Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale () is a city in
Santa Clara County,
California,
United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the
Silicon Valley. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 131,760.
The city is bordered by the
San Francisco Bay to the north,
Mountain View to the west,
Santa Clara to the east, and
Cupertino to the south. It lies along the historic
El Camino Real and
Highway 101.
Sunnyvale is headquarters to several high-tech companies such as
Juniper Networks,
Palm, Inc.,
AMD,
Network Appliance,
Sandisk,
Yahoo!, and
Ariba, Inc. Honeywell and
Lockheed Martin also have offices in Sunnyvale. Sunnyvale is also the home to
Onizuka Air Force Station (commonly called "the blue cube"), the only active military base in the
San Francisco Bay Area. The base —which is named after
Ellison Onizuka—is the
United States armed forces primary
artificial satellite control facility.
Sunnyvale is one of the few U.S. cities to have a single unified
Department of Public Safety where all personnel are trained as
firefighters and
police officers and can respond to emergencies in either capacity.
Sunnyvale is located at (37.368767, -122.037055).
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 58.6
km² (22.6
mi²). 55.8 km² (21.9 mi²) of it is land and 1.8 km² (0.7 mi²) of it (3.05%) is water.
When the
Spanish first arrived in the
1770s at the
Santa Clara Valley, it was heavily populated by the
Ohlone. In
1777,
Mission Santa Clara was built by Ohlone converts to
Christianity.
In
1842,
Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was granted to Estrada and Inez Castro. Portions of the land given in this grant later developed into the cities of
Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Two years later, in
1844, another land grant was provided to Lupe Yñigo, one of the few
Native Americans to hold land grants. His land grant was first called
Rancho Posolmi, named in honor of Posolmi village of the
Ohlone that once stood in the area.
Rancho Posolmi was later known as
Rancho Ynigo.
In
1844, Martin Jr. and Mary Murphy left
Missouri and traveled by
wagon along the
California Trail to successfully cross the
Sierra Nevada. In
1850, Martin Murphy Jr. bought a piece of
Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas for $12,500. Murphy established a wheat farm and
Bay View. Murphy had the first frame house, which was shipped from
New England, in
Santa Clara County built. When he died in
1884, his land was divided among his heirs.
In
1860, The San Francisco and San Jose Railroad agreed to use
Murphy Station and was allowed to lay tracks on
Bay View.
Lawrence Station was later established on the southern edge of
Bay View.
In the
1870s, county property tax laws, imports and soil degradation caused wheat farming to become uneconomical in Santa Clara County. Small fruit orchards replaced the large wheat farms. In
1871, James and Eloise Dawson established the first fruit cannery in Santa Clara County. Fruit agriculture and canning soon became a major industry in the county. The invention of the refrigerated rail car further increases the viability of an economy based upon fruit. The fruit orchards become so prevalent that in
1886, the San Jose Board of Trade calls Santa Clara County the "Garden of the World".
In the
1880s, Chinese workers made up 48% of the farm labor in Santa Clara County. This percentage reduced over time after the
Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. In the following decade, the
1890s multitudes of immigrants from
Italy, the
Azores,
Portugal and
Japan arrived to work in the orchards.
In
1897, Walter Everett Crossman bought 200 acres (809,000 m²) and began selling real estate. He advertised the area as
Beautiful Murphy. Later, in the
1900s, real estate developer Walter Crossman described it as "the City of Destiny".
Also in 1897, Encina school opened as the first school in Murphy. Previously, children in the town had to travel to Mountain View for school.
In
1901, the residents of Murphy were informed they could not use the names Encinal or Murphy for their post office. They decided to use the name Sunnyvale for the name of their town.
Sunnyvale continued to grow and in
1904,
dried fruit production began. In
1906, Joshua Hendy Ironworks relocated to Sunnyvale. The ironworks was the first non-agricultural industry in the town. Joshua Hendy Ironworks switched from producing mining equipment to other products such as marine
steam engines. In this same year, Libby, McNeill & Libby, a
Chicago meat-packing company, decided to open its first fruit packing factory in Sunnyvale. Today, a water tower painted to resemble the first Libby's fruit cocktail can label identifies the former site of the factory.
In
1912, the residents of Sunnyvale voted to incorporate.
Fremont High School first opened in
1925.
In
1930,
Congress decided to place the
West Coast dirigible base in Sunnyvale. This
naval airstation was later renamed
Moffett Federal Airfield.
In
1939, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA, the forerunner of
NASA) began research at
Ames Laboratory.
During
World War II, the war economy began a change from the fruit industry to the high-tech industry in Santa Clara County. Joshua Hendy Ironworks built marine steam engines, naval guns and rocket launchers to aid in the war effort. As the defense industry grew, a shortage of workers in the farm industry was created. Immigrants from
Mexico came to Sunnyvale to fill this void of workers.
Following the war, the fruit orchards were cleared away to build homes, factories and offices. In
1956, the aircraft manufacturer
Lockheed moved its headquarters to Sunnyvale. In
1969,
AMD was founded and based in Sunnyvale.
 |
Standard marker at city entrances |
As of the
census of 2000, there were 131,760 people, 52,539 households, and 32,679 families residing in the city. The
population density was 2,318.7/km² (6,006.5/mi²).
There were 52,539 households out of which 27.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.0% were
married couples living together, 8.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.8% were non-families. 27.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49 and the average family size was 3.06.
In the city the population was spread out with 20.4% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 41.3% from 25 to 44, 19.9% from 45 to 64, and 10.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 34 years. For every 100 females there were 105.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 106.5 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $74,409, and the median income for a family was $81,634. Males had a median income of $65,165 versus $43,051 for females. The
per capita income for the city was $36,524. About 3.7% of families and 5.4% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 5.5% of those under age 18 and 5.2% of those age 65 or over.
* Sunnyvale is a subject of interest for
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and
Angel fans, as "
Sunnydale" is the name of the show's fictional town. One of the show's authors even created a
faux website that gave Sunnydale the same
ZIP Code as Sunnyvale.
* A long standing legend of Sunnyvale is of a
ghost that haunts the town's Toys 'R' Us store.
*
Teri Hatcher (actress on
Desperate Housewives and
Lois and Clark TV show) was born and raised in Sunnyvale. She attended
Sunnyvale Middle School and
Fremont High School.
*
Brian Boitano (Olympic figure skater) is from Sunnyvale.
* Sunnyvale is ranked as the
18th safest city in the US, according to the Morgan Quitno Awards
* On
May 4,
1998, Sunnyvale was hit by a freak
F2 tornado, causing significant property damage. In addition to being one of few tornadoes to touch down in the
San Francisco Bay Area it was atypical in that it exhibited
anticyclonic rotation.
*Eve, a character from the movie
Life-Size is said to have come from a Sunnyvale, though it is in the center of the country.
*The first
Pong machine was installed in Sunnyvale, in a bar named Andy Capps.
*In the 1980s Movie
WarGames, the game company
Protovision is located in Sunnyvale, as well as
NORAD's space division.
*
San Jose, California*
Santa Clara, California*
Silicon Valley*
Fremont High School*
City of Sunnyvale*
The Sunnyvale Collection - a timeline of local area history
