City of Sunnyvale

1770s
Santa Clara Valley populated by Ohlone Indians. The large village of Posolmi located along shore of San Francisco Bay, near location of present Moffett Field.

The Spanish arrive in the area.

1777
Mission Santa Clara founded, built and populated mainly by Christian Ohlone Indians from the Santa Clara Valley.

1842
Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas granted to Estrada and Inez Castro. Mountain View and Sunnyvale later develop in the area of the land grant.

1844
Martin Jr. and Mary Murphy leave Missouri for California on first wagon train to successfully cross the Sierra Nevada mountains.

1850
Martin Murphy Jr. buys a portion of Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas for $12,500, establishing a wheat farm. Bay View established; first frame house in Santa Clara County, shipped from New England.

1861
San Francisco and San Jose Railroad given right of way by Murphy to lay tracks through the property, agree to use Murphy Station. Lawrence Station later built at southern edge of Bay View.

1870s
County property tax laws and state enclosure laws, along with soil degradation and imports, contribute to making wheat production uneconomical in the Bay Area. Small landholdings, especially fruit orchards, are replacing large wheat farms in Santa Clara County.

1871
James and Eloise Dawson establish first cannery in Santa Clara County.

[top of page]

1880s
Chinese workers make up 48% of farm labor in Santa Clara County. Population declines in following decades because of Chinese Exclusion Act.

William Wright builds a two-story house, now the oldest building in Sunnyvale.

1884
Martin Murphy Jr. dies, land divided among heirs.

1886
San Jose Board of Trade promotes Santa Clara County as the "Garden of the World."

1888
Refrigerated rail car further increases economic viability of orchards.

1890s
Large-scale immigration from Italy, Azores, Portugal and Japan to the orchards of Santa Clara County.

1897
Walter Everett Crossman buys 200 acres, lays out streets and surveys one acre lots. Advertises land in "Beautiful Murphy."

Encina School opens. Sunnyvale children no longer traveled to school in Mountain View.

1899
Encina School District established.

[top of page]

1901
Informed that they could not use "Encinal" or "Murphy" for the name of their post office, town residents choose "Sunnyvale" for the name of their town.

1902-1910
Developer Walter Crossman advertises Sunnyvale as "the City of Destiny."

1904
Dried fruit production in Sunnyvale begins.

1906
Joshua Hendy Ironworks relocates to Sunnyvale. First major non-agricultural industry to locate in Sunnyvale, originally makes mining equipment, switches to other products including marine steam engines.

Chicago meat-packing company Libby, McNeill & Libby chooses Sunnyvale as the location for their first fruit cannery.

First telephone switchboard in Sunnyvale.

1908
Sunnyvale Standard, Sunnyvale's first newspaper, begins publication.

1912
Sunnyvale residents vote to incorporate. California women had won the right to vote the previous year, so this was the first vote cast by most Sunnyvale women.

1913
Planning begins for the "Port of Sunnyvale." Sunnyvale never does develop a waterfront on the Bay.

El Camino Real is paved.

1914
The Sunnyvale Public Library is established.

[top of page]

1924
Edwina Benner serves as Mayor of Sunnyvale, the first of four terms, in rotation among members of city board of trustees, the first woman mayor in California.

1925
Fremont High School opens.

1929
Mission-revival town hall opens.

1930
Congress chooses to place its West Coast dirigible base in Sunnyvale/Mountain View. Naval Airstation Sunnyvale later renamed Moffett Airfield.

1933
Naval Airstation Sunnyvale opens and the navy dirigible Macon arrives.

1935
Macon lost off the coast of Monterey.

1939
Flight research begins at the Ames Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the forerunner of NASA).

[top of page]

1940s
War-time economy begins a permanent shift from fruit farming to high-tech industry in the Santa Clara Valley.

As defense industry causes a shortage of agricultural workers, large-scale immigration from Mexico to the Santa Clara Valley begins.

Navy blimps based at Moffett Field patrol the California coast.

Workforce at Joshua Hendy Ironworks swells to 7,500. Massive marine steam engines were the main product, but development of naval guns, and later rocket launchers, took place at Hendy.

1942
Executive Order 9066 directed that residents of Japanese descent be sent to internment camps.

1944
City of Sunnyvale votes to urge Congress to permanently exclude Japanese from California. Rescinded 2001.

1949
Sunnyvale government changes to a city manager system. Board of Trustees changed to a city council.

Late 1940s
Orchards begin to be cleared away for homes, factories and office parks. Joseph Eichler best known builder of the period.

1950
Police and fire services merged into Public Safety Department.

1951
Tornado destroys or damages a number of Sunnyvale homes and businesses.

1956
Aircraft manufacturer Lockheed moves its headquarters to Sunnyvale.

Sunnyvale Historical Society organized.

Sunnyvale High School opens.

[top of page]

1960
Library relocates to current site on Olive Avenue, shares facility with City Council until 1970.

1961
The historic Murphy House demolished.

1963
Moffett Industrial Park created.

1969
Advanced Micro Devices, Sunnyvale-based computer chip manufacturer, founded.

1970
Current City Hall opens on Olive Avenue.

1972
A protype Pong game set up at Andy Capp’s Bar on El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, starting the computer game craze.

5,000 year old remains, known as "Sunnyvale girl," found, evidence of early human habitation in the area.

1973
Performance-based budgeting first used by a department of the City of Sunnyvale, the Public Safety Department. Performance-based budgeting later becomes a corner-stone of the city's management success.

1975
Two members of ORCHARDS (Organization of Responsible Citizens to Halt Reckless Development in Sunnyvale) elected to city council on a platform opposed to further industrial growth.

1977
Sunnyvale native Steve Wozniak’s Apple introduces first personal computer.

1979
Sunnyvale Town Center opens. Several blocks of homes and businesses, as well as the old town hall, had been demolished for the project. Largely through the work of Fern Ohrt, a grove of trees that had been planted by Sunnyvale residents around the town hall were saved and incorporated into the design of the Sunnyvale Town Center.

[top of page]

1980
City council invokes a 112-day moratorium on industrial growth.

1981
Murphy Avenue declared a Heritage Landmark District.

Sunnyvale High School closes.

1983
NOVA (North Valley Job Training Consortium) established.

1985
Public library renovation and expansion completed. Time capsule buried at library, to be opened 2085.

Sunnyvale Industrial Park opens at the former site of the Libby, McNeil, & Libby cannery. Cannery water tower incorporated into design, decorated as 1935 fruit cocktail can by artist Anita Kaplan.

1988
Sunnyvale native, figure skater Brian Boitano wins Olympic gold medal.

1991
City Manager Tom Lewcock and former mayor John Mercer testify before a U.S. Senate committee on the benefits of performance-based budgeting.

1992
U.S. Department of Defense recommends closure of Moffett Naval Airstation. Local government and civic groups rally to preserve federal use of Moffett Field.

1993
President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore visit Sunnyvale in recognition of the City of Sunnyvale’s management.

1994
Moffett Field transferred from the U.S. Navy to NASA, incorporated into Ames Research Center.

2001
Yahoo! moves headquarters to Sunnyvale.

[top of page]

Sunnyvale Public Library • 665 W. Olive Ave., Sunnyvale CA 94086
(408) 730-7300 • www.sunnyvalelibrary.org
Contact Us • Site Map