EVERYTHING WHAT YOU NEEDTO DREAM...
San Jose
KNOWLEDGE OF San Jose
Before the silicon chip, before Dionne Warwick ("Do You Know the Way to San Jose?", and well before the Spanish gave it a name, San Jose was home to scattered settlements of Ohlone Indians. The Ohlone ("The People") were hunter-gatherers who had lived around San Francisco Bay since the end of the last Ice Age. The southern end of the Bay, where bustling San Jose now stands, provided the Ohlones with an particularly felicitous mix of mild climate, redwood forests, acorn-filled oak groves, and creeks and bay wetlands abounding with fish and wildlife.
On November 6, 1769, Gaspar de Portola walked into the Ohlone's peaceful world by mistake. Portola was looking for Monterey Bay, discovered (in 1602), and subsequently described with wild inaccuracy, by Sebastian Vizcaino. It would take Portola two expeditions to find it. On this first mission, he became the first European to lay eyes on San Francisco Bay, and on the Ohlone. (Portola set up camp to the north under a tall redwood, a place he called el palo alto. The tree, and its namesake city, are both thriving today.)
In 1775, Juan Batista de Anza arrived in the area with a number of Spaniards intent on settling the territory of Alta California, and civilizing the Ohlone. In two years, a mission was built on a site close to the Guadalupe River, dubbed Mission Santa Clara de Asis (after Saint Claire of Assisi). The area around the settlement came to be known as Santa Clara Valley. (Today, San Jose is the seat of Santa Clara County.) To maintain the mission, an agricultural outpost was founded nearby on November 29, 1777: El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, so called after St. Joseph, the patron saint of the territory. Because this was the first civilian lay presence in Alta California, San Jose can claim the title of the oldest city in the state. Spanish settlers planted vineyards and orchards and developed cattle ranches. The Ohlone learned agriculture, were absorbed into the burgeoning Spanish community, and ceased to exist as a distinct culture.
The year 1821 marked the Mexican Revolution and a change in the administration of Alta California. A period of tension between Mexico and the United States followed, as the American frontier pushed ever westward, culminating in 1846 with the Mexican-American War. The Santa Clara Valley saw the only action between United States and Mexicans (or, more precisely Californios) in Northern California, in fact, at the Battle of Santa Clara.
The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848 had a profound effect on San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley. While not a vein of the "mother lode" that ran far south, the Valley's western foothills were rich in cinnabar, an ore containing mercury and sulfur, both valuable minerals important for the refinement of gold and silver. The Valley's agricultural, industrial and mercantile resources, which fed and clothed miners up at the diggings, also played an important role in bringing prosperity to San Jose. In 1850, two years after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, California won statehood; thanks in large part to the determined lobbying efforts of two local real estate promoters, and San Jose became the state's first capital. In its year in San Jose (a hard, rainy winter would drive the capital to Benecia, Vallejo, and finally Sacramento), the hard-living State Assembly was known as "the Legislature of a Thousand Drinks".
On November 6, 1769, Gaspar de Portola walked into the Ohlone's peaceful world by mistake. Portola was looking for Monterey Bay, discovered (in 1602), and subsequently described with wild inaccuracy, by Sebastian Vizcaino. It would take Portola two expeditions to find it. On this first mission, he became the first European to lay eyes on San Francisco Bay, and on the Ohlone. (Portola set up camp to the north under a tall redwood, a place he called el palo alto. The tree, and its namesake city, are both thriving today.)
In 1775, Juan Batista de Anza arrived in the area with a number of Spaniards intent on settling the territory of Alta California, and civilizing the Ohlone. In two years, a mission was built on a site close to the Guadalupe River, dubbed Mission Santa Clara de Asis (after Saint Claire of Assisi). The area around the settlement came to be known as Santa Clara Valley. (Today, San Jose is the seat of Santa Clara County.) To maintain the mission, an agricultural outpost was founded nearby on November 29, 1777: El Pueblo de San Jose de Guadalupe, so called after St. Joseph, the patron saint of the territory. Because this was the first civilian lay presence in Alta California, San Jose can claim the title of the oldest city in the state. Spanish settlers planted vineyards and orchards and developed cattle ranches. The Ohlone learned agriculture, were absorbed into the burgeoning Spanish community, and ceased to exist as a distinct culture.
The year 1821 marked the Mexican Revolution and a change in the administration of Alta California. A period of tension between Mexico and the United States followed, as the American frontier pushed ever westward, culminating in 1846 with the Mexican-American War. The Santa Clara Valley saw the only action between United States and Mexicans (or, more precisely Californios) in Northern California, in fact, at the Battle of Santa Clara.
The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848 had a profound effect on San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley. While not a vein of the "mother lode" that ran far south, the Valley's western foothills were rich in cinnabar, an ore containing mercury and sulfur, both valuable minerals important for the refinement of gold and silver. The Valley's agricultural, industrial and mercantile resources, which fed and clothed miners up at the diggings, also played an important role in bringing prosperity to San Jose. In 1850, two years after the conclusion of the Mexican-American War, California won statehood; thanks in large part to the determined lobbying efforts of two local real estate promoters, and San Jose became the state's first capital. In its year in San Jose (a hard, rainy winter would drive the capital to Benecia, Vallejo, and finally Sacramento), the hard-living State Assembly was known as "the Legislature of a Thousand Drinks".
Chapi