The Milpitas Historical Society was founded in 1980 by 79 concerned citizens who feared the loss of our city’s heritage. The first president of the society and the person most responsible for the society’s creation was Elaine Levine. Mrs. Levine and her husband, Mort, were the founders of the Milpitas Post newspaper.

One of the first accomplishments of the Society was to persuade the city of Milpitas to create a Cultural Resources Preservation Board in 1986. This city commission was empowered by ordinance to review for approval or rejection all construction or alteration which involved cultural resources.

In 1992, the City Council acted to dissolve the Cultural Resources Preservation Board after the CRPB insisted that Ford Corporation mitigate the destruction of the historic motor assembly plant when it built the Great Mall by purchasing property on Main St. to be used as a community museum. The duties of ordinance enforcement were passed on to the newly created Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources Commission.

(The historical display near the food court at the Great Mall was the only cultural resource mitigation required of Ford. The display has been maintained by the Historical Society for many years at no cost to the Great Mall’s owners.)

During the 1980s the Society conducted oral history interviews with persons who recalled the days before Milpitas became a city. Transcribing the tapes was begun but the work of completing the task remains to be finished.

In 1986, the Society sponsored the publishing of Milpitas, The Century of Little Cornfields. This book, written by Patricia Loomis, told the story of the people who came to this area. It begins with the first land grant ranchos and ends in 1952, as plans were beginning to be made to move the Ford Motor Assembly Plant to Milpitas from Richmond, CA.

In the late 1980s, the Society raised funds, including a $100,000 grant received from Shapell Industries in 1990, for the purpose of restoring and preserving some of the most precious of our few remaining historic buildings.