(Note: The content on this page was originally created as a website circa 2007 by History San Jose, sponsored by Summerhill Homes, with help from the Bettencourt Family and Joe Machado. The website has been retired and all content can be found below.)

Dairy Hill is in a small group of hills which stand in the midst of the Santa Clara Valley, about four miles south of downtown San Jose. The home of birds, butterflies, people and cows, Dairy Hill in the year 2000 was one of the last undeveloped pieces of land in the Valley. Discover the history of Dairy Hill by exploring the place and its surroundings, meeting the people who lived and worked here, and seeing the things that make this hill unique.

Dairy Hill: The People

Dairy Hill has been lightly impacted by its inhabitants over the past 10,000 years. The Ohlone people gathered chert from the hill and tule reeds from its base. The Spanish surrounded the hill with ranchos and a cemetery and let their cattle roam throughout the area.

Americans bred dairy cattle here; the first to do so was a native New Yorker, Tyler Beach. Beach also bred swine and grew fruits and vegetables at the base of the hill.

For some 55 years, three families of Portuguese immigrants ran dairy cattle on Dairy Hill. The head of this family, Manuel Azevedo, arrived as a teenager and built the American Dairy Company into a prominent Valley enterprise.

Until the turn of the 21st century, precious few people lived or worked on this land. Dairy Hill was one of the last undeveloped places in the Santa Clara Valley.

The Tamien

The Santa Clara Valley is the homeland of the Tamien people, one of many tribal groups that are today often collectively referred to as Ohlone. The Santa Clara Valley provided a particularly abundant environment for them, thanks to the plants and animals found in and around the vast marsh created by the valley’s river and streams. The most important resource the Tamien gathered from Dairy Hill appears to have been chert, used for their arrows, tools, and axe blades. The hill did not have rich vegetation, though springtime perennials might have provided seeds for harvest.

Creeks like the Arroyo Tulares de los Canoas at the foot of Dairy Hill were especially important to the Tamien. These waterways provided the tule reeds with which they built their homes and canoes. Villages were often located near the larger creeks, and because the Arroyo Tulares rarely ran dry, it likely provided a good summer home site. Creek beds served as easy trails to follow from bayside to the hills. Archaeological digs along the north edge of Dairy Hill in the 1970s revealed some Tamien burial sites and tools associated with village life, but the extent of Tamien residence on the land is not clear.

Spanish-Mexicans

The first Spaniards to arrive in the area camped at the base of the San Juan Bautista Hills in 1774, noting “nothing but ground and grass” from the summit view. They described “a great amount of trees running along the hills on the north side,” a sure sign of a water source. The grasses were native perennial bunchgrasses and the trees were oaks. The oaks likely bordered the Guadalupe River, the largest and most reliable water source in the Valley. Along the river the Spanish founded their first civil settlement in Alta California – El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe.

[We came upon a] spacious plain toward the west-by-northwest, finding that the valley continues of good land with much pasturage and very thickly grown with oaks.

Fray Francisco Palóu, with Spain’s Rivera y Moncada expedition, 1774

The pueblo provided food for the soldiers at the presidios in Monterey and San Francisco. Pobladores (settlers) raised wheat, corn and livestock to be sent to the presidios. The pueblo had only a few dozen head of beef cattle in 1777; by 1800, it boasted several hundred, which roamed freely throughout the valley. The cattle ranged far and wide, often up to 15 miles from the pueblo center. In their explorations, the cattle disturbed the balance of native ecological systems, eating up native grasses and destroying the soil in which they grew.

Tyler Beach

With the arrival of the Americans in the 1840s and 1850s, the San Juan Bautista Hills started their period of most intensive use. Americans began to arrive in Alta California when the Mexican government invited settlers to come and make the land profitable in the 1830s. With the discovery of gold, this slow trickle of settlers became an onslaught in the 1840s and 1850s. Many Americans (and men from other countries), having tried and failed to make their fortune in the Gold Country, came out of the hills and settled in the Santa Clara Valley.

Tyler Beach, a native of New York state who arrived in San Jose in 1854, purchased Dairy Hill in the late 1860s and named it Beach Hill Farm. Beach raised fine stock of Ayrshire cattle, pureblood Berkshire and Essex swine, and Pekin ducks. The dairy operation on the Farm produced excellent milk, cheese, and butter. By draining land at the foot of the hill, Beach was able to create a fertile patch on which to grow grapes, citrus, and other fruits. This application of technology brought Dairy Hill to a new level of productivity.

Much of the farm’s produce was delivered directly to Beach’s St. James Hotel, located on St. James Park in the heart of the city. The fresh dairy products, excellent meats, and stellar fruits were highlights of the Hotel’s menu. The Farm also supplied high quality dairy products directly to customers.

Tyler Beach was active in the Santa Clara County Agricultural Society, serving as its secretary from 1868 through 1871. Upon his death in 1904, Beach was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery; his hotel was razed in 1932 to make way for the St. James Post Office.

Manuel Azevedo

Though Tyler Beach used the hill as a dairy in the 19th century, it didn’t become known as “Dairy Hill” until the early 20th century, when Manuel Azevedo purchased the land and made it the dairy farm of the American Dairy Company.

Manuel Theodore Azevedo was born in Portugal on October 15, 1870. Like so many of his generation, he made his way to the United States as a teenager, arriving in Boston in 1887. From there, he moved west, eventually settling in San Mateo, California and finding work as a hired hand on a dairy. But Azevedo had the talent and drive for much better things. Within two years he began leasing land in San Mateo County to run his own dairy operation. During the early 1900s, he operated a dairy in Stanislaus County.

In 1916, Manuel Azevedo entered into business with his countryman Manuel Lewis, taking over the American Dairy delivery service in San Jose. They kept the name and incorporated as the American Dairy Company. Under Azevedo’s management, the company prospered; in 1929 the dairy was distributing 2,750 gallons of milk daily. Azevedo also steadily added to his landholdings around Dairy Hill, until he owned some 600 acres. The property was bounded by Stone Avenue (now Curtner Avenue) to the north, Oak Hill Cemetery and Monterey Road to the east, the Almaden Road to the west and Hillsdale Avenue to the south.

Azevedo was a well-known and well-respected businessman, involved in Portuguese community groups and the Chamber of Commerce. He continually promoted the health benefits of his milk and dairy products. In the 1930s, orphans from the Benevolent Home were invited to the American Dairy Ranch at Christmas. They met Santa Claus, received gifts, and drank lots of healthy milk.

American Dairy Company

The American Dairy Company (ADC) conducted a thriving business throughout the first half of the twentieth century. The Dairy’s creamery at Seventeenth and Santa Clara Streets processed milk from Dairy Hill and other dairies throughout the county. The close proximity of the dairy farm to the plant meant that milk spent less time in transit, where it might be tainted. Just 12 hours after the milk came out of the cow, it was pasteurized, bottled, and delivered to ADC customers.

From the American Dairy ranch, located on Stone Avenue just beyond the city limits, which is stocked with a herd of purebred Jersey and Guernsey cows, the milk is brought within a few minutes after it has been drawn from the cows… Human hands do not touch the milk from the time it is taken from the cow until delivered to the consumer.

The Evening News, 2/11/1929

Azevedo and his employees prided themselves on producing high-quality dairy goods with the most modern equipment available. The processing plant was touted as a model for the industry. Management enforced rigorous standards for pasteurization, sterilization, and product handling. The American Dairy Company produced Grade A milk, a standard set by the Pure Milk Act of 1915. Maintaining the grade required frequent testing and inspection of facilities and cattle.

The American Dairy Company was a family operation. Azevedo’s nephew Manuel Bettencourt managed the creamery; one niece, Virginia, directed the dairy’s testing laboratory, while another, Alzira, ran the lunch counter at the dairy’s downtown location. After both Manuel Azevedo and Manuel Bettencourt had passed away, control of the dairy went to Bettencourt’s nephew Anthony Bettencourt, a banker by profession. Manuel Lewis’ family lived on the ranch and managed it for two generations.

In 1947 Borden purchased the creamery and the “American Dairy” name. The ranch became known as the “American Jersey Ranch” for the Jersey dairy cows there. The American Dairy Company continued operations under Borden into the 1960s.

Dairy Work

The routine of the dairy ranch revolved around the twice-daily milking schedule. On most dairies, cows were milked around 3:00 a.m. and again at 3:00 p.m. Workers ate breakfast after the morning milking and dinner after the evening milking. Small dairies required the entire family to work—children learned to milk as soon as they were able and often rose before dawn to milk cows before going to school.

Larger dairies required extra hands. In California’s Portuguese dairies, these hands were typically young men just arrived from Portugal. In the 1950s, dairy workers were paid about $200 a month and were furnished with room and board. Hired hands were sometimes given time off on Sundays to attend church, but might have only one full day off each month. Since the cows never took the day off, the hands and the family rarely had time off!

Milkers are by far the most important employees of a dairy and critical to its success. Happier cows are indeed better producers. Some cows had very definite preferences for particular milkers! Thus, the dairy owner tried to keep his milkers happy and well-paid. Many milkers at the ADC (and later American Jersey Ranch) worked there for 20 years or more. The ADC management extended this care and respect to other employees as well.

Women and girls were responsible for all of the cooking for family and hired hands, laundry and sewing; child-rearing, and other domestic chores. On a family-run dairy, women and girls did as much of the dairy work as men and boys, and still performed all the household chores that men did not do.

Portuguese in the Valley

The Santa Clara Valley was a particularly appropriate choice for many Portuguese immigrants wishing to make a home in California. The thriving agricultural industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries virtually guaranteed a job with a decent wage for anyone willing to work. Land was affordable and available to people with funds or loans. Once a few Portuguese immigrants gained a foothold in the San Francisco Bay Area, it was only logical for their family members and home-country neighbors to follow. At the time Manuel Azevedo arrived in California, fully 60% of the state’s Portuguese lived in the Bay Area.

Upon their arrival, Portuguese immigrants immediately tapped into the community’s network to find housing, jobs, and churches. The Holy Ghost Festivals – presented by Portuguese communities throughout the spring and summer – gave newcomers access to a ready-made network, as Portuguese from throughout the area gathered to celebrate.

With so many Portuguese-Americans working in the dairy industry, newcomers like Manuel Azevedo easily found their way into the business as well. In fact, Portuguese immigrants controlled 50% of the state’s dairy industry by the 1930s. With a small initial investment – like the one Manuel Azevedo made – a man could lease land, purchase a few cows, and make a decent living. By applying the Portuguese belief in hard work and thrift – and with the additional labor of a wife and children – a man could earn enough to re-invest in his business, buying land and dairy cows to increase his holdings and his profit margin.

Between 1900 and 1940, up to one-half “of the entire Portuguese community in California owned or operated a producing dairy, worked on a producing dairy, or worked in one of the many industries that existed in support of dairying.”

The Portuguese Californians: Immigrants in Agriculture, p. 71.

American Jersey Ranch

In the mid-twentieth century, the Ranch continued dairy operations, selling milk to the American Dairy Company (now owned by Borden) as well as to other local creameries. The Ranch usually ran between 200 and 250 dairy cows. An on-site manager directed the activities of a dozen workers and an on-site cook prepared three square meals a day for all of them.

From the 1920s through the 1960s, Maria Pereira and her daughter, Mary Pereira Machado, worked as cooks at the Ranch. Maria Pereira immigrated from Portugal in the 1920s. After her husband lost his own dairy in the Depression, the family—including five children—moved to the American Dairy Ranch. As the cook for the ranch, Maria earned not only room and board, but also gasoline (the Ranch had its own pump) and a daily wage. The cook’s family was basically self-sufficient, with a large garden, pigs and chickens, as well as beef from the dairy’s “retired” cows. The family lived on the property in an 1870s farmhouse on the east side of the Guadalupe River. Maria’s daughter, Mary Machado, moved away upon marrying, but returned to the Ranch in the 1960s to support her family as the cook.

Through the post-war years, the American Jersey Ranch continued dairy operations amidst a sea of change. The agricultural industries of the Santa Clara Valley were slowly but surely replaced by new high technology industries, housing for high tech workers, and the infrastructure to support both. Portions of the Bettencourt land were given up for construction of the Almaden Expressway in the 1950s.

In the 1970s, control of the ranch passed to Anthony Bettencourt’s son, Robert J. Bettencourt, who had formal education in dairying and animal husbandry. The dairy produced 3,200 gallons of milk daily from Holstein cows. Within a few years, however, the dairy was no longer profitable; rising property taxes made the land more costly than its products could ever off-set.

Dairy Hill: The Site

Four miles south of downtown San Jose there is a small group of hills rising up from the floor of the Santa Clara Valley. At no more than 400 feet, they are just high enough to break up the flatness of the land, and to give people and animals standing atop them a sweeping vista of the valley.

The Santa Clara Valley came into existence some 10,000 years ago, around the same time the first people arrived here. Until the turn of the twentieth century, these hills in the middle of the valley were home to many more animals, insects, and birds than people.

The Spaniards named the hills for Saint John the Baptist, but the area would have many names over the next 200 years. Americans began to parcel out the land in the hills by surveying it and creating maps; one section became the town’s cemetery. Tyler Beach began a dairy on his section in the 1850s. The Azevedo and Bettencourt families continued this work into the twentieth century. The hill’s contours changed somewhat during these years, to accommodate the railroad and the growth of San Jose.

Until the twenty-first century, the most notable residents of Dairy Hill were its cows. In 2004, the land was transformed into a residential community with a variety of housing options, a park and children’s play area, and walking trail.

The Valley’s Natural History

The Santa Clara Valley we know today was created some 10,000 years ago, when melting glaciers flooded the river which emptied into the Pacific Ocean at today’s Golden Gate. The flooded river became the San Francisco Bay and its southern edge formed the new northern boundary of the Santa Clara Valley. The Valley is bounded on east and west by two separate sections of the Pacific Coast Ranges – the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo Range – formed by the migration of the Earth’s plates along the San Andreas and Calaveras faults.

The San Juan Bautista Hills within the Valley are also likely the result of tectonic shift along the Calaveras fault. Their geology is largely serpentine rock – a very hard rock laced with naturally occurring asbestos. The rocky hills can be green with native grasses in the spring but are not generally suitable for agricultural uses. The serpentine rock makes a unique habitat for insects.

The hills provided the ideal spot from which newcomers could view the valley and its scope, some 15 miles across at its widest point. Spaniards, Mexicans, Americans and many others would wax poetic about the flat plain, the beautiful mountains, the temperate climate, and the amazingly fertile land.

Odes to the Land

New arrivals to the Santa Clara Valley could often scarcely contain their enthusiasm for the land before them. Whether from the Old World or the New, people marveled at the place, which might remind them of other lands but at the same time was so very different.

William Manly – an intrepid 19th-century explorer of North America’s wild places – wrote about his arrival in the Santa Clara Valley in his book Death Valley in ’49. He described himself as “a stranger in a strange land, everything was new and wonderful.” Arriving in the Willow Glen area near the Arroyo Tulares de las Canoas on foot, Manly found “a large extent of willows so thick, and so thickly woven together with wild blackberry vines, wild roses and other thorny plants, that it appeared at first as if I never could get through.” The willows standing fifty feet tall awed him, as did the climate of the place. “The sun rose without a cloud, and a little later the sea breeze from the bay blew gently over the valley, making the climate perfectly delightful in its temperate coolness, a true paradise on earth it seemed to me.”

Authors would continue to laud the beauty of the Santa Clara Valley, its small hills and interior valleys breaking up the otherwise flat plain. To many Americans, the Valley seemed a special gift to them – a place where the sun always shines and the earth produces in abundance. Life seemed easy in the Valley where the sun always shines and every seed produces in abundance.

Place Names

San Juan Bautista Hills

The Spanish named this area the San Juan Bautista Hills in the 1770s. Eventually they placed the cemetery for the St. Joseph parish at the base of the hill. They called the nearby creek Arroyo Tulares de las Canoas, meaning the “Tulares Creek of the Canoes.” Today it is called Canoas Creek, probably a reference to the tule reed canoes built by the Ohlone peoples in the San Francisco Bay Area. The name San Juan Bautista Hills continued into the American period. It appears on the 1876 map of San Jose published by Thompson and West, and the 1902 map done by J. G. McMillan.

about two and a half or three miles above the present site of San José where we.. have the San Juan Bautista hills rising nearly in the center of the valley to the height of between 150 and 200 feet, about two miles in length, and a scant mile of breadth… [T]hey slope down to the Arroyo Tulares de las Canoas.

From Brainerd, 1886

Beach Hill Farm

In the late 19th century, Tyler Beach owned the land at the top of the hill, adjacent to Oak Hill Cemetery. The area was at that time called Beach Hill Farm. But San Joseans did not firmly associate the name with the hill. Brainerd’s 1886 collection of maps, The Santa Clara Valley, used Spanish names in the text, but the American property owners’ names on his map.

Dairy Hill

In the early twentieth century, the place came to be called Dairy Hill, for the dairy run by the Azevedo and Bettencourt families.

Communications Hill

Communications equipment mounted on a neighboring hill in the mid-twentieth century caused the whole area to be named Communications Hill. The master development plan for Communications Hill, developed in the 1990s, included most of the San Juan Bautista Hills.

Surveys

A survey determines and delineates the form, extent, and position of a tract of land by taking linear and angular measurements and by applying the principles of geometry and trigonometry.

Surveys of San Jose were conducted within months of the American takeover of Alta California. The Mexican system of land ownership and mapping – or diseños – provided only approximate boundaries for pueblos, ranchos, church lands, etc. Lands were described as bounded by trees, rocks, creeks, and other somewhat impermanent markers.

The first surveyor of San Jose was Chester Lyman, a Connecticut native and Yale graduate. Lyman completed an official Map of San José in May 1849. Another of Lyman’s 1849 surveys laid out the burial ground which would later be known as Oak Hill Cemetery.

Lyman’s survey placed the San Juan Bautista Hills into the area called Pueblo Tract No. 1, thus making it part of the lands belonging to the town of San Jose. When California joined the United States, pueblo lands were made available for sale to the public while private lands were subject to certification of ownership through the courts.

Oak Hill Memorial Park

Oak Hill Cemetery’s history stretches back to the very earliest days of California statehood. In the mid-19th century, the new American government of San Jose desired a formal final resting place that was not associated with the Catholic Church. Surveyor Chester Lyman laid out 30 acres for the cemetery in 1848 and 1849, making it California’s oldest secular cemetery. It gained the name Oak Hill in 1858; at that time, the cemetery was fenced and burial plots were mapped out.

Around the turn of the 20th century, a Chinese Cemetery was sectioned off from the main cemetery. From the 1930s until the 1980s, the Hocking family owned a controlling interest in the park. They increased the size of the Memorial Park to some 300 acres and completed many major improvements to the facilities.

The Park is the final resting place of many important Valley citizens, including several Donner Party survivors, “Grandma” Bascom, and the artist A.D.M. Cooper.

Chinese Cemetery

Adjacent to Oak Hill Memorial Park and to Dairy Hill is a now un-used Chinese Cemetery. From about 1850 until 1900, Chinese Americans in San Jose were buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. In 1900, the Oak Hill Improvement Company sold off a one-half acre section to a group of eight Chinese associations for a Chinese cemetery. The transaction agreement mentioned that 306 of the existing buried bodies were “now in fit condition to be disinterred for shipment to China.” These bodies would be removed for return to China. According to Chinese custom, the remains of the deceased must be buried in his family or clan cemetery in his home village. Chinese associations in the United States continued this tradition well into the 20th century. It is unclear whether the Oak Hill burials were actually moved, or how many subsequent burials in the new Chinese cemetery were eventually removed. Oak Hill Memorial Park believes that some 300 graves remain in the Chinese cemetery, but no one has been buried there for several decades.

Southern Pacific Railroad

In the 1930s, Manuel Azevedo gave up part of Dairy Hill to the Southern Pacific Railroad, and literally changed the “lay of the land.”

In the midst of the Depression, the city of San Jose decided to re-route the Southern Pacific Railroad (SPRR) on its course between downtown San Jose and the Hillsdale Station (about 1 mile south of Dairy Hill). The original route was along 4th Street and cut through the middle of downtown, causing severe traffic backups. The route also featured a notoriously sharp turn – known as the Julian Street curve – between the Market Street Station and Fourth Street. Trains had to move slowly and carefully through the section to avoid jumping the tracks in the middle of downtown.

The SPRR was re-routed to go around the western slope of Dairy Hill and into downtown on the city’s western edge. The new route cut through part of the Azevedo land and required a saddle to be dug between two of the hills. The route also required new underpasses, bridges and tracks, and thus a great deal of soil for grading – a perfect use of the dirt removed to create the saddle. Manuel Azevedo gave up some 120,000 cubic yards of his land (in the form of fill) to make the line possible.

Communications Hill

The San Juan Bautista Hills, as the highest point in the middle of Santa Clara Valley, are a particularly suitable location for communications transmission. In the 1950s, the Santa Clara County Communications Center needed a new location, having outgrown its facility on Tully Road. The Center also needed a high point from which to transmit. The Center constructed its new home atop Oak Hill at the end of Canoas Garden Road in 1960. Presently 11 microwave transmitters are maintained at the County Communications Center by the County of Santa Clara, the City of San José, and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Center also transmits in radio waves. The County Communications building is in a restricted access area, on stable bedrock, and is seismically reinforced, to help it survive a major earthquake or other disaster. The County communications tower stands 435 feet above sea level. In the 1970s, AT&T Company followed suit and built a communications tower just south of the County center. AT&T’s tower stands 430 feet above sea level and AT&T operates five microwave paths. These prominent features lead the area to be called Communications Hill.

New Home Development

The late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed major changes to Dairy Hill and its surroundings. Dairy Hill comprised one portion of a much larger plan to develop housing throughout the Communications Hill area. One of the few “undeveloped” parcels left in the City of San Jose, the area was highly coveted to help ease the intense housing crunch in Silicon Valley. The masterplan for development on Communications Hill utilized “smart growth” principles. The approach calls for higher-density housing, such as townhomes, with stores, restaurants, and other services within walking distance, to maximize land use within the city.

Dairy Hill’s particular development includes attached homes and townhomes as well as closely-sited detached homes with alley-loaded garages located beneath the home, thereby reducing the area devoted to vehicles. A playground, open green space, and well-lit sidewalks encourage residents to enjoy the out-of-doors while staying close to home. The place is vastly different in character from earlier home developments in the suburbs of San Jose, where most homes are ranch-style and each home has its own yard.

Recommended Reading & Bibliography

• Chinatown San Jose, USA by Connie Young Yu. San Jose, CA: History San José, 2001.
• Footprints in the Soil: A Portuguese-Californian Remembers by Rose Emery Peters. San Jose, CA: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, 2003.
• From the Ground Up: Building Silicon Valley by Goodwin B. Steinberg and Susan Wolfe. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
• The Chinese in America: A Narrative History by Iris Chang. New York: Viking, 2003.
• The Portuguese Californians: Immigrants in Agriculture by Alvin Ray Graves, Ph.D. San Jose, CA: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, Inc., 2004.
• “American Dairy Company.” The Campbell Press. Campbell, CA; 10 March 1938.
• Anderson, M. Kat, Michael G. Barbour, and Valerie Whitworth. “A World of Balance and Plenty: Land, Plants, Animals and Humans in a Pre-European California” in Contested Eden: California Before the Gold Rush. Ramón A. Guttierez and Richard J. Orsi, editors. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
• Arbuckle, Clyde. Clyde Arbuckle’s History of San José. San Jose, CA: Smith-McKay Printing Co., 1985.
• Brainard, Henry A. The Santa Clara Valley. March 1887.
• Breeds of Livestock: http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/ Oklahoma State University Department of Animal Husbandry. April 2005.
• City of San Jose. Communications Hill Specific Plan. San Jose, CA: California Room, Martin Luther King Jr. Library, October 1991.
• Foote, H.S. Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World, or Santa Clara County, California. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Co., 1888.
• Friedly, Michael. “This Brief Eden: A History of Landscape Change in California’s Santa Clara Valley.” Ph. D. dissertation, Duke University, 2000.
• Graves, Alvin Ray. The Portuguese Californians: Immigrants in Agriculture. San Jose, CA: Portuguese Heritage Publications of California, Inc., 2004.
• Hall, Frederic. The History of San José and Surroundings, with biographical sketches of early settlers. San Francisco: A.L. Bancroft and Company, 1871.
• Hill, Ward and Basin Research Associates. “Historic Evaluation Report: The American Dairy Company Farm.” San Francisco: 29 April 1998.
• Historical atlas map of Santa Clara County, California / compiled, drawn, and published from personal examinations and surveys by Thompson & West. San Francisco: Thompson & West, 1876.
• History of Santa Clara County, California. San Francisco: Alley, Bowen, & Co., 1881.
• Holmes, Norman W. Prune Country Railroading: Steel Trails to San José. Huntington Beach, CA: Shade Tree Books, 1985.
• Kaplan, Tracy and Sue McAllister. “What’s Behind the Housing Crunch? – Small Steps Falling Short” in San Jose Mercury News, 7 August 2002.
• Lick, Sue Falgade. Stories Grandma Never Told: Portuguese Women in California. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 1998.
• Loomis, Patricia. A Walk Through the Past: San José’s Oak Hill Memorial Park. San Jose, CA: San Jose Argonaut Historical Society, 1994.
• Manly, William Lewis. Death Valley in ’49. San Jose, CA: The Pacific Tree and Vine Co., 1894.
• Mulock, Frank. “Plant Handles Milk in Most Sanitary Manner.” The Evening News, San Jose, CA; 2 February 1929.
• Reilly, Erin M. “A River Ran Through it…: the Cultural Ecology of the Santa Clara Valley Riparian Zone.” Santa Clara, CA: Santa Clara University, Department of Anthropology and Sociology Research Manuscript Series no. 3, 1994.
• Santos, Robert L. “Dairying in California through 1910” in Southern California Quarterly 76 (Summer 1994). Reprinted at http://www.library.csustan.edu/bsantos/dairy.html.
• Sawyer, Eugene T. History of Santa Clara County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present. Los Angeles: Historic Record Co., 1922.
• Simmons, William S. “Indian Peoples of California” in Contested Eden: California Before the Gold Rush. Ramón A. Guttierez and Richard J. Orsi, editors. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998.
• Sunshine, Fruit and Flowers: Santa Clara County and its resources, historical, descriptive, statistical: a souvenir of the San Jose Mercury. San Jose, CA: San Jose Mercury Publishing and Printing Co., 1896. San Jose, CA: San Jose Historical Museum Association, 1986.
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Critical Habitat Designated for Threatened San Francisco Bay Area Butterfly.” Portland, OR: Pacific Regional Office, 30 April 2001.
• Wilcox, Earley Vernon, and Clarence Beaman Smith, M.S. Farmer’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture. New York: Orange Judd Company, 1911. Reprinted at http://www.thelitterbox.org/librum/i-fcoa/