Downing Road, which branches off of Calaveras Road in the hills to the east to Milpitas, isn’t really within Milpitas city limits, but it nonetheless commemorates a family and their ranch which was very important to Milpitas history.
Milpitas People and Places
Street Name Stories
Downing Road Map
William F. Downing Family Arrived in 1881
The William F. Downing family came from Nevada in 1881 and bought land east of the Evans ranch and north of Laguna Valley, where Downing Road was later cut into Calaveras Road. The ranch was purchased from Henry Curtner and was part of Ranchos Tularcitos and Agua Caliente.
One of the first to rent land from the Downings was Joseph Silva, who came to the area in 1886 and whose family continued to farm the land half way through the 20th century.
George Lucas Downing
William F. Downing’s son, George Lucas Downing, (1879-1931) continued the tradition of tenant farming. He encouraged the local Portuguese farmers, whose knowledge of farming and willingness to work he respected, to send for their relatives in the Azores Islands.
George would give the tenants a house, a barn, a cow, and a plot of land. Two thirds of their season’s profit would go to the tenant farmer, and the rest would go to Mr. Downing. As many as 30 tenant families farmed the Downing land, grateful for the opportunity to come the United States.
George Lucas Downing and his wife Georgia had three children, Jerome and Lorraine, both of whom died young, and Suzanne, who grew up to marry the younger George Abel, the son of another pioneer Milpitas settler.
In 1903, Airpoint School was built at the corner of Downing Road and Calaveras Road, so that children of the Downing and other nearby ranches would have a school within reasonable distance of their homes. George Lucas Downing was a long-time trustee of Airpoint School.
March 1, 2012 by mhs
Evans Road Named for
Early Settler Josiah Evans
Evans Road, which marks the eastern boundary of residential Milpitas in many places, is named for Josiah Evans, one of our early settlers, who owned a ranch that bordered the road.
Present day Evans Road follows the same route as the historic road that served the ranches of the 1860s.
Evans came to Milpitas in 1853 from Ohio after a few years in the California gold fields, during which time he founded the Butte County city of Evansville. He bought 800 acres of Rancho Tularcitos land in 1853. His ranch was described in 1874 by a reporter for the San Jose Mercury as having fine orchards of fruit and nut trees. The present day road follows the same route as the historic road that served the ranches of the 1860s.
America Evans Married Samuel Ayer
In 1862, his daughter, America Evans, married Samuel Ayer, another Milpitas pioneer rancher, who became a respected long-time county supervisor, for whom the first high school in Milpitas was named. That school (1959- 1980) was located at 1395 E. Calaveras Blvd, the current location of the Milpitas Sports Center.
by mhs May 7, 2011