February 16, 2012

Key Note Speaker: Richard Santos, President of the Santa Clara Valley Water District
Oath of Office Administered by: Mayor José Esteves

Omega Restaurant
90 South Park Victoria Drive

6:30 Cocktails
7:00 Buffet Dinner
Tri-tip steak, Chicken Jerusalem, Pasta Primavera

Cost: $24 per person
Send your check and reservations to:
Milpitas Historical Society
Attn: Installation Dinner
2407 Mattos Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035

For more information call: [408] 320-9587

Members and friends interested in this tour will meet at 2:00 PM in the parking lot of the Big 5 Sporting Goods store parking lot at 757 E. Calaveras Blvd. After a short business meeting, we will carpool to the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. We should arrive there around 2:30 pm and will get to see their new exhibit on American Invention, which opens on June 17. We will tour the museum for about an hour or so, and then ask questions to the staff about how they operate a volunteer-based museum. We should be back by 4:30 pm.

A unique museum of historic technologies, the Museum of American heritage is located in the historic Williams House and Gardens near downtown Palo Alto at 351 Homer Avenue.

At the museum’s new exhibit, “Victorian America: Invention and Technology.” we’ll discover inventions that shaped America, displayed in a century-old home and garden. The Victorian Age (approximately 1837-1914) was one of the most prolific periods of invention and technological development. Photography, electricity, radio and mass production all came of age during the period, and the architecture of the age still reminds us, often with nostalgia, of Victorian elegance.

Travel back in time with us and revisit the times that laid the cornerstone for the modern world.

Our meeting and the museum tour are open to the public. For more information, call: 408-320-9587.

At around 10:00 am, the tour will visit the Silva apricot ranch, 891 Piedmont Rd. to see the last working apricot farm in Milpitas. Member and owner Kelly Silva will show us how apricots are cut and processed.

Then around 10:30 am the tour will cross the road to the historic St. John the Baptist Cemetery, 651 Old Piedmont Road. Established in 1902, originally the parish cemetery for St. John the Baptist church in Milpitas, it is the resting place of many pioneer Milpitas families. Joanne Sousa, who has family resting there, will provide information and a walking tour around the cemetery.

For the last stop, at noon, the tour will go up Felter Road to the Big Dog Winery for a wine tasting. There are picnic tables available if you’d like to bring a lunch to enjoy with their award-winning wines and the spectacular view of our Santa Clara Valley.

The Historical Society will be making flyers and maps of the tour that we will need help giving out. For further information on the tour and how you might help, please call Harriett McGuire at 262-7979.

Call Harriett McGuire for more information at 262- 7979.

Her presentation will cover how to work on your family tree and what the society offers for help to family historians and researchers through the vast local and international collection housed in the Santa Clara Central Library on Homestead Road.

The library and the society have combined collections including not only Santa Clara County and California records, but also genealogical information from a variety of other places in the United States, including New England and the southern states as well as family information about ethnic groups such as Italian, Jewish, Native American, Canadian, and many others.

The Milpitas Historical Society meeting will be held Wednesday, May 11 at 7 pm in the Community Room of the Milpitas Public Library, 160 N. Main Street. The public is invited to attend free of charge and meet Ms. Gentry. For further information on the Historical Society, phone (408) 320-9587.

Light refreshments will follow the meeting.

As part of the presentation, she showed us a photograph of this grand old Hall of Records building in San Jose, built in 1893 on the corner of First and St. James Streets, It also housed the offices of the county clerk, treasurer, auditor, surveyor, recorder and superintendent of schools until it was taken down in 1966 because it was not earthquake safe.

You can find more information about the Archives and its collections at http://archives.sccgov.org.
The current Santa Clara County Archives are now at 1875 Senter Road in San Jose (near Kelly Park).

Ms Orlenko will also discuss preservation supply vendors and conservation treatment options. She began her long career as a conservator in the Conservation Office of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C and now has a private business in conservation of art on paper and of rare books and documents, and acts as consultant on preservation issues to various institutions and private collectors.

For further information on Kathleen Orlenko, and on her career and work in this field go to her web site.

Light refreshments will follow the meeting.

In a corner of Santa Clara Valley there exists an exceptional historical site that very few know anything about and one that far fewer have ever visited.

Located in the eastern foothills at about 2000 ft. elevation above Gilroy at the far end of a canyon sits the 150 year old resort of Gilroy Hot Springs.

The resort first began in approximately 1860 receiving visitors including California’s elite.

The resort was widely known for it’s recreation and curative powers.

Early advertising cite the ability to leave S.F. by train in the morning and having taken a special livery from the Gilroy train station arrive on site by afternoon.

In it’s heyday the resort is known to have entertained 500+ guests as well as the staff and their families who lived on-site.

Although the hotel and sleeping annex burned down in the late 1900′s their still exists a small town of cabins, barn, and resort facilities.

In the latter years of the sites operations in the late 1900′s the site was home to app. 60 post-internment camp Japanese-American families.

Currently, due to the extremely fragile state of the site access to this historical monument is limited to guided tours offered by the Friends of Gilroy Hot Springs.

Two members of the Friends of Gilroy Hot Springs will be presenting a narrated slide show as well as a display of artifacts to members of the Milpitas Historical Society as well as  members of the general public.

The Milpitas Historical Society will be hosting a Foothills Tour on Saturday, June 26th. If you wish to attend this tour please contact Barbara Bowman at 942-1492.

The first stop will be at the only apricot ranch left in Milpitas which is owned by Society members Kelly and Diana Silva.

You will be able to see first hand how the apricots are picked, cut, sulfured and spread on the ground to dry. This ranch has belonged to the Silva family since the 1800′s, and his son Clarence (Kelly) continues to farm it.

Across the street, our next stop is the gated St. John’s Catholic Cemetery which is closed to the public. St John’s is the resting place of many pioneers who settled in our town. The previous owners were Frederico and Teresa Narvaez who sold the property to Sebina Dias on September 8, 1898 for $625. Four days later on September 12,1898 she sold the property to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco for the same price. The first burial according to records was on February 13, 1903. John Joseph Cabral was 55 and a native of Portugal. Other names that may be familiar to members and the community are Borge, Carlo, Coelho, Gomes, Lopes, Mello, Nunes, Pashote, Pedro, Rose, Silova, Silveira, Soares, Pimental and Terra.

Next stop will be Ed Levin Park to get the ranger who will open the gate to the Downing Ranch at Sandy Wool Park. This ranch was once owned by long time rancher George Lucas Downing in the 1800′s. This is still a working ranch and not open to the public. There is an interesting rock formation once used by the Ohlone Indians on a hill at the ranch we may climb up to view.

The public is welcome to attend, the group will meet at Mervyn’s parking lot at 9:45 a.m. and plan to leave at 10 a.m.

It is suggested everyone wear sun screen, a hat, walking shoes and bring a bottle of water.