store's sole manager until 1898, when Alex
Montgomery presented him with an opportunity for advancement.
Alex owned the building leased by the Home Union Store, and
when his nephew came to West Side, Alex offered to finance
James in the store's purchase. This made James and Arch Wilson
partners and the store was re -named "Dixon and Wilson" shortly
thereafter.(4)
In 1900, Mrs. James Dixon, the former Mary Willis Tinkham,
opened the West Side book club. The book club, the precursor
of the first official Cupertino library, also was located within the
Home Union Store and offered its members, for a small weekly
fee, light fiction, semi -historical novels, history books and travel-
ogues, all selected and purchased by Mrs. Dixon., In 1904, the
book club was re -named the Cupertino Book Club.(':)
Favorable conditions seemed to be stabilizing for the Dixons,
when James Knox Polk suddenly died in April 1904, his debt to
Alex Montgomery only partially repaid. When settlements were
made, Arch Wilson became the store's major interest holder, a
small share going to William B. Calvert, one of the store's employees.
Mrs. Dixon was left with only 1/8 of the store's holdings and
two growing boys to support.(') The two Dixon boys, Howard
Buckman and Harold Wheeler, constituted the third generation
of the Dixon family in California. They were to verify the adage,
"The third time's a charm," for both became successful in their
chosen professions. Howard went to college and became a doctor,
and Harold became owner of the Cupertino Store.(9)
Harold W. Dixon, born in West Side in 1892, seemed destined
to accomplish the goals that his father, and his father's father,
had striven for. As an early teen, he began working in the Cupertino
Store delivering groceries to neighboring families. On these visits,
he invariably would relate the latest news in town, ranging from
the weight of "Mrs. Smith's" new baby to the going price of
coffee. In order to contribute to the support of the family, he
had to discontinue his education early. Later, he attended courses
in public speaking at San Jose High School, and salesmanship and
business courses at Heald's Business College in San Jose, where
34
one teacher dubbed him, "a born salesman."
He returned to the Cupertino Store where his new responsibilities
included the sales, ordering, and stocking of supplies. Arch Wilson
attended to the office work, but, as Wilson became more and
more involved in public life, Dixon virtually became the store's
manager.(9)
Harold distinguished himself as a hard-working and conscientious
young man. Industriously, he labored over the detailed brochures
that announced every innovative appliance. Truely a "born sales-
man," he introduced the first Frigidaire refrigerator and the first
Wedgewood gas stove into Cupertino. What Harold sold, Harold
guaranteed. This meant long hours after the store closed, studying
diagrams and parts, and learning the mechanics of the appliances,
so that, if eventual repair was needed, Harold would be prepared.(')
Occasionally, he attended the card parties at St. Joseph's or
social activities at the Cupertino Church. In 1919, while working
late at the store, he missed the party that introduced Miss Florence
Hawley to Cupertino society. "Eventually," Florence would later
recall, "he made his presence known." (9) Three years later, in
1922, Harold and Florence were married. They later moved to
their first home on Saratoga Avenue (across from the present day
Westgate Shopping Center.) Here, the Dixon family grew with
the births of Florence W. in 1925, and Donald, in 1927.
During the years before the Depression, Harold enjoyed a certain
amount of prosperity. He bought a cabin near Santa Cruz where
jthe family could enjoy barbecues and the outdoors, and he could
occasionally retreat from the rigors of business life. When the
Depression hit in 1931, the Dixon's sold their home on Saratoga
Avenue and returned to the house in which Harold had been born,
I
in Cupertino.(a,9)
The store's business, though time consuming, did not monopolize
Harold's time. He also was involved in the town's civic activities.
He was one of Cupertino's first volunteer firemen along with Charlie
Baer, his childhood friend. As zone warden for Civil Defense in
the 1940's, Harold made maps and charts for alerting the residents
of the area of possible emergencies. For 59 years he was a member
of the Oddfellows Society, Lodge #70, where as a young man
he enjoyed putting on plays for the community.(9)
In 1945, Harold's hard work finally paid off when Arch Wilson
decided to sell his dominating interest in the Cupertino Store. Harold
and his new partner, Kenneth Lewis, bought the remaining stock
and together ran the hardware section of the store. They leased
the grocery section to Cornelius McCarthy and Bob Trogen, who
re -named it the Cupertino Food Center. In 1951, when arthritis
began to make his working difficult, Harold decided to sell the
store. Mr. Lewis, who was not interested in taking another partner,
(saying he could never find another like Harold) sold his interest
at the same time.(3,9)
Harold Wheeler Dixon remained active in his community as a
member of the Oddfellows, charter member of the Masonic Lodge
and member of the Rotary International until his death in February
1974. His wife, Florence Hawley Dixon, now resides on Richwood
Drive in Cupertino. She is a member of the Cupertino de Oro
Club and also a participating member of the Rebekah Lodge and
the Cupertino Church.
Paul Mariani
"Work like you're going to live forever and pray like you're
going to die tomorrow"
—Paul Marian, Sr.
The Yugoslavians, in the late 1890's and early 1900's, were among
the emigrants who left their native countries and ventured to the
"new land." Those who settled in the Santa Clara Valley distin-
guished themselves as industrious and honest people. In 1907, one
young Yugoslav, Paul Mariani, came to the town of Cupertino."')
By years of hard work, a seemingly "innate sense of optimism,"
and sheer determination, Paul Mariani built, from virtually nothing,
a mini -empire in the Santa Clara Valley orchard industry.
Born in 1882 in Komiza, Yugoslavia, Paul displayed early in
his youth the strength of his determination. At the age of 16, his
girlfriend's family left Yugoslavia for America, and Paul was
determined to follow. So determined was he, that when his father
denied his permission, Paul went "on strike" —he simply stopped
working. A year later his strike produced results; with a ticket
and $16 in his pocket, Paul set out for the "new land. Landing
j in San Francisco, Paul found work in a coconut factory for $1.50
36 N 37
a day, and later became a cooper's apprentice for a Mr. Kucick
in North Beach.(13)
Paul hadn't forgotten his girlfriend, Victoria Swillich, who lived
50 miles away in Cupertino. In order to see her, he would ride
his bicycle from San Francisco to Cupertino on his days off —a
ride that took the better part of the day. If he was lucky, he'd
catch a train, bringing his bicycle along, and make it back into
San Francisco for the next day's work. Paul lost everything in
the earthquake of 1906. Nevertheless, Paul and Victoria were
married in 1907 at the Santa Clara mission.«o>
Paul worked with his father-in-law, John Swillich, in the orchard
industry for a short while until he accepted a job as a cooper
for an Italian vintner, in St. Helena, Napa County, where two of
his daughters were born, Winifred and Irene. Eventually he devel-
oped oak poisoning and the family was forced to move back to
Cupertino where Paul remained immobilized for a year. Doctors
were unable to treat it and, out of desperation, Mrs. Mariani decided
to take Paul to an Italian "faith healer" who prescribed a tea
made from elderberries. Within a few weeks Paul was better and
again joined his father-in-law in orchard work. Swillich instructed
Paul on how to estimate crops until he became so proficient he
could estimate crops in four figures within 1 2%. In 1913, he went
into the business of buying green fruit on his own. At this time,
�j he saved enough money to make a down payment on five acres
on Laurel Avenue in Cupertino. Shortly afterwards, his third
daughter, Mathilda, was born.(10)
By 1916, Paul had a Model T Ford and business was prospering.(13'
i He may have been able to predict crops, but one thing Paul did
not include in his calculations, occured in 1918. In that season,
he had contracted many crops of green prunes, some alone and
some in conjunction with his friend Nick Tikvica. One day in
early September 1918, it rained six inches in 24 hours ruining all
the season's crops and leaving Paul and Nick, not only penniless,
but in debt. Paul and Nick had contracted the crops, paying only
a down payment and promising the rest after the crop was harvested.
This could have meant financial ruin for Paul Mariani had the
landowners not been sympathetic. Instead of demanding payment,
they allowed him to handle their next year's crops and pay at
a later date."') This kindness Paul Mariani Sr. would never forget,
nor would his son, Paul Jr. This incident would serve as an example
38
fi
of honest business ethics that would become a major characteristic
in the Mariani industry.
The crop in 1919 proved so successful that Paul not only paid
off his debt to the landowners, he paid for the following year,
in advance, and had enough left over to send his family to Europe.
All in all, 1919 proved a successful year for Paul and Victoria
Mariani, for in the same year, their son, Paul Jr., was born.
Starting in the 1920's, Paul Sr. began expanding his land holdings.
"Whenever he had an extra 50q or $1.00," says Paul Mariani Jr.,
"he'd buy a piece of land. There is a certain thing about land
and Mariani that seems to be inseparable . . . " Having seen the
rocky land in Yugoslavia where his father was born, Paul Jr. would
later understand his father's "disease," as he called it, for acquiring
all the land he could.
Paul Sr. also began to export prunes to Europe in the twenties,
but when Hitler came to power in the middle of that decade, he
decided to build up a domestic market. Handing his -son the keys
to a Plymouth and fifty dollars, he told Paul Jr. to "go out and
develop a domestic market."(xo)
Business remained sluggish until after World War II when the
Mariani industry attempted what appeared to their. competitors
"a crazy" project. Using a process discovered by the University
of California's Department of Food Technology, the Mariani's were
experimenting and producing the first commercially dried prunes.(10'
This eventually proved successful and the Mariani's again claimed
IIIII'
�'I
another first —a ready to eat product in a transparent bag.
I'
Paul transformed his five acres into a thriving orchard industry
but was not blind to the concerns of his fellow men. During the
Prohibition years, he wanted the youth of the community to have
someplace to go for diversion besides a "speak-easy." Together
with some friends he rennovated one of his storage barns and
made a recreation club called the Napredek Club. Not only did
this provide the young people a place for picnics, dances, and
j
plays, but it also was Paul Sr.'s way of preserving the Yugoslav
culture.
His concern was not restricted to those of his own culture. This
was demonstrated after World War II when the American -Japanese
were released from the relocation camps. They needed jobs and
Paul Mariani Sr. hired the first Japanese who came into the Valley.
In addition to this, 'he provided them with shelter, for he had
an apartment house built on the property exclusively for their use.
Even when his business developed into a thriving industry, Paul
Mariani Sr. remained a humble and honest man. He never owned
a desk at the plant; he wanted to know what was going on in
each part of the plant. Instead, he preferred to spend a few minutes
talking to each department head, sometimes even taking a worker's
place on the job so the worker could take a small rest.(10)
Not the least of Paul Sr.'s qualities was his respect for honesty
and this virtue he emphasized time and again to his son, Paul
Jr. "He used to say," recalled Paul Jr., "that a man is not better
than his word, and he always told his children, in unequivocal
terms, that if they were unable to keep their word they were neither
a member of the Mariani family nor the business world."(12)
Perhaps because his own education consisted of only three years
of formal schooling, Paul Mariani Sr., was determined that his
son should get every opportunity to learn. Graduating from Cuper-
tino Grammar School, Paul Jr. matriculated to Fremont High School,
then entered the University of California at Davis, where he
graduated from the Department of Horticulture. He later attended
both the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Clara
University receiving a Masters in Business Administration.(10)
Recognizing the value of his formal education, Paul Mariani Jr.
does not underestimate the importance of another kind of educa-
tion —actual experience. He describes his father, Paul, Sr., as a
man who was always in control —"when he said to work, you
worked, there was never the slightest question of his authority."clz>
He recalls his childhood springs and summers spent harvesting
the apricots in his father's orchards. Paul feels that these early
experiences were extremely helpful in building his character.
In later years, Paul, Sr. turned much of the Mariani company's
responsibilities over to his son. Always searching for ways to
improve, rennovate, and expand the company, Paul Jr. was sent,
in 1946, in search of plantable soil. Over the years, he visited
Europe, Turkey, Greece, Israel, Tunis, the Middle East, Africa
and Latin America. At the suggestion of Paul Jr., the company
bought and is now cultivating 6,000 acres in Australia, where Paul
found the soil and climate closely paralleled that of the Santa Clara
Valley.
Until the end of his life, Paul A. Mariani Sr. remained an active
man. In his seventies, he and his old friend Nick Tikvica not only
40 a 41
planted new trees but had a
in Sonoma County. He chose
it was a kind of repetition of
in which only 70 to 80 acres
time.
rather large dehydrating operation
this spot which he loved, because
the Santa Clara Valley, the valley
of Mariani land remained by that
Paul A. Mariani died at the age of 81 in 1966, having experienced
the full fruition of the American dream. Carrying on that Mariani
tradition is his son, Paul Mariani, Jr.
The histories of the Montgomery, Wilson, Dixon, and Mariani
families, are illustrations of the attainment of the "American
Dream" by Cupertino's early settlers. Though their contributions
to Cupertino's growth were substantial, they were by no means
the sole contributors. Every_pioneer who cleared the land, worked
the orchards, or tended the vines, enriched the history of Cupertino.
Over a period of years came such men as Elisha Stephens (1844),
W. L. Blabon (1848), Martin Ball (1850), S. R. Williams (1850),
Nathan Hall (1852), Benjamin Craft (1858), Louis Portal (1860),
Henry Farr (1868), Dan Sutherland (1869), William Regnart (1874),
Tom Kerwin (1875), Ivan Meyerholz (1880), Larry Sellenger (1881),
John T. Doyle (1882), and many, many more. The 1880's brought
an influx of retired sea captains from the east coast to Cupertino.
Among them were Captains Merithew, Blake, Ross, Porter, Harri-
man, Gibson, and Crosley. The 1890's and early .1900's saw the
influx of immigrants from Yugoslavia such as the Saichs, Pavisos,
Swillichs, and'others.
All of the pioneers, whether they sailed from Europe, trekked
across the Sierra, or bicycled from San Francisco, made their way
to Cupertino in hopes of establishing a better life, bringing with .
them the richness of their cultures. These men and their families
who came and toiled on the land, planting their crops, and building
their homes, not only made a better life for themselves but made
an immeasurable contribution to the development of the Santa Clara
Valley. Their lives, work, joys, sorrows and successes collectively
constituted the true history of Cupertino.
Sources
1. Charles Bancroft, The Footprints of Time and Analysis of Our
(Burlington, Iowa: R. T. Root, 1879) p. 290, 515, 517, 518.
42
2. Cupertino Courier, Weekly Newspaper, Wednesday, April 7, 1971, p. 2, 3.
3. Interview with Donald Dixon by Beth Garcia, Nov. 13, 1973.
4. Interview with Mr. Harold Wheeler Dixon, Nov. 27, 1973.
5. History of Alameda County, Calif. (Oakland: M. W. Wood, 1883) p. 874.
6. R. R. Parkinson, Pen Portraits from the Garden of the World (San Francisco:
Alta CA Print, 1878) p. 56, 57.
7. Carol Phillips, Montgomery Place, File No. 19 in De Anza History Center,
May 1971.
8. Louis Stocklmeir, Early Libraries of the Village of Westside and the Village
of Cupertino, Pamphlet p. 2.
9. Interview with Mrs. Harold Dixon, Mar. 9, 1975.
10. Interview with Paul A. Mariani, Jr. on May 14, 1970 at his home, 10401 Loyola
Drive, Los Altos, Calif. by Adele Custo Porcella.
11. Edmiston, James, Home Again, (Garden City, N.Y. 1955) p. 314.
12. Conversation with Paul Mariani, Jr., Feb. 18, 1975 by Ellen Stokes.
13. "This Is Your Life Address." presented by Jimmy Schneider during Paul
Mariani's 75th birthday celebration July 22, 1967.
14. Interview with Pauline Woodruff.
15. Ralph Rambo and Louis Stocklmeir, "The West Side Story," Santa Clara County
Chronicles, Edited by Margery Quackenbush, et al. (Local History Studies
Vol.).
REFLECTIONS
Orchard Life During the Depression
"Long about 1933-1934, we'd pay 259 per hour labor on the
prune ranches. And we'd turn them away. They were begging for
work. And you read The Grapes of Wrath? I was host to many
of them. They would come with a truck loaded, boiling with kids
and people who wanted to pick fruit. "Can we camp here?" they'd
ask. There were water faucets and toilets the WPA put up, and
they'd bring their own tents and beds. They were grateful and glad
to camp, and everyone worked, even the kids, even for ten to twelve
cents a box. As soon as they got settled, they wanted to borrow
ahead on their wages so they could eat. Well, eat, my eye! The
head of the house was so busy, they were down in the waterfront
near Sunnyvale, having a drink and playing cards, so fast that their
coattails were on fire.
The apricots ripen about the fourth of July and then you've got
43
The photographs on the following pages depict the processing of fruit from tree to store as
it was done in the 1920's, 30's, 40's, and 50's when the Valley's agricultural enterprises were
among the world's most productive and renowned. All of the photographs are from the collection
of Burrel Leonard and were taken on the Leonard lands in Cupertino in the 1920's and 30's.
i
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Orchard homes such as that of the Glendennings, on the spot where Cupertino's Hewlett-Packard
plant is located today, were surrounded by acres of apricots, plums and other fruit trees,
most of which had to be harvested between June and August.
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w ; The larger orchardists, faced with harvesting hundreds of acres of trees, changed family -style
o i work into assembly line work. The nature of fruithandling still demanded workers who were
careful and attentive. And, although the work was tedious, conditions in packing plants like
f John Leonard's, built in 1929, helped make for a pleasant atmosphere, far different from
> i the sweatshop assembly lines which still were the rule of the day in other industries.
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yards like Leonard's six -acre yard at the corner of Pruneridge Avenue and Wolfe Road. Later, some trust, such as prunes, was dried whole, without being deputed. 'These 5(1 pound burlap
the trays would be stacked for further drying. sacks were headed to a baby food manufacturer.
fi
By the early 1930's, when this picture was snapped in a Chicago market, California fruit,
mainly from the Santa Clara Valley, was being widely marketed throughout the country. The
next decade would see the opening of worldwide markets.
to pick them. So here we were, just pressing to get things going,
a lot were ripe and they had to be cut because they are very soft
and they have to be handled right away. Well, one of the fat mamas
of this bunch decided they needed a picnic. And they were all going
to Stevens Creek Dam, regardless of what the conditions were at
the house. This was their attitude.
In a more humorous vein, there was a family that used to come
back several years in a row, and the mother was quite intelligent.
She made you think of some of the pioneer stock that must have
come into the West in the early days. I asked her why she didn't
go down to the cannery. You know, they make more money there.
She chewed tobacco. You couldn't chew tobacco and work at the
cannery. So she'd rather work in the orchard, or in the cutting
shed where she could expectorate on the floor.
Frances Martin
We had one woman and her daughter who came out one year
when we were short of help. The mother was educated and the
daughter was going to San Jose State, and they were cutting "cots."
They couldn't get work anywhere else. One day, the daughter said,
"Well, you know those entrance exams, they want to know whether
or not you have perseverance. I think anybody that cuts apricots
all through the season can just put a double "A" up there at the
head of the list."
Leora McArthur
As a Child in an Orchard Family
We all had to help. There were five of us. After my father passed
away, we supported the family during summertime, cutting "cots,"
picking prunes, scraping fruit off the trays, and picking walnuts.
We always made enough money. We used to make $1000-$1500
in those three months and that would keep us going the whole year.
You see, we always had a vegetable garden. We had the horse,
the cow, and some pigs, rabbits and chickens. I remember one time
we had a hen we called "Henny-Penny." All of a sudden, "Henny-
Penny" disappeared and we couldn't find "Henny-Penny," and no
one knew where it went. One day, long afterwards, my mother finally
51
told us we ate it. But, that is what it was raised for —for food.
We also had a white rabbit. We made a pet out of it and we'd
bring it into the house at night. My parent's room was across the
hall from our bedroom. We didn't have electricity in those days:
we had oil lamps. My father would get after me because he would
see the light under my door, and he'd hollar at me to get to sleep.
(I used to real 'till 12:00 or 1:00 at night). Anyway, we used to
bring that rabbit in and put him at the foot of the bed, and he
used to chew on the blankets. My mother asked us what happened
to the blanket. Well, that was the,end of the rabbit in bed!
Years later, after I was married, during prune season we'd have
about 200 tons of prunes, because my husband also rented other
land, on shares, and I'd haul all these prunes and put them on
the truck. We would unload them onto a platform, then I would
put them into the boiling lye water, dip them, and the whole process,
laying them out to dry all by myself. That was before he hired
dippers. We had Imperials, —the great big prunes —and they could
only lay on the trays about a day or two, and we had a rake that
was just a wire form and we would pull that across the trays underneath
the prunes. That would turn them over. Then we would sack the
prunes and sew the bags up by hand and then load them on the
trucks so they were ready to be picked up. I did everything!
Catherine (Paviso) Gasich
Women's Work in the Orchard
By and large, fruit will vary maybe from 30% to 10% moisture
content, and all those perceptible differences in color, shape, and
glaze are best determined by women. An experienced woman could
spot those differences and sort with both hands very quickly and
separate those that were a little moist and had to be dried a little
longer. They did all the work that was really the selection for quality.
They were also grading for size. Color, moisture, and size sorting
was always done by hand. The Women's Lib movement was not
heard of. It was generally accepted that there were males and females,
that their work was not identical, nor their attitudes the same. Both
were needed. Therefore, we shuffled each to where he or she would
be most effective.
Burrel Leonard
53
a
Orchard Life —A Contemporary Definition
First off, shut off the television for a month. Then, shut the radio
off for a month. Get up at daylight, eat a substantial breakfast,
and go out and work until dark. It was long hours. The problem
with the fruit business is that it's a two-handed thing. Many kids
will walk around the table and reach for something, right-handed
or left-handed, and the other kinds of kids will just struggle. In
the fruit go 'round, there is no place for a spectator —no place for
a loafer. The only place that is open is for the participant, and
you had to wind up being two-handed fairly early.
Burrel Leonard
55
Map of Cupertino showing the landholdings within the community in 1887. Acreage of each
parcel of land is shown under the owner's name. Note The Crossroads at the intersection
of Stevens Creek Road and Saratoga -Mountain View Road. To the left, John Doyle's property ;
can be seen along Stevens Creek.
II
LIFE AT THE CROSSROADS
For more than a century, the hub of commercial and civic activity
in the Cupertino area has been the Cupertino Crossroads —the corner
of Highway 9 and Stevens Creek Boulevard —where two major travel
routes in West Santa Clara Valley meet. The names of the roads
have changed, the buildings have risen, fallen or been moved, owners
have prospered and perished, but The Crossroads persists into the
1970's as the heart of an everchanging Cupertino.
The Crossroads may have been destined by geography to become
the core of a new community, or it may have been the hard work
and foresight of early businessmen which led to its overcoming
the Monta Vista area as a commercial center by the early 1900's.
The intersection stood midway between Saratoga, fashionable as
a spa and lumbering center by ,the 1870's and Murphy's Station,
one of the earliest settlements in the county. It also stood halfway
between San Jose and the farmlands to the west of Mountain View,
along Stevens Creek Road, often simply called "the road to the
mountains. " Thus, the chapparal and scrub oak covering the fertile
soil at The Crossroads already were familiar to most travelers in
the county by the 1870's when Alexander Montgomery and his
partner, Dan Sutherland, began clearing the southwest 160 acres
for wheat, barley and hay fields.
Within 20 years of Montgomery's first ax blows, the corner
sprouted the little community of West Side, a name improvised
in a seemingly ad hoc manner to denote the community's location
on the western side of the Valley. By 1900, The Crossroads had
become a place where the members of an orchard family could
come to:
—get their horses shod at the Baer Blacksmith shop, under a
large oak tree at the northeast corner.
—mail letters at the West Side branch of the post office, which
57
•a
r
had replaced the earlier Cupertino branch which had been in the
hills near Monta Vista. A concerted effort by West Siders resulted
in the office and town name being switched to their area in 1892
and 1900, respectively.
—buy feed, ready made dresses, hardware or groceries in th
new Home Union Store, owned by Alex Montgomery and managed' ._
by his nephew, Arch Wilson, after 1902. The post office was located
there.
—borrow a book from the shelves of the store, which served
as the community's first lending library.
—attend church services at the Union Church or, after 1907,
at the new St. Joseph's church, both on land donated by Montgomery.
—whirl away at socials and dances held in the Odd Fellows
Hall, south of The Crossroads, also on land donated by Montgomery.
—gape at the sumptuous mansions of the Montgomery and
Sutherland families.
—pause on the dusty corner to chat with neighbors or to watch
the parade of cityfolk in their carriages and buggies, heading up
to Saratoga or over to San Jose.
Sooner or later, every inhabitant of the West Valley —even the
rarely seen mountain dwellers of the Montebello Ridge —would find
some reason to wander down to The Crossroads. As the rural area's
only real town center, it drew not only the regular visitors, but
also the irregular ones. Historian Ralph Rambo recalled seeing one
mountain man, "Little Dave," the sole inhabitant of an isolated
spot high above Stevens Creek, called Grizzly Flat. In his book,
Remember When, Rambo described Little Dave as "a hermit
woodchopper, shingle-splitter and charcoal burner who lived at the
summit headwaters of Stevens Creek. I had seen him at the West
Side store. Every two months, he drove his mule and cart dowtt
the long grade for supplies. Of course, I distinctly watched his
shopping with nosey curiosity. As soon as Arch Wilson, storekeeper,
sighted Little Dave approaching, he could start putting up the order
because it was always the same. It never varied: sack of flour,
side of bacon, Arbuckle coffee, salt, sugar, rolled oats, coal oil,
star plug chewing tobacco, chipped beef, pink beans and sulphur
matches. Then, he always asked Arch, hopefully, if there was atiy
leftover Doerr's bakery pastry. There usually was an apple pie,
well -aged and with the consistency of a discus. Little Dave immedi-
ately split this fifty-fifty with his mule companion. "
58
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- No doubt to Little Dave's dismay, the busy Crossroads usuall
was bustling with all the activity of a farming community on it
way to becoming a town. Besides being a place to come to watt
the world passing by, The Crossroads was the kind of place to
hear and touch things, as well. There was the rhythmic clanging
of hammer, horseshoe and anvil echoing out of the Baer Blacksmith
shop, founded in 1888 by W. T. "Billy" Baer who had his friend,
Cupertino architect Enoch Jasper Parrish, build a gingerbread
masterpiece for his bride right next door. The couple had five children,
one of whom, Charles, inherited the blacksmith trade from his father.
"When I was old enough to pitch horseshoes, my Dad figgered
that I was old enough to help in the blacksmith shop after school, "
Baer recalled half a century later. "My first job was pulling the
bellows, drilling holes for the buggy tires and keeping the shop
policed -up. "But there also was time for turn -of -the -century relaxa-
tion, Baer remembered. "Our pastimes at the turn of this century
used to be eating Mother's delicious and crusty homemade bread,
getting our hair cut by Mrs. Enoch J. Parrish and picking the Parrish
prune crop every year, without fail. "
Baer had other vivid memories of Crossroads life. "Mother made
an awfully good whipped prune pie with custard in it about 1 112
inches thick. I recall Mr. Sutherland, father of Tina Miner, nightpa-
trolling the Crossroads area with a shotgun until the 1906 earthquake
damage to the (Crossroads) stores was repaired. Clear in my mind
is the -'erection of the concrete waiting station in 1915 for the Interurban
Railroad. Ivan Meyerholz was the engineer and we all volunteered
our services to construct it. Under the direction of Mr. Hedberg,
we built and maintained a chemical fire fighting tank on a trailer.
It was generally towed by my tow car from the garage with Homer
Burtner, Harold Dixon and me the `Chiefs'. "
As horseless carriages began sputtering back and forth past The
Crossroads, Charlie Baer soon realized blacksmithing might be on
the way out. He, himself, was the owner of one of the first automobiles
to clamor over the community's dirt roads. In 1915, he opened
the first garage in Cupertino, on the spot where the old blacksmith
shop had been. For the next 50 years, Baer operated a succession
of service stations at the location. He retired in 1964 to spend
time working on creating a replica of his Dad's blacksmith shop
at the back of his home, a few hundred feet from the location
of the original shop.
60
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1925. Like * the Irish, English and German businessmen who had
preceded them in making a commercial success at The Crossroads,
the Cali brothers, Rosario and Joseph, toiled until they prospered.
Their prosperity, like that of the other Cupertino Crossroads mer-
chants, fueled and continues to fuel Cupertino's progress and
prestige.
CALI: THE FIRST MILLION DOLLAR BUSINESS
by
MARGARET DUGAN
"It doesn't take just money to start a business of your
own; it takes more of courage, confidence and hard work
to succeed. But, in addition to all this, it takes an abiding
faith in God, the most beneficial partner anyone can have,
to make a success in life."
—Rosario Cali
The far-ranging trucks of the R. Cali and Bro. Co. have for
more than 50 years been a -mobile advertisement for their home -
base —Cupertino. With the.'name Cupertino proudly emblazoned
on the sides of their trucks, Cali drivers for decades have been
spreading the word throughout California that Cupertino is a good
place to call home.
Today, that fleet of trucks hauls grain, feed and fruit across
the state on modern freeways for well -established customers. In
the early days, however, the long hauls to the San Joaquin Valley
or further in the constrant search for new customers were a test
of the ingenuity of the two founders of the company, brothers
Rosario and Joseph Cali.
Those were the days when the grain hauling business of the
Cali brothers was done with a single truck. Rosario would scout
the countryside for farmers who needed grain or hay hauled. On
his way back to the Cupertino Crossroads homebase—at the corner
of Sunnyvale -Saratoga and Stevens Creek Boulevard —Cali would
64
leave old tires looped over road signs to aid his drivers in finding
the new clients.
The roadside markers were not unlike the stacks of stones or
piles of grass used as directional signs by gypsies in Sicily, where
Cali was born on June 18, 1885. His parents were vineyard farmers
living several miles from the town of Piedimonte, Eteneo. When
Rosario was 11, his father made him "foreman" of the family's
vineyard crew of 20 workers. At 12, the boy made his first money
as a fruit merchant by contracting to buy pears, figs and cherries
and selling them in town for farmers from ' outlying districts.
Rosario's ability to get along with people and his business acumen
dated from these pre -teenage experiences.
At 13, he went to school for three months, his first and only
formal education. Although, the brief stay at school was not enough
time for Cali to learn to read or write, he previously had developed
a personal form of shorthand writing for taking orders and keeping
accounts in his hauling business. Secretaries in Cupertino, years
later, became adept at transcribing the shorthand which Cali
continued to use, even after learning how to read and write English.
By the age of 14, he had begun his own wine business with
his father furnishing the bulk wine. Rosario moved to Messina
to sell his wine and soon had made enough money to bring his
eight -year -old brother, Joseph, to the town to help in the business.
After several years, however, the wine business began to fail,
so Rosario sent Joseph back_ to the family home. Unwilling to
return home himself because bf his business failure, he went, to
work on his uncle's vegetable farm, eight miles from Piedimonte,
Eteneo.
On his 18th birthday, he received permission from his parents
to go to America with his brother Sam. Brother Mariano, already
there, had written of the opportunities and plentiful work available
to an enterprising youth. From his arrival in New York in 1903
to his arrival in the Cupertino area in 1918, Rosario covered a
lot of territory and sampled numerous jobs, ranging from shoveling
snow in New York City to driving horse teams for a construction
company in Pennsylvania to operating his own grocery and fruit
business with brother Sam in Daly City.
His grocery business prospered and, by 1911, he had saved enough
money to marry Mary Barbagello. But in 1913, the ill health of
his sons and the increasing congestion in the Daly City area forced
Rosario and his brother to move to the country. They tried operating
a vineyard on 215 acres near Willits but were ruined by killing
frosts. In 1917, Rosario traded his share of the Willits land for
20 acres of prunes and apricots in Campbell, where brother Joseph
joined him.
The brothers -aided by the more congenial Santa Clara Valley
climate —had better success in Campbell than in Willits. By the
time the Shuckl Canning Company (now California Canners and
Growers Association) opened in 1923, the Cali's were able to form
a partnership for hauling fruit from their own orchards and others
to the new cannery in Sunnyvale. Apart from grit and know-how,
the assets of the partnership at that time were a single truck.
After several years of hard work, however, the Cali's expanded
their business. Following some dickering with an owner who wanted
to sell all of his land or none, the brothers bought the five -acre
southeast corner lot at Sunnyvale -Saratoga Road and Stevens Creek
Boulevard, where the Cali grain elevators and numerous other Cali
buildings stand today. They expanded their fruit hauling business
to include the hauling of hay, alfalfa and dairy feed and began
selling wool and coal. The year was 1928.
By this time, they had purchased a large truck —a trailer and
cab rig with which they made trips as far as the San Joaquin
Valley. The firm continued to expand, despite the Great Depression.
Because of their friendly association with the Albers Milling
Company in Oakland, and up to 18 hours of work a day, the
Cali's were able to see their business take hold and expand. To
enable him to purchase large quanitities of premium hay and grain
from the farmers, Rosario secured a letter of credit from the Bank
of America. Such letters were few and far between in Depression
days.
More trucks were added to the fleet. During the early 30's a
mechanic working for the Cali's built two of the company's
trucks —an unusual feat for any company. In 1934, additional
warehouses were built, more than doubling the size of the business.
At this time, although they did not manufacture their own feed,
they bought and sold fruit, hay, grain materials and fertilizers
throughout the orchards in the Valley.
The Albers Milling Company provided all of the manufactured
feed which the Cali's sold up to 1935. That year, however, Rosario
investigated the possibility of preparing certain formulae of poultry
66 1 67
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and dairy feed to suit his customers. To do this, he needed his
own mill. In 1936, construction began on the Cali mill, which became
one of the earliest and largest feed mills in Santa Clara County.
One of the first and best known feeds produced at the mill —the
"Cali Egg Producer" —is still being manufactured. The mill became
well known for its high quality dairy feed, as well as its poultry
feed. At one point in 1942, prunes were ground up and added
to the alfalfa to serve as dairy feed. This was a result of a request
from the Prune Surplus Association of California which faced an
overabundance of prunes that year. The Cali's provided an outlet
at their mill for the surplus. This was the only time prunes were
used for animal feed in the operation of the mill, which was under
Joseph's management. Overall management of the Cali Company
was handled profitably and efficiently by Rosario.
However, all was not destined to continue running so smoothly.
At 5:30 a.m. on Nov. 17, 1944, Charles Baer, who lived on Stevens
Creek Boulevard across from the mills, was awakened by a friend
who lived on the corner of Stelling and McClellan Roads. The
friend, en route to his butcher shop, had spotted flames coming
from the Cali mill. Since little or no fire -fighting equipment was
readily available at that time, the two men, quickly aided by more
townspeople, attempted to put out the fire with hoses and a bucket
brigade. Their efforts failed as the flames, fed by tons of dry
hay and grain, clammored up the sides of the mill. The fire was
the largest in Cupertino's history. It sent flames into an early morning
sky which were seen from most other parts of the Valley. By
late morning, the feed mill, retail store and main office of the
Cali company had been destroyed.
The day of the fire, Rosario leased the only other two feed
mixers in the county and arranged for another company in Oakland
to mill the Cali feed formulae for the many customers dependent
on them. Within four weeks, a temporary mill was built by the
Cali's. By 1946, the present mill, office and warehouse were finished.
Included in the new plant was a large underground reservoir,
insurance against further fire catastrophes.
In 1947, a corporation was formed—R. Cali & Bro. By this
time, Rosario's son, Ed, who had been graduated from the University
of Santa Clara in 1938, had been in the business nine years. In
1948, Ed took over as transportation chief, in charge of the
company's 11 trucks. Within eight years, he had built the fleet
to 48 trucks.
Cupertino in 1948 was entering into an era of growth which
continues today. Rosario Cali contracted to build a new U.S. Post
Office on the spot where a music store is now located on Sunnyvale -
Saratoga Road. Because the Cali brothers felt the future of Cupertino
would be one of rapid expansion, they formed a partnership for
developing commercial services in the area. At the time, there
was only one grocery market —the Red and White Market —and
one service station, Charles Baer's Flying "A" Station. at The
Crossroads, directly opposite the Cali Company.
The Cali's built 10 stores along the east side of Highway 9.
Today, they are leased to a bakery, a music store and a small
department store, among other tenants. Other stores were con-
structed in 1955 on Stevens Creek Boulevard, east of the Cali
Company. Through his personal efforts, Rosario convinced Walter
Field to buy one of his lots on Highway 9 to build Cupertino's
first bank, the First National Bank of Cupertino (now Barclays
Bank of California). Rosario also was instrumental in bringing a
doctor and dentist to Cupertino.
In 1949, the Cali operation started shifting from the sacked feed
type of business to the bulk feed type to meet the increased needs
of its customers. Today, bulk customers are the biggest buyers.
Several bulk feed trucks were added, along with an increased bulk
feed storage area. At almost anytime of the working day, these
huge trucks can be seen pulling in and out of the Cali mill with
their loads of grain and feed. Today, they truck feed to the San
Joaquin Valley, Tracy, Livermore, Manteca, Modesto and through-
out the rest of northern and central California.
REFLECTIONS
Those "Horse Powered" Special Deliveries
We used to have the vegetable man come, the fishman,
the butcher, the grocery man, and the baker. We didn't
have to go anywhere except for our shoes and clothing.
Then we went to San Jose.
—Catherine (Paviso) Gasich
72 1 73
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As my thoughts wander back I can still see Mr. Parrish, country
butcher and his team of horses pulling the canvas covered wagon
with a highly appropriate bull's head painted on the side. He called
once a week and was our only source of fresh meat —well, fairly
fresh meat. Stepping down, he would walk to the back end of the
wagon and in his usual cordial manner took our order. There was
such a dramatic importance attached to his meat cutting. He sliced
the round steak from a huge leg of beef (or cow), slapped it on
the swinging scales and murmured in an apologetic voice, "About
two bits worth." Mother, myself, cats, dogs and flies would gather
round his portable meat market. Of course he stopped slicing halfway
and sawed through the round center bone, one with rich marrow
in the center, real tasty when fried. Bologna and weenies were handed
out gratis to small boys. Sometimes liver was free but I hated liver.
Still do.
Then there was the fish peddler, Old Joe, a little rotund man
with face as ruddy as a winter apple. He drove what we today would
term a "compact," a small, box -like conveyance drawn by a pony
size, pathetic horse. His trademark, a bloated leviathan, was painted
on the sides of his wagon. As he approached our house he would
give out a series of Gabriel blasts on his long tin trumpet. One
toot would have been sufficient. On hot summer days, that big cake
of ice melted early in the morning. We could smell him coming.
So could our cats. '
Ralph Rambo
Remember When
And don't you remember the Chatterton Bakery? 'Cause the bakery
wagon came out and brought that still -hot bread about 10 o'clock
in the morning. But before that, there was the President Jewel Bakery,
you know, people would go there for cakes. They used to deliver
with a horse drawn cart. Bread was 5¢ a loaf, and they delivered
it up Homestead Road. My family would buy maybe two or three
loaves together, and then you'd pull them apart. Between the loaves
would be a soft, crunchy piece, my particular trophy.
The grocery man, Mr. Loughead, used to get up at dawn, drive
his team into San Jose for fresh produce and supplies, and get back
to the Cupertino Store in time for its eight o'clock opening. He
spent most of his time on the road. He was the man who delivered
supplies to the farms with the team of horses. A hard, hard working
man, and red faced from exposure.
Frances Martin
The Roads
I was thinking of the hectic days, when we were going to school
on the street car that ran from Monta Vista to San Jose. The streetcar
would be just loaded with school children. One day, I remember
looking out the window and there was a woman sitting flat on the
cement, with her hair tied with a bow. Her husband was down
the road quite a little distance, riding one of those vehicles with
the rear wheels and bucket seats. She had bounced out and was
sitting flat on her fanny with her hat still tied on! He had to drive
back and pick her up. That just shows you how rough the roads
were!
Frances Martin
Growing Into Modern Transportation
We never owned an automobile or a tractor. Mom argued that
at least "they didn't stand in the barn eating their heads off when
they weren't working." Dad's rebuttal to this argument was the
popular retort of the day, "Neither of these machines would ever
be perfected." As a clincher, he added, "When a horse wasn't working
at least he was producing orchard fertilizer, and let a tractor or
automobile match that!"
Finally, the public realized the automobile was here to stay and
not a "passing fancy." Gradually, they appeared more and more
out on dusty roads driven by capped, dustered, veiled and goggled
brave souls. You could hear them coming a mile away and our
horses were fit to be tied. I mean just that; tied or blindfolded
and led off into the orchard until the "one lunger" passed us.
A "one lunger" had one cylinder, like the first curved dash, and
a one handle steering bar. It belonged to Doc Durgin, our country
doctor. When Doc offered this small boy his first ride I was greatly
elated —also terrified. We drove at top speed, twenty miles an hour,
76 1 77
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and my excited little neck jerked back and forth in sympathetic
rhythm with each jerky explosion of the one cylinder. What an
unforgettable thrill! Later, Doc bought a round radiator, air-cooled
Franklin, remember? . . .
Doctor Coleman, our minister, owned an E.M.F. named after E.
M. Flanders, a Studebaker executive. This car had so little power,
the engine died when it pulled over a gopher mound and was constantly
being repaired. Finally, the good doctor, inspired by the initials E.M.F.
adopted its already popular nickname and re -christened it "Every
Morning Fixem."
Our first West Valley millionaire, Rear Admiral Charles Baldwin,
who settled here in 1892, was a great automobile enthusiast. We
Valley natives were continually astounded by the Admiral . . . One
day a huge shrouded object was unloaded from a flat car at the
old Santa Clara S.P. depot. When unveiled, it was an imported
French automobile! He even imported a French chauffeur to drive
it! I believe it was a Renault.
The automobile, a bright yellow, was soon known by the countryside
as the "Yellow Devil." The Thing was an awful shock to our driving
horses, leaving a dusty aftermath of bucking, snorting runaways,
upturned buggies, surreys and hay -wagons including irate farmers
and their scared kin folk. Fortunately, on our rough chuck -hole
Stevens Creek Road, the Yellow Devil's speed was limited to twenty
miles an hour and its explosive noises could be heard a mile away.
This gave us ample time to drive our trembling steeds into an orchard
or blindfold them. Dad would always smugly forecast, "These
abominations never will be perfected. They're just a passing whim
of the idle rich."
Ralph Rambo
The Interurban Railroad
The interurban car went from Palo Alto to San Jose. It came
to Monta Vista from Palo Alto on what is now the Foothill Expressway.
At Monta Vista it made a turn and went straight into San Jose,
down Stevens Creek Road. It was a big street car, but much larger,
higher and bigger. It was very nice. I used to do a lot of reading
while traveling back and forth on it. It came very often, maybe
79
once an hour. I remember I used to sit in front of the old Catholic
church, St. Joseph's, and wait for it. I think it was abandoned in
1929.
Catherine (Paviso) Gasich
When I was about ten years old, the Peninsular Interurban Railroad
was built along Stevens Creek Road and followed a peculiar pattern.
First it ran on the north and then the south side of the road necessitated
by ranchers refusing right of way through their roadside orchards.
I recall a certain strong-minded widow with large acreage. She pulled
up the surveyors' stakes at night and during the day sat on a prune
box with a shot -gun loaded with rock salt. In finality, past her land,
the railroad took to the other side of the road!
Ralph Rambo
The Depression
The only people who had cash to spend were the people who were
in the educational services. The school teachers had money. We farmers
you know, get paid once a year, and yet we had to pay for our
expenses such as labor and . . . it wasn't easy. I remember, well,
I could make most anything except shoes. You couldn't make shoes,
but you could make a dress, you could make a coat, you could
make what you had to.. . Oh sure, there were hobos. Now, we
had them all over. Men would come to the door and knock and
ask could they have a meal for a little work, and some of them
were in need and some of them were professional hobos. They followed
the railroad tracks and I know driving to Fresno at that time you'd
see hundreds of them in the gondola train, you know the open kind,
just standing there looking out as the scenery passed, getting a free
ride, you know, with a bundle on their backs.
Remember the old peg -leg who used to be around Cupertino?
He would make coat hangers out of wire that he'd find. But mostly,
they depended on the public.
Frances Martin
III
ENRICHING THE COMMUNITY
CUPERTINO'S ONE -ROOM SCHOOLHOUSES
by
MARTIN J. MORGADO
The great reward for my having been a part of the
Cupertino Educational System is found in observing the
successful growth and maturing of the citizens who were
once my pupils. To be remembered by them is one of the
finest honors of my lifetime.
—Carol Murdock
Although man continually obliterates the past under the auspices
of progress, memories are impossible to destroy. The early years
of all children are filled with fond remembrances of their first
schools, favorite teachers, and many classmates. The students who
attended the first Cupertino schools were fortunate to be part of
a unique experience, because they were educated in a one -room
school houses. Even though most of us did not receive our early
schooling in this manner, by looking back and recapturing the
innocence, the serenity, the unmatched simplicity of the era, we
can learn to understand and appreciate the fascinating period.
In 1885, the inhabitants of what is now Cupertino were leisurely
enjoying the clear Valley air, the oak -dotted foothills, and the
productivity of their agricultural ventures. The California State
Legislature was merely a distant and insignificant name, but the
residents learned that year that the State School Act of 1885 had
been enacted by the Legislature to provide new elementary schools
80 1 81
for all areas of the state in accordance with their population. One
stipulation required the schools to be situated at least two miles
apart. On this basis, four schools were apportioned to Cupertino,
signifying the birth of an educational system that eventually grew
into the present Cupertino Union School District, which has more
schools than any other district in the state.
Lincoln: The Stolen Schoolhouse
The families of early West Side worked closely together to
construct their first schoolhouses, and the land for each building
was donated by a member of the community. Lincoln School,
completed in 1865, was named in memory of President Lincoln,
who had been assassinated earlier in the year. S. P. Taylor
contributed one and one half acres for Lincoln School at the
southeast corner of Prospect and Mountain View -Saratoga Roads
(presently Saratoga -Sunnyvale Road). During a moment of neigh-
borly competition in 1871, Peter Ball, another early settler, decided
to donate what he considered a superior lot for the school at the
northeast corner of the same intersection. Taylor, with all the
obstinance and pride of his pioneer stock, was reluctant to lose
the prestige of having the school on his property. Cunningly, Ball
waited until Taylor was away in San Jose and then quickly harnessdd
his team of draff"horses. With the help of several neighbors who
had ropes and rollers, he -dragged the school building across the
road to the new site.(':') Although dismayed upon Ball's return,
Taylor reluctantly allowed the small classroom to remain on his
neighbor's property. Ball was not satisfied with the insignificant
structure, and eventually built a spacious two-story school, finished
in 1878.
San Antonio: From Rancho to Schoolhouse
During California's rancho period, several vast tracts of land
were given to private citizens for use in cattle raising. One of
these holdings was the San Antonio Rancho, nestled in the Cupertino
foothills. When the property was eventually divided, William Dale,
a retired gold rush immigrant, acquired a portion and in 1867,
donated two and one half acres for a new school. Dale possessed
the same enthusiastic zeal that Ball had devoted to Lincoln School,
and he played a major role in the early development of San Antonio
School. Together with several local residents, Dale constructed
the school with lumber that was specially cut from the Santa Cruz
Mountains. Located in the southeast section of the original San
Antonio Rancho, the school boasted eight rows of desks handmade
by Dale, and chalkboards on three walls, giving the school the
distinction of being exceptionally modern for its day. The teacher
instructed from a raised platform at the front of the room, and
the children were kept warm during the winter by a centrally located
potbellied stove.
A windmill at San Antonio School was used to operate a fresh
water well. In 1904, Grant Barton was hired to oil the gears once
a month.(") He soon began visiting the school several times each
week during the recess break, under the pretext of oiling the gears.
He would quickly abandon the windmill and discreetly disappear
into the schoolbuilding. The perplexed students finally understood
his frequent visits when the newspaper reported the engagement
of Grant Barton to the lovely schoolteacher, Elizabeth Doten.
Collins: Lone Survivor
Near the intersection of Homestead and Saratoga -Sunnyvale
Roads, a staid reminder of a bygone era is presently the meeting
place for the Cupertino de Oro Women's Club. Formerly Collins
School, the picturesque building is the last heir to a lengthy and
colorful schoolsite history. The original landowner was Leman Perry
Collins, one of the many retired sea captains who settled in the
western "Paradise Corner" of the Valley to establish a vineyard
and winery.07:27) In 1869, he sold one acre at the southeast corner
of his estate for a school to be named in his honor. The classroom
constructed at that time was used until it was destroyed by a fire
in 1869, and the second Collins schoolhouse was finished in 1871.121)
Another fire demolished the western half of the new classroom
soon after completion, and the existing bell tower and a western
addition were annexed when repairs were made on the surviving
82 1 83
framework: In 1890, the last major addition consisted of an expan-
sion of the eastern side of the existing school. The building graced
the corner of Homestead and Saratoga -Sunnyvale Roads until 1959,
when it relinquished its position to make room for a gas station
and was relocated farther east on Homestead Road.
Doyle: Victim of Progress
Buried beneath the Junipero Serra Freeway at Stevens Creek
Boulevard is the original site of Doyle School, built in 1882 as
the last of the "original four" Cupertino schoolhouses. In 1869,
Peter H. Doyle bought 162 acres of land for agricultural purposes
from the Arguello family. He donated one acre at the southeast
corner of Stevens Creek and Doyle Roads for a school that was
named after him.
Montebello: Rustic Mountain Isolation
Although not one of the, "original four" schoolhouses usually
associated with early Cupertino history, the Montebello schoolhouse
was built in 1892, and has played an integral part in,educating
the local children. Located on Montebello Road, high in the rugged
mountains above Stevens Creek Park, the school district originally
encompassed a fifteen mile radius, and fifteen to twenty students
constituted the average enrollment. Miss Luella Smith was the
first teacher after the schoolhouse was built with $300 in state
and county funds, plus $250 received from the district's own special
tax. From these funds, the Montebello School District not only
built a school, but furnished it and paid Miss Smith for the first
school year from October 3, 1892 to May 19, 1893. Classes were
held in the original building until the pressures and competition
of the larger surrounding school districts caused the tiny school
district to construct a new school in the mid-1970's.
84
School Life in the "Good Ol' Days"
Many of the early one -room schoolteachers were San Jose Normal
School graduates who generally taught twenty to forty students
per class, ranging from six to eighteen years old. A common
occurrence was to have an eighteen -year -old in the fifth grade
because many students attended school only when work on the
farm and in the orchards permitted them to. Although the greatest
emphasis was placed on spelling and penmanship, the teachers
were proficient in teaching all subjects, undoubtedly earning their
monthly salary of $85.1" :51 The teachers were very prim and proper,
wearing starched shirtwaists, high net collars, floor length skirts
which modestly covered their twelve button high shoes, and a
pencil or two impaled in the "rat" of their pompadours.(16:6)
All four schools were similar in several ways, typical of the
era as a whole. The children wore homemade clothes, including
undergarments fashioned out of converted flour and sugar sacks,
and sad, droopy cotton stockings. Boys wore knickers and ungainly,
heavy boots referred to as "clodhoppers," due to the many freshly
chopped dirt clods in a newly plowed acreage that the boys could
be seen running or "hopping" through. Boys also wore bib overalls,
denim jackets, raincoats made of rubberized cloth, homemade shirts,
and turtleneck sweaters.(16:6)
The girls dressed according to the latest fashions influenced by
the "Gingham Girl Era." With the help of mother, they made
their own clothes using a foot treadle sewing machine, often selecting
their patterns from the popular Delineator Pattern Books.(16:5)
When the teacher rang her little hand bell at noon, the students
filed out to the schoolyard with their lunch pails. They used handy
containers fashioned out of lard pails, emptied tobacco tins, or
a "brownie," a pasteboard box with imitation leather handles. After
finishing lunch, the children passed the remainder of their break
by playing baseball or marbles, spinning tops, flying kites or taking
part in many other games.
Gradually, the four buildings became timeworn to the point of
obsolescence. They had been faithfully serving the community for
fifty years, but were unable to endure the changes that were
occurring within the educational system during the post -Victorian
period. Specialized teachers were being required, and larger facilities
85
11jo
were essential to providing the students with a diverse education.
In 1917, the necessity for a single unified school district, consolidated
to form the Cupertino Union School District. The joining took
place in the Cupertino General Store at The Crossroads center,
located on the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and Saratoga -
Sunnyvale Roads. The organizational meeting was attended by
community leaders, I. A. Ball, Warren E. Hyde, Herbert Pash,
and Arch Wilson, each representing one of the original districts.
The venerable old buildings were formally abandoned in 1921 upon
completion of the modern, ten -room Cupertino Union School,
designed to accommodate grades one through eight. The building
continued to satisfy the needs of the slowly expanding school district
until the tremendous post -World War lI expansion and development
of Cupertino.
Forty-two schools form the Cupertino Union School District
today. The "original four," although discarded in the name of
progress, will always maintain an exceptional position in local
history. Not only did they contribute to the early community by
providing locations for educating the young, but they continue to
enrich and expand the imagination of everyone who takes the time
to genuinely appreciate their unique charm and character. By looking
back and evoking some of those priceless memories, in the words
of historian Ralph Rambo, we can gain ". . . a better understanding
of the old Valley way of life . . . allowing for a welcome escape
from the fast pace -and stern -realities of these turbulent times."
Tribute Paid to Outstanding Citizens
No greater honor can be bestowed upon those eminent
people who achieved academic, literary, political and scien-
tific honors than through the recognition of their attainments
by naming an educational edifice for them.
—Louis Stocklmeir
A continued interest in the local history of Cupertino, and in
the accomplishments of its many outstanding citizens, has been
promoted by the representatives of the Cupertino Union School
District. They have assisted in preserving the heritage of Cupertino
86
b
a
3
10
Doyle School, the last of the original four one -room school houses, was built in 1882, and
located at the southeast corner of Stevens Creek and Doyle Roads. Courtesy of Charles
Baer
by naming schools after local citizens who contributed to the
community's development.
Enrollment of students in the district remained relatively stable
until the end of World War II. In 1944, the sudden influx of postwar
settlers was responsible for the first double session at Cupertino
Union School, an occurrence that was to become characteristic
of Cupertino's extremely rapid growth throughout the following
twenty-five years. A survey was conducted in 1946 by a team
of experts from Stanford University to determine suitable locations
for the desperately needed schools.(6:4) Although enrollment contin-
ued to advance ahead of construction, the first four new schools
were completed between 1948 and 1954, and were appropriately
named after the original one -room schoolhouses.
Even though several schools were named in honor of outstanding
Cupertino citizens during the tremendous expansion of the district
in the 1950's and 1960's, most of us know very little about the
people who were chosen as school namesakes. By sketching the
life and contributions of each citizen who was recognized by the
community, work and achievements of each extraordinary individual
can be recognized.
Warren E. Hyde
In the late 1'd00's, Warren Hyde journeyed to the Cupertino
area with his two brothers and purchased a small tract of land
on Johnson Avenue. The three brothers became interested in the
orchard business and operated a large fruit drying yard in Campbell,
eventually expanding their interests to include a packing house
and cannery. During the 1890's, Hyde was one of, the founders
of the Prune and Apricot Growers Association, later serving as
president of the organization.
Hyde served as trustee of the Lincoln School Board of Education
from 1900-1921, and was elected as clerk of the Cupertino Union
School Board of Trustees in 1921, a post he held for the following
twenty-seven years. Concurrently, he was the business manager
of the Cupertino Union School cafeteria, leading to the often heard
comment that he was the man who was, "morning, noon and night
on the job.' � (':')
Hyde purchased the abandoned Lincoln School from the district
in 1921 for sentimental reasons, hoping to transform the grounds
into a park or playground for local children. The school eventually
was destroyed by fire, so he sold the property and used the money
from the sale to buy a one and one half acre parcel adjoining
the Cupertino Union School to be used as a playground. Hyde
personally donated several pieces of recreational equipment, typical
of his generosity and fondness toward children. A few months
prior to his death at the age of ninety, Warren Hyde's long and
devoted career of community service was recognized by the com-
munity when a school was dedicated to him on November 6, 1955.
Grant Family
Also opened in 1955, Grant School was named after a family
that originally received their extensive land holdings from a former
Mexican land grant known as the San Antonio Rancho. In 1850,
Theodore Grant immigrated to San Francisco from Portland, Maine,
and in 1851 his brother, George, followed him from Massachu-
setts.( 1) Theodore became wealthy through the mercantile business
and served the community as Postmaster of Santa Clara. From
1851 to 1858, he was also Deputy Recorder and Treasurer of Santa
Clara County. In 1860, the two brothers decided to make the Santa
Clara Valley their permanent home, so they jointly purchased 360
acres of land in the Fremont Township, a section of present day
Los Altos. Grant School was built on a portion of the original
property.
Darryl J. Sedgwick
As principal of the Cupertino Union School for nearly thirty
years, Darryl Sedgwick simultaneously served as Superintendent
of Schools for the small district. He started in the public school
system in 1914 as music director for the San Jose City Schools.
In 1921, Sedgwick was hired by the Cupertino Union School as
principal and superintendent. His additional duties were leading
the orchestra and teaching manual training and physical education
for the upper grades.
Even when the district began to expand and Sedgwick acquired
a plethora of extra duties and responsibilities, he continued to
92 1 93
devote all of his spare time to serving the youth of Cupertino.
He was also an amateur photographer and enjoyed woodwork.
Sedgwick would spend his entire summer vacations at the school
refinishing and repairing the desks and furniture. At the beginning
of one school year, he declared that a new rule was to take effect
immediately. The teachers groaned in bemusement as he continued,
"No child is allowed to chew gum in school any longer." Although
students had been chewing gum in the classroom for years, Sedgwick
changed the practice and has been credited with instigating the
now traditional rule. When asked why he} was so adamant about
his decision, he replied, "All I did that summer was to scrape
gum off the bottom of the desks, wasting the school's money and
my time. No more gum!""') Darryl Sedgwick was an extremely
capable administrator who contributed an exceptional amount of
time and effort to the development of the Cupertino Union School
District.(13)
R. Ivan Meyerholz
The Meyerholz family has resided in Cupertino for many genera-
tions, and Ivan Meyerholz dedicated his life to public service in
Cupertino. A former mayor of Cupertino, and "Cupertino Man
of the Year" in 1959, he was one of the men responsible for
the city's incorporation during the 1950's. Meyerholz was always
interested in education, and served on the Board of Education,
presiding as chairman of, the board for several years. A school
bearing his name was built in 1958.
D. W. Luther
Ready for classes in 1959, Luther School obtained its name from
Don Walter Luther. He was the original landowner who donated
the schoolsite property from a portion of his 110-acre Cupertino
ranch. Luther was born in Hollister in 1882. He settled in the
West Valley after attending San Jose High School.
Arch Wilson
Well known throughout the area by the nickname of "Mr.
Cupertino," Arch Wilson was active in Cupertino affairs when
The Crossroads center was the hub of West Valley commerce.
Originally from England, he was attracted to the area by his uncle,
Alex Montgomery. He became postmaster in 1904 and was manager
of the largest general store in the Valley outside of San Jose.
Wilson ran his business so efficiently that soon a customer could
buy a packet of seeds, a sack of beans, or a ton of fertilizer;
mail a letter; ship his fruit; borrow a library book; investigate
the volunteer fire department; cash a check; or fill his car with
gasoline on the premises. When he paid his long overdue bill,
the customer was given a big ba& of the best chocolate candy
imaginable.(") As manager of the store in The Crossroads center,
Wilson became a lawyer without a degree, a banker without a
license, a teacher without a diploma, and a friend and confidant
to the area residents.(23)
Always active and progressive in community affairs, Arch Wilson
served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Fremont Union
High School District for twenty-four years. His foresight in forming
the Central Fire Protection District provided Cupertino with excel-
lent fire protection. The fire district had several hoses, well trained
men, and equipment for previously unprotected areas. On February
22, 1959, approximately three years before his death, Arch Wilson
was distinguished for his contributions to Cupertino's development
by having a school named in his honor.
Laura B. Stichter
Laura B. Stichter was one of the most loved teachers of genera-
tions of Cupertino school children.(`) She was a first -grade teacher
in the district from 1919 to 1947. Mrs. Stichter was born in
Burlington, Iowa in 1879. She came to California in 1900. After
her husband died in 1917, she decided to return to school, earning
her teaching credential from San Jose State. Her teaching career
began in the Collins Schoolhouse in 1919. Mrs. Stichter was a
firm disciplinarian, spanking the children with a butter ladle if
they failed to obey her rules. Although she commanded the attention
of all her students and ran a strict class, the beloved and respected
teacher was an effective instructor because she blended discipline
with her warm and gracious manner. She had a brilliant mind,
a terrific sense of humor, and well defined precepts of right and
94 1 95
wrong.(':') Carol Murdock, the first principal of Stichter School
after the dedication in 1959, said, "We owe a debt of gratitude
to Mrs. Stichter and others like her who gave so much of themselves
to help build our fine school district."(12)
Clarence B. Eaton
In appreciation for generously donating part of his property for
a new school, in April 1960, the Cupertino Union School District
named a school after Clarence B. Eaton. As a member of the
contracting firm of Eaton and Smith, his business eventually became
the largest heavy equipment contracting firm in San Francisco.(21)
Eaton retired from the operation in 1945, and in 1947 he moved
to the Santa Clara Valley. He purchased the 55-acre Kinkaid Ranch
in Cupertino, facing Foothill Boulevard. Eaton also bought several
acres on Blaney Avenue, where the school is located. The district
named several schools after early landowners in the Cupertino
area during this rapid period of growth in the early 1960's
The Jollyman Fancily
In 1882, Fredrick Jollyman came to America from Devonshire,
England. While journeying across the continent he married Fanny
Pickard in Iowa, and their lohg travels ended in Cupertino when
Fredrick bought thirty-two acres of land for an orchard and vineyard.
The family retained the land until their daughter Fanny, and a
nephew, Fredrick, sold a portion to the Cupertino Union School
District in 1958. On June 4, 1961, a school was dedicated to the
entire family.
Miss Fanny Jollyman attended the Lincoln Schoolhouse from
1896 to 1904, recalling that one of the year's highlights was the
annual excursion into San Jose before Christmas for window-shop-
ping, complete with "oohing" and "aahing" at the big -city lights (8.3)
In 1912, she began working for Arch Wilson at the Cupertino General
Store. Miss Jollyman rode to work on a bicycle, and her jobs
included bookkeeping and accounting. As the first Cupertino librari-
an she collected many new books for the borrowers.
When the Jollymans sold their land to the school district, Fanny
demanded that the "Jollyman Live Oak Tree" never be uprooted.
The tree, already full grown when the Jollyman home was built
on the property in 1883, is now estimated to be at least one hundred
and fifty years old. Jollyman School was ingeniously built around
the tree.
The Regnart Family
William Regnart Senior left Liverpool, England and arrived in
California after making the long journey around the Horn in 1870.
He brought his sons William, Harry, Robert and Arthur to the
Santa Clara Valley after several unsuccessful attempts at mining.
Regnart then purchased 160 acres of Valley land for prunes and
vines, and eighty acres in the foothills, known as Regnart Canyon.
William, Jr. and Harry Regnart remained in Cupertino after
William, Sr. and his two other sons returned to England, and through
the generations more than forty descendants have been graduated
from Cupertino schools. One of William, Jr's. sons, Herbert, had
a daughter who served as the first school district nurse, and another
daughter was a teacher at Wilson School. Herbert donated a portion
of the original land for Regnart School, named after the entire
family.
Nan Allan
For approximately ten years, Nan Allan was General Superin-
tendent of all special education schools in the district, accomplishing
a remarkable amount of work for the less fortunate children of
the community. From 1948 to 1958, when she retired, Nan Allan
was responsible for educating the mentally retarded, the physically
handicapped, and those students who required other types of special
education.") After establishing the first class for the mentally
retarded children in the district during the 1940's, her program
expanded to include classes at three schools. A therapeutic unit
was opened in 1964 on Portal Avenue in Cupertino, and in 1965,
the unit was transformed into the highly functional Nan Allan School
for Special Education.
96 1 97
Louis Portal
Along with countless other gold seekers, Louis Bautista Jules
Portal immigrated to California- during the gold rush in 1850. Upon
discovering little gold, he moved to San Francisco and established
one of the first French laundries in the city. From the profits
of his successful business, in 1860, Portal bought 400 acres in
the Cupertino area. His lifestyle was lavish and opulent, and his
home became a Valley showcase and landmark. Portal took such
care in maintaining his vineyards that he refused the right-of-way
to a railroad because it might have disturbed the aging of the
wines in his highly developed winery.(15:17) He returned to France
after the devastating destruction of the Santa Clara Valley vineyards
by the parasite phylloxera in the late 1890's."7.29> Portal School
is located on a small portion of the original estate on Blaney Avenue,
two blocks north of Stevens Creek Boulevard.
Laura M. Hansen
Laura M. Hansen was a truly remarkable woman.(9) Until her
death at the age of 101, she not only maintained her home and
tended her garden, but was also involved in the affairs of the
school that was named after her in April 1965. On May 21, 1868,
Laura Hansen was born in Denmark. She came to America when
she was sixteen, first settUng with her family in Wisconsin. Three
years later she moved to'San Jose, and in 1889 she married and
moved to Campbell. The Hansens bought the land at the corner
of Titus and Prospect Road, where they raised prunes, and the
area became known as the "Hansen Ranch" for the next fifty-five
years. In the early 1960's, the family sold the land to the Cupertino
Union School District for the purpose of development into a
schoolsite.
William Faria
Dedicated on April 25, 1965, Faria School was named in honor
of Lieutenant William Faria. He was the first Cupertino serviceman
to give his life during World War II, fatally shot down over
Saarsbrucken, Germany.() Faria was raised in Cupertino, attending
Cupertino Union School, Fremont High School, and San Jose State
University. As a student, he was outstanding in scholarship and
citizenship. Faria School is located on Barbara Lane in the Pepper
Tree area of Cupertino.
Fremont Older
Fremont Older was one of the most innovative journalists of
the early 1900's and his influence extended throughout all of
California.(" He worked for publishing magnate William Randolph
Hearst as editor of the San Francisco Call, and later as editor
of the San Francisco Bulletin. Hearst eventually purchased the
Bulletin, and the combined newspaper became known as the San
Francisco Call -Bulletin. Older was very progressive, initiating many
changes in journalism that are still in practice today.
Older and his wife, Cora Baggerly Older, moved to Cupertino
in 1912, purchasing a large tract of land fronting the west end
of Prospect Road in the Cupertino foothills. He came to the area
with several of his wealthy and influential San Francisco friends.
For many years they had admired the verdant beauty of the Santa
Clara Valley, especially the colorful and bountiful blossoms in the
spring.(")
The Olders were ardent crusaders for many causes, particularly
prison reform. They felt obligated to help the less privileged people
who frequently encountered trouble, and who did not have profes-
sional and legal services to protect themselves.(21) Older successfully
campaigned for the parole of several San Quentin convicts and
brought them to his ranch to work and become re -acquainted with
society. He fought persistently for prison reform and editorialized
against all forms of the death penalty.
Fremont Older possessed the talent of surrounding himself with
gifted and learned individuals. This group commuted daily to San
Francisco, via Fremont Station at Prospect and Stelling Roads,
named after the illustrious editor.
Cora Baggerly Older was as fascinating as her remarkable hus-
band. Out of her love for history she had written several books
concerning California history, and was involved in the formation
of the Sunnyvale Historical Society. Retired San Jose Historian
Clyde Arbuckle referred to Mrs. Older as the "Queen of California
98 1 99
Historians." ') She passed away in 1968, at the age of ninety,
thirty-three years after the death of her husband in 1935. The
Cupertino Union School District paid tribute to the outstanding
man by naming a school after him in September 1966.
Carol Murdock
After thirty-four years with the Cupertino ,Union Elementary
School District, Carol Murdock retired in 1969. During those years
as teacher and principal, she saw the district grow from the one
Cupertino Union Grammar School, to a network of forty-two
schools. One of the newest schools in the district is the beautiful
Carol Murdock School on Wunderlich Drive, named for the gracious
lady.
In 1922, seventh grader Carol Murdock and her family came
to Cupertino from Wisconsin. They made their home on a two -acre
cherry ranch on Blaney Avenue. The old Collins, Lincoln, San
Antonio and Doyle Schools had been consolidated into the Cupertino
Union School for about one year when Carol Murdock began her
life-long involvement in the school district. She graduated from
the eighth grade at Cupertino Union School where D. J. Sedgwick
was principal, and then took the interurban electric car to Palo
Alto High School for the next four years. Miss Murdock was
graduated from Sam'Jose State in 1931, with a degree in speech
arts, and a minor in general eclucation.(13) She began her teaching
career in the little town of Weed, at the foot of Mt. Shasta. She
returned to teach at Cupertino Union School in 1934. When the
fledgling school district was making plans for its second school,
Sedgwick informed Miss Murdock that she was to be principal
of the new Collins school. Although hesitant at first, in 1949, she
went on to administer the school that eventually reached an
enrollment of 1,350, with triple sessions in kindergarten and double
sessions at the other levels.113) She served at Collins until 1958,
when Laura B. Stichter School opened and she asked to be
transferred there.
After her many years of service and contributions to Cupertino
and the field of education, Carol Murdock was honored by having
a Cupertino elementary school dedicated in her name. As a Cupertino
student, teacher, and principal, Miss Murdock's kindness and
graciousness has affected and benefited many people.(2:9) She is
unquestionably one of the "first ladies" of Cupertino.(2:8)
Louis Stocklmeir
Community leader, Louis Stocklmeir, has contributed greatly
to the recent development and expansion of Cupertino. On October
28, 1892, he was born in Los Gatos, and in 1905, he was graduated
from San Antonio Elementary School. By profession, he was a
civil engineer, earning an A.B. degree from Stanford University
in 1916. His avocation has been primarily his work in the field
of community affairs. Throughout the early 1950's, Stocklmeir
adroitly perceived the need for the citizens of Cupertino to unite
against the engulfing and fast approaching San Jose city limits.
Largely because of his persistent urging and limitless devoted work,
Cupertino became a city in 1955.01:51)
Stocklmeir's appreciation of history led him to, "work much
out of little," in putting together and preserving Cupertino's
history.(22:9) He was officially named Cupertino City Historian by
the City Council in 1955, and has spent many hours on lecture
tours throughout California, telling the public about city, community
and state history.(22:9)
Cupertino's "Man of the Year Award" was given to Louis
Stocklmeir in 1965 for his innumerable contributions to the commu-
nity's cultural enrichment, and for his gracious manner of the "old
school." His achievements include receiving Commendation Reso-
lution No. 901 from the California State Assembly, and Resolution
No. 18 from the California State Senate. He is a member of the
Cupertino Chamber of Commerce, and is president of the Board
of Trustees of the Trianon Foundation, Inc., of De Anza College.
Stocklmeir is an honorary life member of the California P.T.A.,
and he received the California Education Award in 196024)
In 1966, when Stocklmeir learned that a new school was to be
named after him, he replied to Dr. Charles Knight, Superintendent
of the district schools, that he was, "not even in a small way
within the category of those eminent people of yesteryear who
were honored in the same way."(20) The statement clearly illustrated
the humility of this extraordinary gentleman who is loved and
respected because of his devoted efforts toward the advancement
100 1 101
of humanity. As Arch Wilson was "Mr. Cupertino" of the early
1900's, Louis Stocklmeir is undoubtedly the "Mr. Cupertino" of
today.
Sources
1. Allan, Nan, retired Superintendent of Special Education Schools. Personal
Interview, January, 1975. '
2. "A Salute To One of the `First Ladies' of the Cupertino District.. .. Carol
Murdock." Cupertino Educational Association Newsletter No. 6. March, 1964.
3. Cupertino Courrier, August 15, 1963.
4. Cupertino Union School District Administration Office Historical Collection.
5. "Cupertino's Union School Is Dedicated." San Jose Mercury -Herald, January
18, 1921.
6. "Four Districts United In 1917 To Form Cupertino District." Cupertino School
News, September, 1956.
7. "Four New Schools Dedicated." Cupertino School News, May, 1959.
8. Fox, Judy. "Jollyman History." Unpublished report, California History Center,
De Anza College, November, 1970.
9. Hansen School Historical Scrapbook.
10. Harris, Donna, caretaker of the Fremont Older estate and close friend of the
late Cora Baggerly Older. Personal Interview, January, 1975.
11. Kenworthy, Lorraine, "A Story of Cupertino Schools From 1865 to 1945."
Unpublished report, California History Center, De Anza College, 1971.
12. Murdock, Carol, retired teacher and principal, Personal Letter, Cupertino Union
School District Administration Office Historical Collection, January, 1967.
13. Murdock, Carol, Personal Interview, November, 1974.
14. Murdock, Carol, Personal Interview, California History Center, De Anza College,
January,1975.
15. Rambo, Ralph. Pioneer Blue Book of the Santa Clara Valley. San Jose: The
Rosicrucian Press, Ltd., 1973.
16. Rambo, Ralph. Remember When ... A Boy's-Eye View of An Old Valley.
San Jose: The Rosicrucian Press, Ltd., 1965.
17. Rambo, Ralph and Stocklmeir, Louis. "West Side Story." (Local History Studies,
Spring, 1969) Cupertino: California History Center, 1969.
18. Salvitore, Edward. Past -Present -Future: California Information Almanac.
Lakewood, California: California Almanac Company, 1973.
19. Stocklmeir, Louis, Cupertino Historian. Interview with Lorraine Kenworthy,
California History Center, De Anza College, August 1971.
20. Stocklmeir, Louis. Letter to Superintendent Charles Knight, Cupertino Union
School District Administration Office Historical Collection, January 31, 1966.
21. Stocklmeir, Louis. Personal Interview, March, 1975.
22. "Stocklmeir Named Man of the Year." Cupertino Courrier, January 26, 1966.
23. Woodruff, Pauline, daughter of Arch Wilson. Copy of speech given at dedication
102
School may have been a stricter and more formal place in the early part of the century than
it is today, but getting there, at least, was a lot more fun for Charlie Baer and his friends
who often took advantage of the donkey cart built by his Dad, William Baer, Cupertino's
pioneer blacksmith. Schoolbound are (from left to right) Earl Parrish, Mert Baer, Mabel Williams,
Charlie Baer, Webster Baer, Byla Baer. Mrs. Baer is holding daughter Beulah. Courtesy
of Charles Baer
ceremony of Arch Wilson School, Cupertino Union School District Administra-
tion Office Historical Collection, February 22, 1959.
24. Who's Who In the West: 1974-1975. Marquis Who's Who, Inc., 1974.
EARLY COMMUNITY WORSHIP
Saint Joseph's of Cupertino
The parish of St. Joseph's of Cupertino had its origin in the
country retreat of the College of Santa Clara Jesuit Fathers. On
August 16, 1861, the Fathers purchased a 320 acre tract of land
situated in Stevens Creek canyon. Shortly thereafter, the chapel
of Villa Maria was erected, and there, Father Ciche officiated
for twenty-two years. The simple redwood chapel measured eighteen
by twenty-five feet, was covered with shingles, and was surrounded
by Australian Eucalyptus, planted by the Fathers upon their arrival
in the area. In 1893, Father Ciche was succeeded by Father Jerome
Sextus Richard, the famous weather scientist who first used the
sun -spot theory as it related to long range weather forecasts. He
celebrated masses for the next eight years and was followed by
Father Henry Gabriel, who assumed charge of the rapidly growing
congregation in 1902.
By this date, the population center of Cupertino was changing
and there was a great need ,'to service the Catholic families of
The Crossroads. So, in 1907, Father Gabriel closed the chapel
and it was decided to build a new church. A prominent citizen,
Alexander Montgomery, donated an acre of land on Mountain
View -Saratoga (present day Highway 9) for the new church site.
On October 11, 1907, ground was broken and the structure was
soon completed at a cost of $9,000. This building served the parish
for nearly forty-six years, when it was decided that a larger structure
was needed for the growing congregation. Acreage adjoining the
old site was purchased and 200 dedicated members began an
extensive drive to raise the necessary construction costs of $160,000.
They succeeded in obtaining the major portion of the necessary
amount, and in July of the same year the present day Saint Joseph's
Church was completed.
Karl A. Friedrich
104
c p
The Cupertino Union Church
The Cupertino Church was founded by Reverend Dr. Bushnell,
Pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of San Jose. Dr.
Bushnell came out from town on Sunday afternoons and held
services in the old original Collin's schoolhouse. After a short
time, the Reverend E. J. Gillespie began to replace Dr. Bushnell
in the pulpit. To help the services in the school house, a little
Melodian was purchased for twenty-five dollars, and afterward
sold at the same price to aid the building fund for the first church
building.
After a time, a few of the old settlers such as Alexander
Montgomery and my father, Captain Joseph C. Merithew, decided
to build a church. Many of the pioneers took an active interest
in the building of the church, such as Mr. McClellan, the pioneer
for whom McClellan Road was named. Although badly crippled
with rheumatism, he attended church quite regularly. He managed
to get into his buggy and drive to a side window which was always
left open for him so he could listen to the services from outside. . . .
At that time the United Presbyterians were quite conservative
and old fashioned, and the promoters of the church began to realize
a more liberal policy was necessary for the success of a Union
Church embracing all denominations. So the trustees decided to
buy the interest of, the United Presbyterians and manage the church
on an independent plan. For a time, they had ministers from a
theological seminary. The Reverend Mr. Cherington was, as I
remember, the first resident pastor followed by Reverend Mr.
Milliken.
Sara Merithew Dunbar
At a meeting held on May 9, 1888, the local parishioners formed
a religious society, naming it the Cupertino Union Parish, which
was incorporated on May 26, 1888, Captain Joseph C. Merithew,
a retired mariner, presided at the meeting. On June 30,1888, property
for a church building was conveyed by deed to the new organization
for a sum of $300 by the San Jose church. The constitution of
y! the new church was signed by fifty-two members.
For a time, the pulpit was filled by various guest ministers and
'i among them was Reverend W. W. Cross of Saratoga. The Reverend
106
William Windsor became pastor on August 4, 1889, serving until
1896.
The Ladies Aid Society was organized as an auxiliary of the
church in December 1891, (and served the church by holding dinners,
planning activities and raising funds).
On May 20, 1900, at a meeting of the Cupertino Union Parish,
the first steps were taken toward its disincorporation and the
formation of a duly organized church. This action led to the present
Cupertino Union Church and its incorporation under the name of
the Union Church of Cupertino. Its first board of trustees was
composed of James K. Dixon, Robert C. Kirkwood, Enoch J.
Parrish, Oscar B. Wood, and G. M. Crittenden.
Karl A. Friedrich, 1956
THE CUPERTINO DE ORO CLUB
by
DARLENE HAYNEs THORNE
In the rapid growth that Cupertino has experienced, few things
remain constant. However, the Cupertino de Oro Club has remained
virtually unchanged. Twice a month for over 50 years, programs
of culture have been enjoyed by the women of the Club in the
beautiful old Collins school building on Homestead Road. Attending
a program today is like being transported back in time to a slower
paced era. The Cupertino de Oro club presents a perfect picture
of a social club: a congenial, warm group of women enjoying an
aria sung by a local soprano, accompanied by a baby grand piano;
a very proper bud vase on the pedestal table holding a single rose
bud; tea and coffee being poured at an elegant setting.
And yet, according to Club members, many changes have taken
place. They consider themselves less formal; they no longer wear
hats and gloves and upon occasion a member or guest has appeared
in a pants suit. Where once tea was served exclusively, coffee
has been added to appeal to the more modern tastes.
It is impossible to determine which came first in 1921, the idea
107
for a women's club or the desire to buy and preserve the old
Collins schoolhouse. "The hope for such a Club had long been
cherished, as we were the only community of any size in the county
without a Woman's Club, and the time seemed auspicious for
perfecting an organization and gaining a fine home for it at one
and the same time." (')
The Collins school sat on an acre of property donated to the
school district by a retired sea captain, Leman Perry Collins. Collins
had followed an old American custom observed by large land owners
of donating land for public use.(') The Collins school building that
stands today was built in 1890 and was the largest of the four
perimeter schools in Cupertino, and the first to be centrally heated.
It was abandoned when the Cupertino School District expanded
and centralized. The old building went up for auction in May of
1921. Mr. J. U. Miner purchased the building with the winning
bid of $1,800, and at the same time agreed to resell the building
to the Cupertino de Oro Club."') The women considered Mr. Miner
their "angel of mercy."(") On January 17, 1922 the Club officially
took possession of the building with the exception of the outhouse
which Mr. Miner insisted on keeping for use on his own land.(')
Seventeen women sat on the steps of the Collins schoolhouse
on May 11, 1921 to organize Cupertino's first social club. Nine
days later they met inside the schoolhouse for the first time and
although the chairs were sparse, the flower decorations were
profuse. "Probably we never shall have quite the same thrill of
pleasure from any other meeting the club's first yearbook noted." ("
Without wasting time or energy, they organized their first entertain-
ment, a dancing and card party held on May 27 which earned
them $73.76.
The matter of purpose had been settled. The Club, still unnamed,
was to be strictly a social club. They decided not to participate
in politics. Since most of the members were already active in church
and civic activities, the Club was the one opportunity they had
to enjoy and educate themselves and to be free from obligations.
The next matter was that of a name, a decision which did not
come easily. At the June 3 meeting, the name "The Cupertino
Women's Club" was chosen by a vote of 12 to 6. After pondering
the name for two weeks, the women decided to change it. They
had chosen the emblem —the California Poppy, which was often
referred to as Copa de Oro, which was Spanish for "Cup of Gold."
Cupa de Oro sounded much like Cupertino and almost became
the name of the Club, until Cupertino de Oro was selected as
most appropriate. However, it took three years and three yearbooks
to perfect the spelling. In 1922, it was spelled Cupertino De Ora
Club; in 1923, Cupertino d' Oro Club; and finally in 1924, Cupertino
de Oro Club. The motto became "One for All and All for One."
By the time the charter was signed, the membership of 17 women
had grown to 30. They were a committee of the whole and, taking
the crossroads of Cupertino, they chose women from each of the
four corners to insure representation.from all areas of Cupertino."" 1
The roster of Charter members listed by Frances Martin reads
like a "Who's Who in Cupertino":
Miss May Barker
Miss Mary Ball
Mrs. Abbie Blabon
Mrs. Ema Burtner
Mrs. Anna Calvert
Mrs. Abbie Coykendall
Mrs. Ellen Craft
Mrs. Anna Durgin
Mrs. Sarah Durkee
Mrs. Olga Friedrich
Mrs. Florence Forge
Mrs. Warren Hyde
Mrs. S. E. Johnson
Mrs. Mary Kingman
Mrs. Libbie Lawrence
Mrs. Grace Leonard
Mrs. Frances Martin
Mrs. Honore McCarthy
Mrs. Edna Meyerholz
Mrs. Tina Miner
Mrs. Ruth Moser
Mrs. Frances Parrish
Mrs. Laura Reynolds
Mrs. Alma Sim
Mrs. Gertrude Shelly
Mrs. Grace Taft
Mrs. Mable Warren
Mrs. Elizabeth Watson
Mrs. Arch Wilson
Mrs. Edna Wood
The first year was an active one. The Club purchased the building
from Mr. Miner at a cost of $1,950, and looked to every source
to raise the necessary funds. A total of $1,711.17 was raised from
initiation dues, donations and from a special Fall Festival which
netted $437.60 where articles donated by local merchants were
sold. The culmination for the year was a benefit game played by
the "baseball boys of Cupertino." A large amount of money also
was spent the first year. The Club remodeled the old school building
at a cost of $1,371. The major expenses were for the kitchen facilities,
remodeled plumbing, removal of interior walls, and a new furnace.
Characteristic of the times was a $5.00 war tax and an electric
light bill for the year of $13.98.(2)
108 1 109
Miss May Belle Barker was the Club's first president. She was
known as a "club woman," that is, one who knew and participated
in all the intricacies of clubwork. It was she who saw to it that
the Club joined the County Federation of Womens Clubs and that
they were properly incorporated and thus able to transact business.
The Club later withdrew from the Federated Women's Club.
Occasionally, a phrase in club literature would surface reminding
the membership of the heritage of the old sea captain who donated
his land for the old Collins school. In 1922, the yearbook contained
the following memorium: "Our hearts were saddened when one
member, Mrs. Leonora C. Braun heard the evening bell and put
out to sea."
After their third year, the Club was able to purchase an upright
piano for $405. It was used and abused for many years until some
of the more music conscious women felt the Club demanded the
dignity of a baby grand piano. One was purchased during the mid-30's
and still graces the stage today.
The Club is well organized. All programs are planned a year
in advance, and the Program Book is distributed by the first meeting
in October. The year runs until June of the following year. In
addition to the regular meetings that are held on the first and
third Friday afternoons of the month, a Past Presidents Club meets
four times a year for luncheons. Each member is obligated to
serve on a Hostess Committee once during each year. This is as
much an obligation as the payment of dues.
Members have always been carefully selected. They had to be
"ladies" above all else. At one time, the "blackballing" system
was used where the members voted with little black and white
marbles; white for a "yes" vote and black for a "no" vote. All
members had to be unanimously approved. At the present time,
a Membership Committee votes in new members. "Well, I think
we were a little bit discriminating; we wanted people that were
compatible, we wanted people that you knew were club type
persons," Mrs. Frances Martin, a past president of de Oro Club
recalled.
Club members worked diligently for eight years to pay off the
mortgage and finally on April 19, 1929, during Mrs. Leora
McArthur's presidency, the mortgage was burned in a gala celebra-
tion that included a supper, dancing and 150 people. The "special"
guests for the evening were the husbands.
The depression touched the de Oro Club as it did every other
facet of the community. Being a farming community, the annual
prices realized were meager for many years and the Club members
tightened their belts and spent very little money during those years.
Instead of paying speakers or entertainers, the Club members
presented their own programs on what was called "free talk."
Each member took a turn telling of former or current travels,
presenting book reviews and tapping any other talent the membership
might possess. In place of bakery goods, all delicacies were
home made, with special emphasis on fruit dishes, as this was still
primarily a fruit -growing community.
While the Club was facing austerity, their seldom -used clubhouse
was a great temptation to those who had nothing. Repeatedly,
the members would find grass beds used by "hobos" in the
basement."" As labor camps sprang up throughout the Valley,
the clubhouse was repeatedly burglarized. After a burglary that
virtually "wiped them out," the Club installed a burglar alarm,
which perhaps created more problems than it solved. Very few
people could turn off the master control and the alarm would
continue ringing until someone came to silence it. During the time
that the Club rented their building to the school department for
the use of retarded children, a delivery man accidentally tripped
the alarm, which brought the fire department. After quieting the
alarm, the fire department held an impromptu inspection and found
the Club remiss in providing adequate fire protection. The Club
had to fireproof their draperies, which ruined the draperies. The
entrance had to be painted with an experimental fireproof paint
and it "smelled to high heaven for years."(12:1971)
When the clubhouse sat on the corner of Homestead Road and
Highway 9 (now Saratoga -Sunnyvale Road), it was protected from
the sounds of nearby traffic by the trees that enclosed it. Along
one side, were large eucalyptus trees and along the other side
was a row of pepper trees. Occasionally, one of the trees would
blow over during a storm. During one severe wind, a large tree
was uprooted and landed inches from the corner of the building
where the baby grand piano sat. The only entrance and exit from
the Club was directly on the corner, into the intersection.(91 "It
was truly a miracle that no one was ever in an accident, for the
ladies were not as adroit with cars then as they are now, and
the old crank cars often jackrabbited out into the traffic." Many
of the trees were lost to the bulldozer as the streets were widened.
One item that was often threatened by the bulldozer but which
survived was the large elaborate outhouse that came with the school.
The smaller outhouse had been transported by Mr. Miner to his
property, but the large two -room facility remained on the property.
For years it was the center of controversy, some of the women
wanted it taken down and the others wanted it remodeled into
a caretaker's cottage.() Finally, it was abandoned as a project
because of the expenses involved in remodeling. It sat empty until
the clubhouse was moved.
Like all land in Cupertino, the land on which the clubhouse
sat steadily increased in value so that in 1959 the Club leased
part of their land to the Standard Oil Company for a gas station.
This long-term lease changed the status of the club from non-profit
to profit. It also changed the location of the clubhouse. The beautiful
old building had to be moved east to its present location on
Homestead Road to accommodate the Station at the intersection.
The 70-year old building held up splendidly during the move; not
a door was jarred out of plumb, proving the durability of the
structure.
The Cupertino de Oro Club is connected with two local land-
marks. In 1962, the Bell Tower of their clubhouse was added to
the list of Santa Clara landmarks, and was added to the Santa
Clara County Preservation list in 1974. At one time, the bell was
taken down to be -,sold but the women, realizing its greatest value
was its age, placed it back in the bell tower and secured it
permanently. In 1968, the Club was asked to sponsor California
Plaque #800, honoring the site where de Anza camped. Although
the plaque is not exactly on the spot where de Anza camped,
the dedication ceremony was impressive.
Of the original Charter members, only three survive; Mrs. Tina
Miner, Mrs. Edna Meyerholz, and Mrs. Frances North Martin.
Mrs. Meyerholz has always had a special interest in the Collins
school building. She attended classes there as a child and her father,
Mr. C. O. Bocks, was a trustee of the school. Her husband, Mr.
Ivan Meyerholz, supervised the move and alterations in 1959.
In the early days of the Club, the women were extremely
dedicated, even to the point where the yearbook announced how
many meetings an officer missed during the year. Although the
membership has remained fairly constant at approximately 120,
the women do not see the dedication to the Club that there once
was. "When you work for something, you appreciate it more,
and today's members don't have to work as much," explains Mrs.
Meyerholz. In the pressure of today's hustle -bustle society, it is
gratifying to know that there is still a group of women who take
time to relax among friends and enjoy an afternoon of culture.
Sources
I. Cupertino de Oro Club Yearbook, 1922-1923. Mae Wright Co., San Jose,
California.
2. Cupertino d'Oro Club Yearbook, 1923-1924.
3. Cupertino de Oro Club Yearbook, 1924-1925.
4. Cupertino de Oro Club Yearbook, 1928-1929.
5. Martin, Frances. Brief History of the Cupertino de Oro Club, 1971.
6. County Recorder, Book 540 of Deeds, page 127.
7. Devine, Mike. "Cupertino de Oro Club." Unpublished report, California History
Center, De Anza College, 1974.
8. Friedrich, Karl A. "A Brief History of Cupertino." Saratoga Observor, No-
vember 16, 1949.
9. Martin, Frances. Brief History of the Cupertino de Oro Club, 1971.
10. Martin, Frances. Interview, March 3, 1975.
11. McArthur, Leora. Telephone interview, December 30, 1974.
12. Meyerholz, Edna, Frances Martin and Leora McArthur. Tape interview, January
10, 1975.
13. San Jose Mercury News. "Society and Club Section," Sunday, January 25,
1948, Sunday, April 21, 1929, Sunday, April 11, 1971.
14. Spiers, Georgia. "Cupertino de Oro Club." Unpublished report, California
History Center, De Anza College.
15. Whalen, Kevin. "Cupertino Collins School Building." Unpublished report,
California History Center, De Anza College.
REFLECTIONS
Cupertino Improvement Club
An active factor in local affairs for a period of years was the
Cupertino Improvement Club, organized in April 1913 with Fred
E. Goodrich . . . as the first president and V. Earl Parrish as its
no
secretary, devoting about twenty years to the welfare of the community.
Its membership included many of the prominent men and women
V) „
of the district, imbued with a civic spirit, who concerned themselves
about roads, schools, water, markets, etc. and general improvement.
T
Through its secretary it functioned as a sort of rural chamber
of
commerce, issuing printed folders extolling the resources and residen-
U _
tial advantages of Cupertino to enquirers.
x N
Under the auspices of the club, a young Cupertino engineer, R.
o
Ivan Meyerholz, in 1913 made the first survey of the Stevens Creek
ro w !
� _
canyon, demonstrating the feasibility of erecting a dam. But the
dam was not built until 1935 by the water conservation district.
z
At one time, the club envisioned a monument on the elevation
w
at the west end of the McClellan Road to commemorate De Anza's
°
y
first view of San Francisco Bay. It was also a popular social factor,
dances sponsoring , dinners, picnics, and shows. A troupe of its younger
o V ;
°'
members motored to Live Oak and Yuba City in Sutter Count
u
3
where they staged the comedy, "Hankerchief No. 15." The club
C
directed its secretary to call and arrange a public meeting of county
EN
fruit growers to meet in San Jose on March 15, 1915, to discuss
°w ro
the unsatisfactory crop and marketing conditions of apricots and
r m
prunes. This meeting eventually resulted in the organization of the
California Prune and Apricot Growers Association. In the same year,
w
a concrete passenger station was built at the main intersection and
ro cd N
its cost shared equally by the club and the Peninsular Railway
Company. With the attainment of many of its objects such as paved
highways,
a thriving union school, better marketing conditions, and
c
the building of the dam, interest waned and the club held its last
o
meeting in 1933.
" 'o�
Karl A. Friedrich
q. y g
International Order of Odd Fellows
E C
o x o
U;,w"
N
The oldest Cupertino fraternal organization is Cupertino Lodge
'w o
a
No. 70, IOOF, organized on April 15, 1899. Its first noble grand
N
was Dr. Edwin Harvey Durgin and its first vice grand, Joseph D.
N o
aj C7 cd
Williams; Oscar B. Wood was its first recording secretary. Fred
C
roc N
"The club was resurrected in the early 1950's to successfully battle for incorpo-
q w
ration.
s"4)
H�caxa
115
E. Goodrich, was the first conductor. William B. Calvert has been
a member of the lodge since October 16, 1899. William T. Baer,
father of Charles M. Baer, was the organization's first financial
secretary.
Cupertino Courier, August 4, 1955
King's Daughters Circle
An Elite Women's CharityGroup
On August 23, 1887, Mrs. Fanny Jollyman and nine other Cupertino
ladies, Mrs. Isabel Ross, Mrs. Emma Blake, Mrs. J. P. Crossley,
Mrs. Walter Blabon, Mrs. Benjamin Craft, Miss Annie B. Craft,
Miss Grace McClellan, Mrs. Isabel Wood, and Mrs. Nathan Hall,
met in Mrs. Jollyman's sitting room to become the charter members
of the local Circle of this now widely known national and international
organization.
Their early efforts consisted largely in making small garments for
the Foundling Home in Chicago. Locally they remembered the
"shut-ins." Their first attempt at entertainment was in November
1888, a benefit making possible a ten -dollar Christmas gift for each
"shut-in." In 1890, a fund was begun for the special purpose of
aiding the poor of San Jose, and this was kept up faithfully for
seven years. During the same year, these members started the custom
still current in the Circle , of setting aside, each summer, jars of
fruit or jelly for the Couniy Hospital and other institutions, as well
as local needy families.
In 1891, the Circle furnished a room at the San Francisco King's
Daughters' Home which had just been founded. Over twenty welfare
groups have been recipients of the Circle's assistance during the
years. Among them are the Beth Aldrich Home, Good Cheer Club,
Traveler's Aid, Needlework Guild, and more recently the French
Orphans, Near East Fund, China Relief, American Bible Society,
Polio Fund, Cancer Society, CARE, Red Cross, and the TB Hospital.
By 1921, almost three thousand dollars had been contributed to local
relief.
San Jose Mercury, 1950
By 1900, the barons of industry in California had already realized
the "golden opportunities " available in real estate investment. Most
of San Francisco's men who wielded economic and political power
had begun to purchase hundreds of acres of land in the Bay Area.
Such men as James ClairFlood, Leland Stanford, William Chapman
Ralston, Darius Ogden Mills, Antoine Borel, and William H. Crocker
established estates with extensive acreage on the Peninsula. Particu-
larly with the completion of the San Francisco -San Jose railroad
line in January 1864, "country estates" became convenient retreats
from the city and inevitable sites for future urban development.
Cupertino soon became known to San Francisco's cosmopolitan
populace through the renowned attraction of its neighbor Saratoga.
In August 1864, the clever financial leaders, Darius Mills and Alvinza
Hayward, purchased 720 acres of the foothill lands that were bubbling
with mineral springs for a mere $2,000. "Pacific Congress Springs"
was promoted as the Valley's fashionable counterpart of Saratoga
Springs, New York, and a "positively medicinal" retreat from the
cramped confines of the city. Eight years after constructing a hotel
on the property, Mills and Hayward sold the entire resort for
approximately $25,000. By 1881, the resort boasted sixty-three rooms
and, soon thereafter, the convenient service of the interurban electric
railway.
With the development of efficient transportation networks and
the arrival of the automobile, Cupertino soon became the
"Crossroads" where city met country. Visitors on their way to
visit the mineral spas, Senator Phelan's Villa Montalvo, or Fremont
Older's estate, passed through the sleepy farming town of orchards
and fruit -drying yards. Charlie Baer's corner blacksmith shop and
then the Flying "A" gas station watched the "whole world" go
by, until the movement of population from San Francisco down
LI
r
the Peninsula began to permeate the south bay. By this time,
America's astute real estate investors began to extol the perfect
Peninsula orchard home.
Special buses and trains brought potential buyers to the fanfare
of real estate promotional picnics. All of the blossoming communities
such as Los Altos, Sunnyvale, Mountain View, and Cupertino
competed in their spectacular opportunities for weekend cottages
or homes that were virtually situated in paradise, with "very easy
terms. "
According to Louis Stocklmeir, George Hensley was the "peer"
of all real estate developers. His move to subdivide and promote
the sale of land in what is now known as Monta Vista epitomizes
the 1920's-1930's schemes which resulted in the Valley's rapid
urbanization.
MONTA VISTA: A SMALL PIECE OF PARADISE
by
Louis STOCKLMEIR
Adapted from "The Monta Vista Story," Cupertino Courier,
1968.
The memory and ill effects of Central Coastal California's great
earthquake had hardly been laid to rest by the inhabitants who
experienced it when the Southern Pacific Railroad Company decided
that a cross-country line linking its main tracks at Mayfield with
its broad -gauge and narrow-gauge facilities at Los Gatos was a
necessity.
This line, constructed during the year of 1906, was the proximate
cause which finally determined the full development of the rural
unincorporated town area now known as Monta Vista. "Monta,"
a word lacking significance when used with "Vista" or, shall we
say, possibly a slip of the pen, can be found as a word in any
Spanish dictionary. The originator of its use, however, treaded
heavily on semantics. "Vista," too, is definitely a word of the
120
ALTOJ PARK'.�'
Santa Clara County 11%"
CALIFORNIA :��
IN THE MOST FAVORED
SPOT IN CALIFORNIA!
Altos Park 1930's brochure cover. George Hensley promoted his subdivisions (now located
in Monta Vista) as a "small piece of paradise at little expense."
14:
=1
Y
Spanish language for view, sight, landscape, etc. Although mis-
mated, the appellation given to the railroad crossroad stop has
never been changed to what no doubt was to be its correct name,
"Monte Vista" —the latter literally translated Mountain View, View
of the Mountains.
Prior to the advent of the railroad into the area, Stevens Creek
Road, alias Stephens Creek Road, alias Cupertino Road, alias
Meridian Road, was the principal arterial from the western side
of Santa Clara Valley to the town of San Jose. Between 1850
and 1880 it served first as a trail, then as a road for the agricultural
and stock -raising requirements of the sparsely populated West
Valley area. Until 1873, it ended at what is now the unincorporated
town of Monta Vista. During the 1880-1890 period viticulture became
predominant, followed by a period, 1890 to 1920, of mixed agricul-
tural, horticultural and viticultural activities. We cannot disassociate
Monta Vista, however, from the early 1850 period, for its preceding
historical background is bound into the activities of three prominent
pioneers or their descendants of long residential permanency in
the area and to a sequence of coincidental happenings.
Three early pioneers, Nathan J. Hall, Samuel R. Williams, and
John T. Doyle, held large properties which were relatively con-
tiguous with each other in what is now Monta Vista. Nathan J.
Hall was born in New York and came to California and Santa
Clara County in 1852, arriving here from Illinois by means of a
wagon drawn by two mules. In 1854, he homesteaded and bought
out squatter -rights of slightly more than one -quarter section of
land bounded generally by what is now Lowe Avenue, Stevens
Creek, Stevens Creek Boulevard and northerly thereof to a distance
of one-half mile. Contrary to some historical writings, his property
east of Stevens Creek was never a part of the San Antonio Rancho.
Samuel R. Williams, born in Canada, first came to California
in 1855, but returned after a few years to his native Canada. In
the year of 1866, he again returned to California. Settling in the
Cupertino area in the year of 1870, he acquired in excess of 100
acres of level farming land comprising a number of individual
parcels.
It is interesting to note that Samuel R. Williams procured his
first parcel of property by entering into an agreement with a William
H. Hall, no relation to Nathan J. Hall, who owned a hundred
acres of uncleared land on the south side of Cupertino Road (now
123
Stevens Creek Boulevard) between what later became Byrne Avenue
and the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. Hall gave to Williams
the easterly fifty acres of his property in return for clearing his
100 acres of land and for planting and bringing to maturity on
the entire parcel productive grape -bearing vines. William Hall lived
in San Jose and founded the Town of Lexington, (now inundated
by Lexington Dam) on the Los Gatos Creek about two miles south
of the town of Los Gatos. He named this town after the town
of Lexington, New York, where he was born.
John T. Doyle, an eminent San Francisco lawyer, came into
the Cupertino area in 1880, acquiring in excess of 321 acres of
rolling hill and level land. John T. Doyle's historical background
is of interest in that among his avocations he also was a historian,
a horticulturist, a viticulturist and chief counsel for the Archdiocese
of San Francisco, during the era of his Grace Archbishop Riordan.
He is noted in American jurisprudence for his successful interna-
tional legal proceedings against the government of Mexico for the
Church's reimbursement for loss of Catholic properties prior to
1846 during the several changing Spanish and Mexican regimes.
It was during his ownership of the Cupertino Creek (Stevens
Creek) properties that there was established on it the first Cupertino
Post Office, circa 1880-1882. The first winery on his property was
known as the "Cupertino Winery." Its products were world-re-
nowned, being selected by the United States Viticultural Commis-
sion in 1900 as representative of the best wines of the United
States of America to be entered in the Paris Exposition. He bestowed
upon his building site the name of "Cupertino." This name was
derived from the original name given to the arroyo almost two
hundred years ago, Arroyo de San Joseph Cupertino. John T. Doyle
knew his early California history very well for he had written
a volume or so on it. In the year 1900, the West Side Post Office,
at the intersection of Stevens Creek Boulevard and Saratoga -Sun-
nyvale Road, was off icially given the name "Cupertino Post Office."
Following the year 1906, a group of San Francisco capitalists
joined together and formed a corporation known as the Peninsula
Land and Investment Company, which at a later date (circa 1922)
was incorporated into a corporation known as "Monta Vista Estates,
Ltd." This group was a major stimulus within a sequence of events
brought about by the independent activities of four non -related
entities: Nathan Hall's property, the Southern Pacific Railroad and
Peninsular Electric Railway Company, the Peninsula Land and
Investment Company, and the Estate of John T. Doyle.
After the turn of the century, the investment potential in subdi-
viding Monta Vista land was already evident. In 1907, Peninsular
Electric terminated its tracks on the Samuel R. Williams property.
The same year, Williams' heirs, who held twenty-five acres on
Stevens Creek Road between what is now Orange and Imperial
Avenues, had their property subdivided by the old and established
real estate firm known as Johnson and Temple. Sales were slow
for a number of years for this initigl venture, when one realizes
that a few miles was a long distance to city folks whose own
respective towns and cities had much unoccupied land still immedi-
ately adjacent to their city limits.
Geographically, however, the land areas centered around Monta
Vista Railroad Station were slowly changing. What actually
happened was that the Southern Pacific tracks traversed diagonally
across the one-fourth section of land owned by Nathan J. Hall.
To the east thereof was a parcel of some fifty-two acres, to the
west was about 118 acres. Nathan J. Hall for many years permitted
the easterly portion to remain as untilled land; however, in the
end, he did plant about thirty-two acres in prune trees on the
northerly portion of it.
George Hensley's Dream: 'Altos Park'
George Hensley
His mind was geared to monu-
mental things,
His eyes envisioned spires, to
pierce the sky,
His touch to potters' clay gained
small response,
And dreams of grandeur could
only but die.
(He was born 50 years too soon.)*
*A poem dedicated to the memory of George Hensley by Louis Stocklmeir.
124 11 125
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The years of 1912-1914 started to blossom into a great potential
for real estate activity and, fresh from a victorious launching of
city subdivision activities east of Southern Pacific's San Bruno
Station, there emerged a young man by the name of George Hensley.
George Hensley was the Olympic Club's Amateur Wrestling Cham-
pion of the Pacific Coast. His rocket-like real estate performance
at San Bruno had netted him a cool $450,000. He was one of
the peers of all real estate promoters of that period.
He visited Monta Vista. He came, he saw, he conquered to
a degree. Reverting entirely to the status of promoter, he failed
to recognize the essentialness of proper zoning requirements and
the early development of Monta Vista took on, in part, the
resemblance of a quickly established mining town built around
a newly discovered silver or gold -quartz outcropping in the desert
terrain of Nevada. The first purchase of property made by George
Hensley for his syndicate, the Peninsula Land and Investment Co.,
was about twenty acres of bare land owned by Nathan J. Hall,
east of the Southern Pacific right-of-way and facing on Stevens
Creek Road. This was known as Subdivision A of Monta Vista.
Lots were small in frontage and area.
After the usual subdivision plats of the time had cleared Santa
Clara County's offices, graded dirt streets lightly graveled, sidewalks
of minimum thickness and width and of poor concrete and water
pipes of inadequate size were installed. An ornate cement water
fountain was centered in the tract and the proposal was a problem
left for the future buyers to solve as best they could. Buses were
run to the tract principally from San Francisco. Cost was borne
by the syndicate of investors. Picnics (with flags and bunting) were
numerous on weekends during the summertime and the virtues
of climate, independence offered by country living, and attainment
of profitable income were loudly proclaimed and extolled.
The preceeding illustrations depict the proposed self -containment
possibilities feasible for the larger sized lots of the syndicate's
later subdivision called "Altos Park." Many lots were only 25
feet by 100 feet in size. Others were laid out 100 feet by 100
feet in size with a 25-foot by 100-foot access lot from streets and
avenues.
After several years, buyers in Monta Vista's Subdivision A in
many cases treated their acquisitions as summer facilities. Tents,
small cabins and in a few instances modest homes dotted the
127
subdivision. A grocery and notions store owned by Elizabeth Engle,
a garage and a plumbing shop owned by a man named Hannah,
all closely adjoining and facing Peninsula Avenue, were the new
subdivision's business district of Monta Vista during these early
years. One of the major problems arising at the time, despite contrary
assertions, which thwarted the self -containment plans of many was
that concerning lack of WATER.
The year of 1913 stands as a hallmark in the annals of an
ever -diminishing water table. The high grounds of the West Valley
felt its scarcity first, and the Monta Vista Water Works, depending
entirely on percolation from creek flow, had no other source of
water to draw upon when stream flow ceased in the late summer
months. The adjacent Leib System, of which I was an employee
at the time, had all it could do to get through the years of meager
rainfall, supplying their Cupertino -Mountain View -Santa Clara -Sun-
nyvale customers.
Despite this extraordinary problem, George Hensley between
the years of 1915 and 1920, purchased and promoted further real
estate development, all being within a mile of his first purchase,
i.e.: Monta Vista Subdivision A. In the interim John T. Doyle had
died and his property became an estate. Around 1915, the year
of the Panama -Pacific International Exposition, George Hensley
purchased the Doyle Estate's entire holdings —some 321 acres.
Fifty acres of this land area, consisting of grape vines, was bounded
by Stevens Creelt., McClellan Road and what later became Byrne
and Orange avenues. He interplanted the vineyard the following
year with Blenheim Apricois. He called the new development Monta
Vista Subdivision B and promoted it as such.
In the next succeeding years he established on the Doyle Property
"The Colony Tract," "Altos Park," and "Inspiration Heights"
subdivisions, and circa 1920, purchased a separate adjacent property
consisting of 20 acres from a Mr. Russell who had named his
estate "Russellhurst." This name was carried over by the Syndicate
as a name for the newest subdivision. This parcel fronts on the
east side of what is now the Cupertino Road and is adjacent to
the northerly side of Stevens Creek Road. It had common property
lines with the area now occupied by "Sunnyview Manor" and
with Cupertino's newest large development formerly known as the
Eaton Property on Foothill Boulevard.
A new residence built on this property about 1910, was dedicated
and known as "The Monta Vista Country Club." Its purpose was
to facilitate real estate sales and for prospective buyers' residence.
The panorama view of Santa Clara Valley published in the Cupertino
Courier in 1966, was taken from this point.
The Coming of the Business District
During the several years immediately following the Exposition's
date of closing, George Hensley accelerated his promotional activi-
ties. In 1917, he purchased the Lumbermen's Building, known as
the "Hoo Hoo House," from the Fair's liquidating program. This
building of unusual appearance was freighted in marked packages
to, and erected upon, a lot in his subdivision known as Inspiration
Point. Logs weighing eight to ten tons, roof trusses and beams,
wood partition walls separating cubicles from dance pavilion,
balcony verandas, interior hardwood wall paneling from all parts
of the world, outside rustic tree bark covering and a tall observation
tower with stairway all fell into place. Its actual location was on
the west side of Carmen Road, about fifty feet south of what
is now known as Stevens Creek Boulevard. The edifice burned
completely on August 16, 1928, and what a fire it made. One of
Santa Clara Valley's non -historical but nonetheless interesting
landmarks became extinct.
It was during the era 1922 to 1923 that reorganization of the
Peninsula Land and Investment Company occurred. Its new entity
became Monta Vista Estates, Inc. Its real estate and other activities
had spread from Monta Vista Subdivision A and its extended
subdivisions in San Mateo County. Holdings in San Mateo County
consisted of four acres and the Babylon Building, on one of
San Francisco Bay's estuaries just northeast of San Carlos. This
$300,000 Temple Building was used for pleasure resort purposes;
it was purchased from the Fair liquidators and barged into its watery
location on the estuary. Its financial launching was considerable;
its popularity among certain people was not of the same considerable
nature.
Monta Vista Estates held residential properties also in both South
San Francisco and San Bruno. During the earlier formative and
later declining years of the Monta Vista venture, the various Monta
128 1 129
Vista subdivisions gradually became more populated. Progress,
however, was 'slow and the bondholders became restive. Through
legal proceedings in the early 1930-1932 period, the assets were
taken over by them and management of the conservation and
liquidation was placed in the hands of Thomas K. Gally and Melvin
E. Mensor, Trustees of .the Bond Holders Protection Committee.
The actual liquidation of the properties lasted a number of years.
It was during this period that certain Morita Vista lots were sold
by the Bondholders' conservators for as low as $50 to $100.
A great influence in the continued growth of Monta Vista during
the decade 1930 to 1940 and thereafter, was that provided by the
confidence given to the area by the Quinterno and Rifredi families.
Their mercantile operations —market, gas station and other activi-
ties —afforded a secure financial atmosphere during a period in
which it was most needed. Inevitably, the orchards and pastures
in the 1950's and 1960's gave way to further subdivisions, namely
the Mann tract and the later Oak Dell subdivision.
THE INDEPENDENT CITY
The goal of the movement in 1954 to incorporate the Cupertino
community was 4o create an autonomous city —a city that was
"successful, self -sufficient -and self-supporting," as Norm Nathan-
son, one of the incorporation proponents said at the time.
For the farmers and orchardists in Cupertino, incorporation meant
protection from heavy industries taking over their farm land. At
the same time, it meant encouraging controlled, light industry to
help create a healthy tax base and relieve them of some of the
heavy taxes they had been paying.
For others within the community, incorporation would mean
greater participation in local government with a chance at direct
participation in matters that directly concerned their lives. The
postwar population boom of the late 1940's left Cupertino community
leaders with an urgent sense of a need for planning. The population
of Santa Clara Valley was growing so fast that communities had
to fight to retain their identity in the wake of tremendous, almost
instantaneous growth. Cupertino's residents knew their lands even-
130
tually would provide housing for the County's mushrooming popu-
lation, but they wanted it to be at a density markedly less than
that in their neighboring cities. Most of them hoped that they could
continue to farm while some of this was going on and many also
had the hope that the community could develop in such a way
that they, themselves, would want to remain and live there after
their land had been converted to the dictates of "progress." Most
of them decided the only way this could come about was for them
to maintain control of the situation themselves: in otherwards, to
take steps to ensure their continuing status as an independent entity.
Therefore, entwined with the question of incorporation was the
more basic question of survival. Would Cupertino become gobbled
up by annexation to other communities? Would Cupertino, the
farming community, be suddenly transformed into a poorly -planned
and shabbily built suburban community, losing its identity and
dependence upon the land? Proponents of incorporation argued
the only way to avoid either situation was to incorporate and allow
Cupertino to become an autonomous community which could plan
for gradual and sensible expansion.
Norm Nathanson was a Cupertino rancher instrumental in uniting
the farmers in favor of incorporation. He organized petition drives,
appointing Don Hartman and Warner Wilson to circulate petitions.
He established headquarters for the petition movement in the
basement of the Cupertino post office.
Also playing important roles in the incorporation movement were
two organizations: the Cupertino-Monta Vista Improvement Asso-
ciation and the Fact Finding Committee. The latter group had raised
money to pay experts from the Coro Foundation in San Francisco
to evaluate the immediate future needs of Cupertino. The founda-
tion's report, issued in July 1954, recommended incorporation and
provided an effective impetus for getting the incorporation petitions
written and circulated.
The Cupertino-Monta Vista Association was not new at this kind
of work. This was the fourth "life" of the Association, originally
formed in the early 1900's to provide an acceptable road system
for the West Valley. It was resurrected in the 'teens to push for
interurban transit service to San Jose and Palo Alto, primarily
for the benefit of the younger generation seeking a college education.
A second resurrection came in the early '20's for the purpose
of creating a water conservation program. The Association also
132
was instrumental in the formation of the Cupertino Union and
Fremont High School Districts. Having been successful in all of
these ventures, the new "founders" of the Association soon
embarked on their next project, which would serve as the essential
preliminary to incorporation: formation of a sanitary district.
Cupertino already was part of a sanitary district governed by
a board made up of mayors and councilmen from various cities
in the county, including the mayors of Sunnyvale and San Jose.
It therefore was important to the Cupertinans to create a Sanitary
District which would be governed by a board of locally elected
Cupertino officials. The Association successfully carried off such
an election and at the same time managed to elect five of their
members to the five seats on the governing board. The political
significance of the Cupertino Sanitary District to the development
patterns of Cupertino is often overlooked, but in the early stages
it was at least as important as the incorporation of the city, in
the eyes of the orchardists and other residents.
Within a year of the Sanitary District's formation, local leaders,
buttressed by the District's success, had pushed the idea of
incorporation to the decision stage. Proponents of incorporation
in 1954, needed all the help they could get, however, despite the
District's success. They not only had to convince the general
population of 2,000 people of the advantages of incorporation, but,
at the same time, they had to fight a movement to annex Cupertino
to neighboring cities.
Annexation appeared imminent in 1954. San Jose had been
gobbling up communities at a constant rate for at least two years.
Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, and Los Altos were also giving the growing
farming community of Cupertino a greedy eye.
"Those cities that want to annex the city (Cupertino) would
like to take it piece by piece," Nathanson said.
Nathanson and the farmers argued that annexation would divide
the community of Cupertino, which was naturally aligned by its
agricultural potential and a heritage of community spirit and hard
work.
Proponents of annexation believed it would save the community
money in top administrative costs and school organizations and
would simplify political procedures.
But taxes for Cupertino residents had been steadily rising and
most people generally felt the increase was due to a distant
133
government. They wanted closer control. If Cupertino was incorpo-
rated, they were told, the city would have a tax rate of 250 per
$100 assessed valuation as compared to San Jose's rate of $1.72
and Santa Clara's $2.19 and Sunnyvale's $1.38.
People seem to listen when saving money is involved.
After several previous false attempts, a petition for the incorpo-
ration of Cupertino was finally proposed and approved for circula-
tion in December 1954. Its four major points included:
—Preserve the rural atmosphere of the community
—Permit farmers to operate with minimum tax expense and
maximum protection against urbanization and industrial forces
from neighboring communities
—Bring local problems under control by local representation in
government
—Allow Cupertino to plan and prepare for its growth, future
direction and needs.
After much hard work the petitions were finally signed by the
required number of people and sent to the county board of
supervisors for approval. In the spring of 1955, the petitions were
recognized by the county officials as valid documents. June 20
was set as a hearing date for incorporation arguments.
September 27 was set as the election day when Cupertino residents
would decide the future path-Jor their community.
Gathering up all their energies before the election, the Improve-
ment Association formed an incorporation committee which under-
took the task of informing the general populace of the need for
incorporation. Warner Wilson and Don Bandly set up a series of
panel meetings in the schoolhouses of the district to provide people
with information about the benefits of incorporation.
Another committee, formed by the newly created chamber of
commerce and led by Darryl Sedgwick also helped create interest
in incorporation.
The committees issued a joint statement in the Cupertino Courier
three weeks before the election explaining their stand on incorpo-
ration:
"We are working for the incorporation of Cupertino because
we believe it will afford us a means of expressing the will of
our own people and satisfying the requirements of our own area.
Moreover, in the final analysis, it should promote our property
values and save us tax money."
Four hundred and sixteen Cupertino community residents voted
in the incorporation election on Sept. 27, 1955. The city was pushed
into existence by a slim margin-231 voted in favor of incorporation,
185 opposed it.
On October 10, 1955, Cupertino officially became the 13th city
in Santa Clara county. The new city included 3.76 square miles
and had an assessed valuation of $4 million.
The first city council members; Ralph Lindenmeyer, Warner
Wilson, John Saich, R. Ivan Meyerholz and Norman Nathanson
elected Lindenmeyer as Cupertino's first mayor. A city had been
born and these men had been among those who worked for its
conception and directed its first steps.
VALLCO PARK: FROM ORCHARDS TO INDUSTRY
by
DAVID W. FULLER
A heritage of living from the land may have been the seed which
grew into the creation by some of Cupertino's largest landowners
of the VALLCO Business and Industrial Park in the early 1960's.
In their hearts, the landowners of the older generation wanted
to keep the community the friendly and rural spot they had always
known. But, at the same time, a realism born out of facing daily
farmlife, told them they would be kidding themselves to think that
commercial and industrial. growth could or should be kept out of
Cupertino. Incorporation had stemmed the nearly uncontrollable
tide of expansion from neighboring cities and the theme of "con-
trolling growth," of keeping progress in its place, played insistently
on the minds of the men from the northeast part of town. By
the early 1960's, they were meeting in each other's homes to come
up with a plan for making an orderly transition from farming to
industry and commercial expansion.
Whereas landowners in other parts of the city had balked at
134 1 135
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resigning any of their specific property rights to one another, the
families in the northeast part of town adopted the idea of a centralized
management to which they would commit their 450 acres of orchards
for industrial park use.
Fortunately, about the same time, Varian Associates of Palo
Alto, a young and vigorous electronics firm founded by Russell
Varian, a Cupertino resident, was searching for a new 100-acre
site where they could be buffered from residential neighbors. The
firm's consultants had identified 124 such sites within a 45-minute
drive of Stanford University. Of these, sixty-four were suitable
for Varian's needs and twelve were considered prime locations.
Unknown to the Cupertino landowners, their property was one
of the twelve prime choices based on land prices and such intangibles
as climate, commuting time, attitudes of city officials toward
industrial development, and potential appreciation of land values.
Once approached by Varian, the landowners seriously began to
think about pooling their land. "We had a lot of meetings in people's
homes with the families," VALLCO general manager Walter Ward
recalled. "The problem was, would we pool the land? The answer
was, `yes,' if we are going to put money into it. We'd give up
the land and set something up to manage it, to develop it, on
the theory that if we had a homogenous development —and at that
time it was mainly a warehousing and industrial park, not the mix
of uses it has turned to —we'd make the best use of each parcel
we could. That would be better than if a guy had the back lot
or the front lot —it would average out and everybody would get
something."
Despite the agreement with the idea, when it came down to
the details of landpooling there were numerous problems to be
overcome. "There were a lot of problems with the evaluation of
the thing. One guy said `I've got the beehives.' The other guy said
`I've got the well.' Another guy said `I'm on the corner now.'
Another guy said `Well, I'm going to be on the freeway.' So,
we said, okay, if we have to go to an appraisal firm, forget , it,
but if we can fix values, and it doesn't matter if it's a dollar
or a hundred dollars or a million dollars, of acreage and improve-
ments —houses, barns, packing sheds, wells —so that there's a fair
market value of each improvement, then that's what we'll do."
A list of improvements was drawn up and figures were rounded
137
4
to the nearest $1,000, meaning that the landowners threw in from
$1 to $999 to make the agreement simpler.
The next step was to get each of the original twenty-five
landowners to sign agreements to sell their land to Varian (which,
in turn, would contribute it to the industrial park), join into VALLCO
for future development of the land, or trade their property for
another farm, someplace else. Of the twenty-five owners, seventeen
put their land into VALLCO Park, six sold to Varian and two
others took farms elsewhere. The name, VALLCO, was devised
by taking the first letters of the names of the principal developers:
Vrian Associates, Leonard family, Lester family, Craft family,
Orlando family.
The step of pooling their land into a single entity and then moving
elsewhere was a big one for each of the families, for they had
each put generations of toil and family pride into their individual
holdings. Each of the principal landowners —the Leonards, the
Lesters and the Crafts —owned 100 acres or more, mostly in prune
and cherry orchards, originally planted by pioneer forebearers.
The Crafts
Benjamin Craft was a native of Jefferson County, New York,
who sailed to San Francisco in 1854, via Nicaragua. Without stage
fare, Craft trekked on foot to Santa Clara County where he went
to work in the grain fields belonging to pioneer Isaac Thompson.
After several months, however, he left Thompson for the gold
mines where he stayed four years. Upon his return, to Santa Clara
County in 1858, Craft found that a drought the preceding three
years had greatly reduced the price of land and he took advantage
of the opportunity to purchase 116 acres near present day Santa
Clara. Five years later, he purchased an adjoining 100 acres and
used the ranch for the growing of hay and grain and the raising
of cattle. The acreage remained in the family until the heirs of
Benjamin's descendant, Ellen Craft, sold it to the VALLCO
partnership in 1968.
138
The Leonards and Glendennings
Burrel Leonard, who today is one of the three working partners
in VALLCO, is the descendant of two pioneer Cupertino families —
the Leonards and the Glendennings. One of Burrel's great-grand-
fathers, Robert Glendenning, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in
1824 and became a schoolteacher at an early age. But, by 1847,
Glendenning had taken off for Australia, where he worked as a
cattle rancher for three years, before marrying Margaret Howie,
a clergyman's daughter, on the last day of December 1849. On
New Year's Day —the first day of the second half of the century —
the newlyweds set sail for San Francisco. Glendenning worked
as a teamster there for a few months but soon moved with his
wife to Santa Clara County in the autumn of 1850. He purchased
the squatter's rights of an English occupant of what he believed
to be government land at the eastern portion of what today is
Cupertino. Unfortunately, it was only after he cleared the land,
had begun to plow it, and built a farmhouse, that the owners of
the Alviso land grant made claim to the property. Although he
fought the claim, Glendenning eventually was compelled to purchase
the land from the Alviso's at $30 per acre, even though he already
had paid the long -gone Englishman for the property.
Glendenning died in 1868, before he and his family had been
able to fully pay the Alviso's. But the family continued to work
towards the purchase of the property, a goal they achieved several
years later. Burrel Leonard's grandmother inherited a twelfth of
the 200 acre estate from her father and more of the property when
her mother passed away. Her daughter, Grace, married John
Leonard, the son of a Lincoln, Nebraska family who had moved
to Campbell in 1899. Leonard was brought up on the family ranch
in Campbell and later attended Stanford University for a year before
taking a job with the National Cash Register Co. in San Francisco
as a junior shipping clerk and apprentice salesman. Shortly after
the 1906 earthquake, he joined the Toledo Scale Co. as a salesman
in California and Nevada.
Despite his business interests, Leonard continued to farm his
eleven -acre orchard at the corner of Bascom and Fruitdale Avenues.
In 1913, seeing the future in largescale and modernized agriculture,
Leonard sold the Campbell orchard and moved to Chico to manage
139
fruit -growing and drying operations on a 17,000 acre ranch. The
next year, he bought part of the ninety -six -acre Glendenning estate
on Homestead Road, converting forty-eight acres of it from dry -
farming to irrigated orchards. Leonard next purchased a nearby
six -acre parcel where he built a dehydrating and packing business
to add to his fruitgrowing enterprise. Under John and his son,
Burrel, also a Stanford man, the Leonard dehydrating operation
eventually became one of the most flexible in the Valley, constantly
making use of the most modern equipment and always promoting
a spirit of goodwill among its workers, who, naturally, were drawn
mostly from the surrounding farms. John Leonard died in 1975
at the age of 91. The Leonard -Glendenning acreages were the key
parcels to go into VALLCO Park and became the site of the Varian
building which started the Park on its way to development.
The Lesters
Will Lester, who, with his sisters and their husbands own one
of the largest individual VALLCO holdings, became Burrel Leon-
ard's partner. He traces his family history in Santa Clara County
to the arrival of his grandfather, Nathan L. Lester in the early
1870's. But Nathan Lester's first entry into California had been
several years earlier when he, and his two brothers, all Connecticut
Yankees, landed in the Napa-Calistoga area where they ran the
old Bale Mill, presently a state historical landmark. The three
brothers returned to Connecticut and married three sisters, all of
whom were schoolteachers. They brought their brides back to
California, traveling on the new trans -continental railroad. All of
them bought ranches in the Willow Glen area of San Jose. When
Nathan Lester died from internal injuries suffered in a fall from
a ladder, his two oldest sons, one of them Will Lester's father,
had to help raise the rest of the six younger children. After seeing
all of the children into their teens, the elder Lesters expanded
their Willow Glen holdings to include ranches in Los Gatos,
Campbell, and Santa Clara. The Lesters purchased their acreage
near Stevens Creek Road adjacent to the Leonard property in 1945,
carrying the family trait of landbuying into modern times. The
trait once prompted Walter Ward to say of his business partner
that "Will and the Lester family owned office buildings in San
Francisco and had ranches wherever a freeway went, it seemed —
they had most of the productive orchard land" that went into
VALLCO Park.
Joining Lands Together
By the late 1950's, then, the Crafts, Lesters, Leonards and several
other families, such as the Orlando' and Milovina's, were in control
of the 450 acres which comprises VALLCO Park. They had readied
themselves for pooling their land by working together in 1958,
to ensure that the new Interstate 280 Freeway would cut through
their property with the least disruption to their business and the
maximum advantage for the, as then, undetermined future develop-
ment of the land. So, although it was the step which, once and
for all would end their dependence on farming, the families had
paved the way for the offers which fortuitously showed up several
years later in the form of the Varian company's wish to relocate
in Cupertino.
Aiding the families in taking advantage of the Varian proposal,
was Walter Ward, a friend of Burrel Leonard's from Stanford
days who had started with Burrel's company as a shoveler of prunes,
later becoming an accountant and business manager of the Leonard
fruit drying operation. As a lifelong friend of the orchardists, a
man with innate business acumen and an ardent Sierra Club member,
Ward seemed to combine the practical and idealistic characteristics
which eventually would be melded into the creation of the profitable,
but physically attractive, VALLCO Business and Industrial Park.
His personality complemented the personalities of his two working
partners, Will Lester and Burrel Leonard. "We each have com-
pletely different backgrounds," Ward acknowledged long after their
teamwork had proven to be successful. "Burrel is a very imaginative
fellow. He thinks up all these things and I say, `But, gee, how
are you going to do this physically? For instance, the billing and
the accounting?' I mean, I'm a practical guy, if you would. We
seem not to fight each other, though. We have our differences
but we seem to resolve them and out of it all there comes -an
average which seems to work pretty well. It isn't easy and it takes
a lot of work."
140 1 141
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Today, al,IIof that work has led to a business park which employs
more than 9,000 people and which has a projected employment
upon completion of development of more than 20,000 people. The
regional shopping center, sporting three major department stores,
has risen on both sides of Wolfe Road, between Stevens Creek
Boulevard and Homestead Road, after undergoing a two-year battle
with residents who were attempting to limit its size or keep it
out of the city altogether. A major hotel still is being planned
further north on Wolfe Road, as are additional office and industrial
buildings. VALLCO continued minimal farming operations of the
remaining orchards into the 1970's but a master plan called for
phasing out of all farming by completion of development.
The battle against the regional shopping center may have been
one of the most critical points in the city's history since it proved
to be a test of whether property owners who had held their property
from development —waiting for larger, more esthetic, more profita-
ble developers —would be allowed to exercise their property rights,
even though it meant more intense development than newer residents
and others were willing to accept. Ironically, the philosophy and
aims of the anti-VALLCO residents mirrored the goals which had
been formulated by the proponents of incorporation —many of them
future VALLCO partners-20 years earlier. Each group, in its
day, wanted growth to come at a rate which would afford local
officials time to assess its impact, while developing a tax base
that would support governmental and educational needs of the
community and provide varied employment. Each group favored
masterplanning so that developers would do their best, not their
worst, quickest or cheapest, in building upon their land. Each group
called for a balance of commercial, industrial and residential
neighborhoods so that taxes could be collected from the businesses
and industries as a means of helping provide services for residents,
such as sewers, schools, parks and other amenities. But, by the
1970's a gulf of time and vantage point had separated the VALLCO
people from the newer environmentalists in defining these common
goals.
The cry against VALLCO reached a fever pitch by 1973 when
the city council approved a use permit for the construction of
the regional shopping center. Banded together in an organization
called Sensible People Against Commercial Excess (SPACE), foes
of the center had succeeded in trimming its size from four to
three major department stores. But the environmentalists asserted
that they originally had been promised that the center would be
even smaller than the size approved by the council in the use
permit. SPACE launched a petition drive which succeeded in
convincing the city council members, in a 3 to 2 vote, to place
the use permit matter on the ballot for a citywide election. VALLCO
countered with a lawsuit. At the last minute before the deadline
for printing the ballots, a Superior Court judge ruled that the matter
was not a proper one for a referendum since it dealt with the
exercise of property rights which had resulted from the earlier
commercial zoning granted to the landowners.
In many ways, the court ruling sealed the fate of the remaining
undeveloped land in Cupertino where some orchards —though
precious few -still were growing in the mid-1970's. Paul Mariani
Jr.'s vast orchards and the lands belonging to his adjacent neighbors
soon would be hosting hoardes of bulldozers intent on moving
Cupertino further into the 20th Century with new businesses, new
industries and new homes. Mariani and his neighbors had failed
in their efforts to have their lands become the location for the
regional shopping center. After dozens of public hearings spanning
more than a year, the city council had decided the city's streets
and environment could bear only one regional shopping center.
Further hearings pitted the Mariani forces against the VALLCO
forces. The council decided it wanted the regional center to be
near the border of town and granted the zoning for the shopping
center to VALLCO. It was VALLCO's attempt to make use of
the zoning that led to the opposition from SPACE and the Superior
Court ruling. Meanwhile, the council had granted a combination
of commercial, industrial and residential zoning to Mariani and
his neighbors, who soon began to develop their properties, separately
or in groups of two or three.
By 1975, many of the lands which had been among the earliest
homesites of Cupertino's pioneers were being developed, after
remaining in their virtually pioneer -era condition for a century.
Among them were the last few acres of the land on Orange Avenue
in Monta Vista, cleared by Samuel R. Williams, in 1870, and the
Saich homestead at the corner of Stevens Creek Boulevard and
Stelling Road. The back portion of the Parrish estate, next door,
was being turned into a well -planned city park, complete with a
lake and outdoor amphitheater. The one site assured of a permanent
142 1 143
preservation in its almost natural state was the old Elisha Stephen's
homestead, just a few hundred feet down from the bend in Stevens
Creek where Anza's men camped in 1776. The site, known for
years simply as The Horse Ranch, faced plans which might have
turned it into another typical suburban manicured park. However,
the same compelling beauty which drew mountain man Stephens
to the site, convinced Cupertinans in the 1970's that the ranch
should be kept as close to its natural condition as possible. A
special Horse Ranch Citizens Committee, not unlike the committees
which sprang up throughout Cupertino's history, was hard at work
ensuring that such admirable goals would become realities.
Thus, Cupertino on the verge of its bicentennial had, in a sense,
come full circle from wild chapparal and live oak groves; to vineyards
and orchards tended by hardworking and proud families; to devel-
opment as a commercial and industrial center and, finally, returning
to that sense of awe and appreciation for The Land which had
made Cupertinans out of European immigrants, and American
patriots out of American dreamers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is the pleasure of the California History Center to declare
here our particular indebtedness and thanks to the following individ-
uals and groups. Louis Stocklmeir and Catherine Gasich for their
historical authentication of research; Don Frolich for his assistance
on the story of incorporation; Mabel Noonan for permitting us
to use her historical newsclippings and scrapbooks; Frances Martin
for her colorful recollections; Edward Cali, Paul Mariani, Walter
Ward and Burrel Leonard, for sharing their valuable time and
knowledge; Barry Bielinski for his patient assistance and encour-
agement; Charlie Baer, Francis H. Dixon and Warner Wilson for
the kind use of their photographs and Howard Uno Graphics for
their careful reproduction; the Cupertino Historical Society, Jeannie
Ryder, President, for their impetus and direction. We are especially
grateful for the financial assistance given by the Cupertino Chamber
of Commerce, Frank Mulkern, Manager, and to the Cupertino
American Revolution Bicentennial Committee, for their confidence
in the History Center's ability to present a quality publication as
a part of their bicentennial effort.
144 1 145
CALIFORNIA HISTORY CENTER
DE ANZA COLLEGE
Walter G. Warren, Director
Seonaid L. McArthur, Associate Director
Sharon Bolich, Executive Assistant
CONSEJO de HISTORIADORS
The Consejo represents select members of the community who
serve as an advisory counsel to the California History Center.
Jewel Altman
Corinne Craighead
Margarethe H. Friedl
Mady Friedl
Catherine Gasich
Lyn Kunkes
Ab Kunkes
Henrietta Marcotte
Margaret L. Nichols
Georgia Spiers
Alfred R. Spiers
Mary E. West
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