by Steve Munzel, September 2016
Milpitas People and Places
Dr. William Lester Wilson (1861–1943)
The first physician we know of to practice in Milpitas was Dr. William Lester Wilson. He was born in 1861 in Crawfordville, Indiana — then and now the home of Wabash College. One of his neighbors was Gen. Lew Wallace, a Union officer who later wrote the famous novel, Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ in 1880.
Dr. Wilson married Sara Lucetta (maiden name unknown) and they had five children: Darby, Walter, George, Carl, and Maud. In the late 1880s, he packed up his young family and moved west. He lived and practiced at 10 Capitol Avenue in Milpitas Township until 1904 when he sold the practice to Dr. Rensaeler Smith, who moved to the “downtown” of the village and in 1915 built the wonderful home designed by Frank Delos Wolfe on Main St. (then called San Jose-Oakland Road).
Drawing of medicine and stethoscopeOne of Dr. Wilson’s patients was A.P. Giannini, the founder of the Bank of America. Dr. Wilson was a believer in Chinese herbal medicine and periodically traveled to San Francisco with a supply of herbal teas for Giannini. One of Dr. Wilson’s great granddaughters, Judith Hill, recalled that he made her and her siblings take a tea made from the herbs and that it tasted awful.
In 1934, Dr. Wilson delivered his own grandson at the old O’Connor Hospital, then located on San Carlos St. in San Jose.
Dr. Wilson moved from Milpitas to the Scotts Valley area and later lived in a large Victorian house across from the old tannery in Santa Cruz where he practiced until his death on October 14, 1943.
Many of Dr. Wilson’s descendants live in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Notes from Our Milpitas Past: Early Homicides
by Steve Munzel, October 2011
Among the many historical resources at our County Archives is the History of Santa Clara County, published in 1882. We in Milpitas are fortunate to live in one of the few counties in California with an official archives.
In that book is a list of early homicides including the earliest murders I’ve found in Milpitas. The first was the stabbing death of Francisco Hernandez in 1859 that took place on what was then called the Milpitas-Alviso Road (today Highway 237) near the Barber ranch, located just east of Coyote Creek. Today, Barber Lane is named for that ranch family.
The second was the killing of Bernada Zunaga in 1865 at Rathbone’s Saloon. Augustus Rathbone had bought the saloon from Richard Greenham in 1856. It was located at the corner of Mission Road and Milpitas- Alviso Road. Today this intersection is Main Street and Serra Street and the early saloon (later Smith’s Corner and then Campbell’s Corner) was most recently the site of the Taste of India restaurant.
Unfortunately, both murderers escaped.