Juana de la Briones: A Self-Invented California Pioneer

Most of the land owned by Juana Briones--more than 4,000 acres--became the town of Los Altos Hills. But the house she built about 1845 ended up in the city limits of Palo Alto. It was finally razed in 2011. Photo courtesy of the Palo Alto Historical Association Archives.

I've recently written a new book called Historic Bay Area Visionaries, which includes the stories of six people from California history I know you will want to meet. They include an Ohlone Indian named Lope Inigo, California pioneer Juana Briones, poet Robert Louis Stevenson, heiress Sarah Winchester, immigrant millionaire Thomas Foon Chew, and silent film star Charlie Chaplin.

When Families Worked Together and Life Was Very Different

Frank White was about eleven years old when his father took this photo of him in front of the family's old car and new home--which came with an apricot orchard--on Covington Road in Los Altos. World War II had just ended and the Whites were making a new start in the Santa Clara Valley.

People will think this story is about apricots. That's because I've written a book about the agricultural history of the Santa Clara Valley and its title is California Apricots: The Lost Orchards of Silicon Valley. The book is partly about apricots, and partly about a time worth remembering.

The Other Winchester House: Landmark Legend and Luxury

The Winchester-Merriman House is the oldest house in Los Altos, California, and was once owned by Sarah Winchester of Winchester Mystery House fame. 

Mrs. Sarah Winchester was a native of New Haven, but left New England after the death of her husband, who was the heir to the Winchester Rifle fortune. She moved to the Santa Clara Valley in California, hoping the mild, sunny climate would be good for her arthritis and gained fame for her fantastic house, now a big tourist attraction in San Jose. It has, however inaccurately, become associated with gossip about Mrs. Winchester's involvement with the occult, something that has never been confirmed by even one bit of verifiable research.

Sarah Winchester is one of six profiles in my upcoming book, Historic Bay Area Visionaries, coming this October from the History Press.

A Grower and a Tech Pioneer: A Santa Clara Valley Friendship

Modern Silicon Valley may not feel it has a lot in common with Santa Clara Valley's recent agricultural past. But many friendships blossomed in the orchards. Ask Charlie Olson of Sunnyvale's Orchard Heritage Park. He will tell you.

It wasn't very long ago that tech visionaries like Steve Jobs and David Packard were cultivating their own apricot orchards in the Santa Clara Valley. Before Jobs died, he finalized plans for the new Apple campus in Cupertino and decreed it be surrounded by fruit trees of all kinds. Packard, of Hewlett Packard fame, had his own orchard in Los Altos Hills--sixty acres of apricot trees, now cultivated by his foundation.

Finding Lost Treasures in a Family Home and Other Lessons

The home I grew up in is in Los Altos, California. My father built our first home across the street when he and my mother first moved to California. We moved into this house when I was nine. My parents lived here until their deaths, three months apart in 2009-2010.

There is a cliche that says "life is what happens to you while you are making other plans." The saying is hackneyed, but true enough, since so many of the things that play a significant role in our lives are the things we never planned for.

The Story of A Silicon Valley Landmark and its Pioneer History

Halsey House at Redwood Grove Nature Preserve is owned by the City of Los Altos and has been shuttered and unused in the middle of a public park for a decade. The people in this 1920s photo are Theodore and Emma Halsey, among the earliest residents of Los Altos.

What happens when we don't take care of our history? In the case of a local public landmark in my hometown, Halsey House, it has meant a deteriorating building in the middle of a public park, never a good thing.

Apricots in Paradise: Tracing the Roots of a Garden Legacy

It is snowy and cold in many parts of America this time of year. But March, in the San Francisco Bay Area is the time of year our many fruit trees begin to bloom.

I had not intended to spend the rest of my career, after the publication of California Apricots: The Lost Orchards of Silicon Valley (History Press 2013), writing about apricots. It is just that people can't seem get enough information about them. I can certainly understand that.

In fact, I'm working on a new book about six exceptional people who made a difference in California history, from 1769 to 1931. I'm wrapping that manuscript up now and that book should be out this fall, again from History Press.