Santa Clara (aka Silicon) Valley
I live right next to something rather unusual for San Jose: a huge field. People often ask what I am going to do when they finally start developing this last little piece of farmland. And they are happy and surprised to hear that they never will. The open field is Cottle Ranch, from what I gather from the old mailbox along Snell Road.
A couple years ago, Walter Cottle Lester donated the 290 acres between Branham, Snell, and Chynoweth to the county and state. Eventually, the land will be a historic agricultural park, but until then, it will stay an open field, never to be condos. You can read the about the details of the deal in the press release.
All that’s there now are the old farm buildings, some orchards, a Christmas tree farm, and a fruit stand.
Isn’t that great? (More pictures after the jump.)
I took the following two pictures while walking from home to the store. And yes, I am always the only one who seems to ever walk to the store around here.
I took the following picture back in February when we had our first snow on the hills.
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What a glorious gift to us.
Yeah, I guess it’s what our outward-facing identity is nowadays, but I don’t like calling the valley “Silicon Valley”. I’m a Santa Clara — city, county, and valley — partisan.
Nice to see the “Silicon” take a backseat to the “Santa Clara” in a headline.
There was just an article yesterday in the San Jose Mercury News about another still-existing cherry orchard. That one, however, is for sale to developers, and the owner is charging so much for it he’s taking a basic “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it” approach.
If you look at a San Jose map, you’ll see little pockets of un-incorporated land. If you see what’s there, it’s usually a “luxury” apartment complex named something like Cherry Orchard Villas. Looks like we’ll have one more of those.
Part of the Cottle Ranch was donated to the county and the other part was actually sold to the state, but for just 5 million dollars, which I am guessing is way less than what it was worth to developers.
Los Gatos and Saratoga also seem to have little orchards left here and there, but nothing nearly as large as the Cottle Ranch.
I forget where — maybe the Merc, maybe Metro — but there was a recent print article about a few of the last remaining agricultural holdouts. The folks who own that corn field on Lawrence Expressway in Sunnyvale were profiled, as well as a couple others. Maybe someone recalls more specifically where it was printed…
I did a quick search and found an article in The Wave about holdouts…I think it is what you are talking about:
“The Francia brothers are old-school Valleyites. They remember when El Camino Real was a dirt road. They balk at the moniker “Silicon Valley.” “It’ll always be ‘Santa Clara Valley’ to me,” says Joe. “The Valley of Heart’s Delight.”"