The topic of the meeting will be Mt. Umunhum, the second highest peak you see looking south in the direction of Santa Cruz. The history of Mt. Umunhum and its current status will be presented by Basim Jaber, a life-long South Bay native and free lance photographer.

Mr. Jaber has researched the history and geography of Mt. Umunhum and the Almaden Air Force Station since 2006. In 1957 the Air Force opened a radar station on the second highest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains. There were 120 service members and their families living there at one time. In 1980 the Air Force closed down the facility, leaving a deserted ghost town that slowly deteriorated. In 2009 Congress approved the site for clean-up after 50 years of being off limits to the public. Once the site is cleared, the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District plans to open it to the public with hiking trails and vista views.

Mr. Jaber’s unprecedented photo documentary work of the entire site has proved to be invaluable to preserving the history and memories of Almaden Air Force Station.

The public is invited to attend, meet Mr. Jaber and learn the history of this fascinating place.

Milpitas Community Museum Fund
c/o Milpitas Historical Society
160 N. Main St.
Milpitas, CA 95035

Known all his life as “Billy,” Burnett was born in 1848 in Missouri. When he was 11 years old, he started out with his family—parents, two sisters, and grandmother—in a covered wagon across the plains on the Old Oregon Trail.

The family spent two years crossing the country and then coming south from Oregon to central California. Shortly before they reached their destination in Santa Clara County, tragedy struck the family when Billy’s father became ill and died in Stockton, leaving Billy, at age 13, as the man of the family. The family went on to Mountain View and lived there for the next several years.

Then in 1867, when Billy was 19, he and his mother purchased 170 acres from Marshall Pomeroy (who later became one of the first teachers in Milpitas schools) for $2500. This property is east of the current Evans Road. They had a small vineyard and almond orchard there, but Billy’s main focus was raising cattle. He grazed many cattle back in the hills behind the present Calaveras Reservoir in a valley known as Arroyo Hondo, and partnered with other ranchers to run even more cattle.

He remained a bachelor throughout his life. In Milpitas he lived with his mother and younger sisters. His sister Fanny later became the first woman to work at the State Capitol in Sacramento. And his sister Annie’s daughter Grace married into the pioneer Evans family.

After many years of ranching, he and his mother sold their land in two sections, one in 1894 to “Whiskers” Rodriguez, and the other, a few years later, to the Evans brothers (one of whom was married to his niece). Billy moved to San Jose, and soon after that to Palo Alto. He continued raising cattle in the Calaveras country in various partnerships until his death in 1931 at 83. He was always known as Billy or Uncle Billy, and was as respected as an elder for his kindness and honesty as he had been in his youth.

William Burnett Elementary School was dedicated in 1963 and has won high ratings for the quality of the education it provides its students

In case you were wondering: Although they had the same last name, William Burnett was not related to Peter Hardeman Burnett, who was the first Governor of California when it was admitted to the Union in 1850. Governor Burnett had a street in Alviso named for him. He lived there between 1850-1854 before moving to San Jose. That street’s name was changed to Taylor Street in the 1970’s as the streets were merged.

The next Milpitas Historical Society meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 11, at 7:00 pm. Our presenter at this meeting will be John Boessenecker, a writer, attorney, and charismatic speaker, who will tell the story of the famous California outlaw Tiburcio Vasquez, the subject of his latest book, Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez.

By John Boessenecker

He’ll also tell us about some banditry that went on in our very own area in those Wild West days.

Vasquez (1835-1875) grew up in Monterey, robbed and romanced his way through much of California for 20 years after the Gold Rush, and was finally captured in Los Angeles, tried and hanged in San Jose, and buried in Santa Clara.

Special Note: Once again, our meeting will not be held in the Community Room (Auditorium) of the Milpitas Library, but in the Library’s cozy Children’s Activity Room in the children’s wing, where we met in January. We will set up signs to show you the way.

The public is invited, no charge. Light refreshments will be served. See you there!

One was a Rancho Milpitas formed when the lands of the Mission San Antonio de Padua, (in Monterey County, near today’s King City) were secularized and divided into Mexican land grants. When William Randolph Hearst acquired the rancho in 1925, he commissioned architect Julia Morgan (who also designed Hearst Castle, some 30 miles from there) to build the Hacienda Milpitas for his employees and guests. It was completed in 1930 and has also been known as Hacienda Guest Lodge and Milpitas Ranchhouse, under which name the property was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

Although the land was acquired by the U.S. War Department in 1940 to create a troop training facility, and the Hacienda was used as housing by the military during WWII and after, today, the US Army Reserve operates the base, and a civilian concessionaire is allowed to run the Milpitas Hacienda as a hotel open both to the public and to the military.

The other was, according to Spanish and Indian Place Names of California, by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez, the the crop and garden area of Mission San Antonio de Pala, in San Diego County. The Mission was founded in 1861 as an “asistencia” to its parent, Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, about 25 miles east of San Luis Rey, and is now located inside the Pala Indian Reservation.

Alfred French arrived in the Santa Clara Valley from Ohio, by way of the Gold Country in 1852, in the company of other early settlers Dudley Wells and Nicholas Harris.

The original hotel structure, located on the northwest corner of Serra and Main Street, was built by Alex Anderson (on a lot rented from Michael Hughes, Milpitas’ first American settler) and run briefly by two other people before French purchased it. County records show that in 1859, French paid A.M. Thompson $1500 for the parcel of land on which the hotel and stable were located. French’s Hotel burned down on January 17, 1861, but French immediately rebuilt it and kept it running for at least 30 years.

The US Census of 1860 lists the French family as Alfred, Nancy, John S., Theodore, E. E., William E., and their oldest daughter Clemina French (age 25) who was one of the first school teachers in the first Milpitas Grammar School, then recently built on Higuera grant land owned by Abraham Weller at the north end of town.

When French sold it in the 1890’s, it became the Milpitas Hotel, which burned down again in the great Milpitas fire of August 1910 that destroyed three saloons, two barbershops, and a grocery store as well.

French served as a Justice of the Peace in Milpitas from the 1860s to the 1880s. Around 1890, he retired and moved to San Jose.

The lot on which the hotel once stood has remained more or less intact down to the present day. By the mid 1920s, a Fat Boy Barbeque Restaurant was erected on the site. The Fat Boy Restaurants were one of the first “fast food” chains in America and the one in Milpitas was a landmark for community connection for many years until it finally closed in the 1970’s. Today the site is occupied by a dental office building with a fine display of local history in the lobby.

Our speaker will be John Kimball, a history fan, Valley resident since 1950, and the presenter of two historical films to the Society last year. He will show a film about the Dust Bowl years in the 1930’s and demonstrate, with other films, some words of John Steinbeck, and music of Woody Guthrie, how that era affected our own Santa Clara (now Silicon) Valley.

The public is invited, no charge. Light refreshments will be served. We hope to see you there!

160 North Main Street
Milpitas, CA 95035

Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves then conducted the swearing-in ceremony for the 2012 Society Officers and Board of Directors, as pictured below: From left to right, Mareile Ogle, Historian; Bill Hare, Vice- President; Mabel Matos, Membership; Catherine Pelizzari, Secretary and Publications; Kraig Bunnell, Treasurer; Joann Souza, Hospitality; Steve Munzel, Archives and Landmarks; Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Resources Commission Liaison;, and Thelma Bridges, Special Events.

After the keynote speech, Bill Hare presented Lifetime Membership Awards for outstanding service to the Society to Mabel Mattos, Harriett McGuire, and Steve Munzel.