Santa Clara, CA

The city of Santa Clara, located in the center of the Silicon Valley, began with the founding of Mission Santa Clara de Asis, by Father Junipero Serra, in January 1777; this was the 8th of 21 established missions by the Franciscan monk. Mission Santa Clara de Asis was the first mission to be built in honor of a woman, Clare of Assisi, founder of the Order of Poor Ladies.The area, in Santa Clara, around where the mission was built, has thee seasonal creeks, which empty into the San Francisco Bay. This lead to flooding in the area causing the mission to be moved several times, floods, fire, and earthquakes damaged many of the early buildings; the property was eventually inherited by Santa Clara College (now Santa Clara University). This was the only mission that became associated with a college, and Santa Clara College became California’s first institution of higher learning. Santa Clara College was the first to award a bachelor’s degree in California in 1857

In the 1850’s, with the California gold rush, some of the hordes of immigrants settled in the fertile valley around the mission. Manufacturing and farming grew as the main industries for Santa Clara. Some of the more notable companies included, Wampach Tannery (leather products), Pacific Manufacturing Company (lumber, mill work, moldings), C.C. Morse and Company (seed farm). The town of Santa Clara incorporated in 1852. After World War II, the industry in Santa Clara changed dramatically, as the semiconductor industry changed production in the Santa Clara Valley forever. Very little remains of Santa Clara’s robust agricultural beginning, as the orchards and farmland gave way to the new electronic age. Santa Clara, currently, has a population of approximately 117,000 up from only 5,000 in the early 1900’s, and occupies 18.4 square miles of land, giving it a population density of over 6,000 per square mile. There are many technology oriented companies in Santa Clara. Some of the most notable include: Intel, Applied Materials, Oracle, and Nvidia.