page_title: Santa Clara, California
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Clara, California / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Postcard: Main Street, Santa Clara, about 1910. Store Web page states: "Original, circa 1910 postcard. Caption reads "Main Street, Santa Clara, Calif". Card is postally unused"
context_page_description: Santa Clara is a city in Santa Clara County, California. The city's population was 116,468 as of the 2010 United States Census, making it the ninth-most populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area. Located on the southern coast of San Francisco Bay immediately west of San Jose and 45 miles southeast of San Francisco, the city was founded in 1777 with the establishment of Mission Santa Clara de Asís, the eighth of 21 California missions. The city was later incorporated in 1852. The mission, the city, and the county are all named for Saint Clare of Assisi.
  Santa Clara is located in the center of Silicon Valley and is home to the headquarters of several high-tech companies such as Intel. It is also home to Santa Clara University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of California, which was built around Mission Santa Clara de Asís. Levi's Stadium, the home of the National Football League's San Francisco 49ers, is located in the city. Santa Clara is bordered by San Jose on all sides, except for Sunnyvale to the west, and Cupertino to the west.
context_section_description: The first European to visit the valley was José Francisco Ortega in 1769. He found the area inhabited by Native Americans, whom the Spanish called the Costanos, "coast people", later known as the Ohlone. The Spanish began to colonize California with 21 missions and the Mission Santa Clara de Asis was founded in 1777.
  In 1846, the American flag was raised over Monterey and symbolized the transfer of the sovereignty of the California Republic over to the United States. In 1851, Santa Clara College was established on the grounds of the original Mission. In 1852, Santa Clara was incorporated as a town; it became state-chartered by 1862.
  For the next century the economy centered on agriculture since orchards and vegetables were thriving in the fertile soil. By the beginning of the 20th century, the population had reached 5,000 and stayed about the same for many years.
  In 1905, the first public high-altitude flights by humans were made over Santa Clara in gliders designed by John J. Montgomery. The semiconductor industry, which sprouted around 1960, changed the city and surrounding Valley of Heart's Delight; little of its agricultural past remains.
  Santa Clara's first medical hospital was built in 1963. This structure, on Kiely Boulevard, was replaced in 2007 with the new Kaiser Permanente medical center located on Lawrence Expressway at Homestead Road.
  Santa Clara was also home to a major mental health facility, Agnews State Hospital. According to the National Park Service, more than 100 persons were killed at this site in the 1906 earthquake. The site is the former home to Sun Microsystems and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
  Downtown Santa Clara: the 1963 City Council voted to knock down the 8 block grid of downtown area next to Santa Clara University bordered by Lafayette, Benton, Monroe, and Homestead (previously named Liberty in 1963) to receive federal funding from Urban Renewal in USA. In 2018 there is a parking lot and Franklin Mall on Washington St (2 blocks) with the one state historical building is, Santa Clara Post Office, apartment building, county courthouse, and strip mall.
caption: Santa Clara's Main Street, circa 1910
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