46 Fun Facts About San Jose

San Jose is the county seat of which California county?

San Jose is the seat of Santa Clara County; it sits in the Santa Clara Valley at the southern end of San Francisco Bay and covers about 180 square miles.

In which year was San Jose founded as the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe?

Founded on 29 November 1777 by José Joaquín Moraga, the pueblo was Alta California's first civilian settlement; Los Angeles followed in 1781.

San Jose's pueblo was founded to grow food for which two Spanish presidios?

The pueblo was established to supply the presidios of San Francisco and Monterey with crops, ending their dependence on supply ships from Mexico.

What distinction did San Jose hold when California joined the Union in 1850?

It was the first capital of the new state: legislators met in San Jose from December 1849 to 1851 before decamping to Vallejo; a marker on Plaza de César Chávez records the capitol site.

California's legislative sessions held in San Jose in 1850 and 1851 earned what boozy nickname?

The 'Legislature of a Thousand Drinks' took its name from senator Thomas Jefferson Green's habit of adjourning with a call for a drink; poor buildings and rain soon drove the capital to Vallejo.

Who was San Jose's first mayor after incorporation in 1850?

Belden had crossed the California Trail with the Bartleson Party in 1841 and made a fortune; Fallon had captured the pueblo in 1846.

Which mayor adopted the motto "Capital of Silicon Valley" in 1988?

Tom McEnery, mayor through most of the 1980s, adopted the 'Capital of Silicon Valley' branding to tie the city's downtown revival to the booming tech industry.

According to which census did San Jose first surpass San Francisco in population?

The 1990 census counted about 782,000 people in San Jose against 724,000 in San Francisco, making it the Bay Area's most populous city for the first time.

Before San Jose, which was the only US city to fall back below one million residents?

Detroit, which peaked near 1.85 million in 1950, fell below one million in the 2000 census; San Jose's 2022 estimate of 971,233 made it the second such city.

Before the tech boom, the orchard-filled region around San Jose went by what nickname?

The 'Valley of Heart's Delight' was once the world's largest fruit-packing region, rich in prunes, apricots and cherries; suburbs and tech campuses replaced the orchards from the 1950s on.

Which vegetable was first farmed commercially in the United States in San Jose in 1922?

Brothers Stefano and Andrea D'Arrigo planted the first commercial broccoli in the United States at San Jose in 1922 and later sold it under their Andy Boy label.

San Jose's Almaden Valley is named for mines producing which metal, vital to gold-rush ore processing?

New Almaden was North America's richest mercury mine, named after Almadén in Spain; its quicksilver was used to amalgamate gold from Sierra ore, and the site is now Almaden Quicksilver County Park.

Which company was the city's largest employer for years until its cannery closed in 1999?

Del Monte's Plant No. 3 canned the valley's fruit for most of the 20th century; its 1999 closure ended San Jose's cannery era, which had employed thousands each summer.

Which company opened San Jose operations in 1943 and later invented the hard disk drive there?

Reynold Johnson's team built the RAMAC 305 at the IBM lab opened in 1952, launching the city's tech economy.

What was Charles Herrold's 1909 station, regarded as the first with scheduled radio programming, called?

Herrold's station announced itself as 'San Jose Calling'; his wife Sybil played records on air from 1912, and the station evolved into KQW and finally KCBS in San Francisco.

Which of these tech companies is headquartered in San Jose?

Adobe has been headquartered in downtown San Jose since 1996; Cisco, eBay, PayPal and Zoom are also based in the city, while Apple is in Cupertino and Google in Mountain View.

San Jose's mansion tourist attraction was built over decades by the widow of which kind of magnate?

Sarah Winchester's husband William Wirt Winchester was heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms fortune; she moved west in 1886.

When Sarah Winchester died in 1922, how many rooms did her San Jose house contain?

The house had 160 rooms at her death, along with some 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 stairways and 13 bathrooms, spread over four storeys.

What destroyed the seven-story tower of the Winchester house?

The 1906 earthquake toppled the tower and the top three floors; Sarah Winchester had the damage boarded up rather than rebuilt, leaving doors that open onto nothing.

Lick Observatory, east of San Jose, sits on top of which mountain?

Lick Observatory, completed in 1888 on the 4,200-foot summit of Mount Hamilton, was the world's first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory; San Jose adopted sodium street lamps to limit its light pollution.

Where is James Lick, the observatory's benefactor, buried?

He was interred there in 1887 beneath the future site of the 36-inch refractor, with a brass plaque reading "Here lies the body of James Lick".

Which moon of Jupiter, the first found since Galileo's time, was discovered at Lick Observatory in 1892?

Amalthea was spotted by Edward Emerson Barnard with Lick's 36-inch refractor in September 1892; Charles Perrine later found Himalia and Elara there in 1904 and 1905.

What kind of institution was San Jose State University when it was founded in 1857?

San Jose State began as Minns' Evening Normal School, a normal school for teachers, in San Francisco in 1857; it moved to San Jose in 1871 and became the founding campus of the California State University system.

What nickname did San Jose State's track team earn while producing Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Lee Evans?

'Speed City' was the 1960s nickname of coach Bud Winter's sprint programme; Smith and Carlos gave their raised-fist salute at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and a statue of them stands on campus.

Which two San Jose State alumni won a combined four Super Bowls as NFL head coaches?

Bill Walsh and Dick Vermeil both played at San Jose State; Walsh won three Super Bowls with the 49ers and Vermeil one with the 1999 Rams.

What is the mascot name of San Jose State's sports teams?

The Spartans compete in the Mountain West Conference; the football team plays at CEFCU Stadium, known for decades as Spartan Stadium.

In which season did the San Jose Sharks begin play in the NHL?

The Sharks entered the NHL for the 1991-92 season, spending two years at the Cow Palace in Daly City before moving into the San Jose Arena in 1993.

Which name beat 'Sharks' in the fan vote to name San Jose's NHL team?

The Gund brothers worried "Blades" sounded like weapons; more than 5,000 names were mailed in.

Which software company bought the naming rights to the Sharks' arena, the Shark Tank, in 2013?

It opened in 1993 as San Jose Arena, became Compaq Center in 2001 and HP Pavilion in 2002 before SAP's 2013 deal.

Which team beat the Sharks in their first Stanley Cup Final appearance, in 2016?

The Pittsburgh Penguins won the 2016 final in six games; San Jose had won the Presidents' Trophy in 2008-09 without reaching a final.

Which former Norris Trophy winner was named the Sharks' first captain in 1991?

Doug Wilson, the 1982 Norris Trophy winner with Chicago, captained the expansion Sharks and later ran the team as general manager from 2003 to 2022.

What was the San Jose Earthquakes' name when they began MLS play in 1996?

The San Jose Clash, a name pushed by league investor Nike, played from 1996 until the club readopted the Earthquakes name of the old NASL side for the 2000 season.

Who scored the first goal in MLS history, for San Jose against D.C. United in 1996?

Eric Wynalda's 88th-minute strike won the league's inaugural match 1-0 before 31,683 in San Jose on April 6, 1996.

In which years did the Earthquakes win their first two MLS Cups?

The Earthquakes lifted MLS Cup in 2001 and 2003 under Frank Yallop; the club also won Supporters' Shields in 2005 and 2012, and its 2005 roster moved to Houston as the Dynamo.

Which mixed-use shopping and dining district opened in San Jose in 2002?

Santana Row, built by Federal Realty on the site of the old Town & Country Village, opened in November 2002 with shops, restaurants, apartments and a hotel along a European-style street.

San Jose's airport is named after which local politician who served as US Secretary of Transportation?

Mineta was interned as a boy during World War II, became mayor of San Jose and later served under both Clinton and George W. Bush.

Which airline carried more than half of all passengers at San Jose's airport in 2021?

Southwest carried just over half of the airport's passengers in 2021, with Alaska Airlines a distant second; the airport ranks with Oakland behind SFO in Bay Area traffic.

Who sang the 1968 hit "Do You Know the Way to San Jose"?

Burt Bacharach wrote the music and Hal David the lyrics; it won Warwick her first Grammy.

Alum Rock, established in 1872 in East San Jose, holds what distinction?

Alum Rock is the oldest municipal park in California, created in 1872; its mineral springs drew visitors on a dedicated railroad until the 1930s.

Which board game has a Guinness-record permanent version beside San Jose's Children's Discovery Museum?

'Monopoly in the Park', a 930-square-foot granite board opened in 2002 in Discovery Meadow beside the museum, was certified by Guinness as the world's largest permanent Monopoly game.

San Jose's Ira F. Brilliant Center holds the largest collection outside Europe devoted to which composer?

Housed at San Jose State, it is the only institution of its kind in North America.

Which 1881 San Jose landmark was the subject of a mock trial over whether Paris copied it?

The Electric Light Tower, a 237-foot iron frame raised over a downtown intersection in 1881, inspired a local legend that Gustave Eiffel copied it, a claim aired in a 1989 mock trial; the tower collapsed in a 1915 storm.

Which waterway runs north through San Jose from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the bay at Alviso?

The Guadalupe River rises in the Santa Cruz Mountains, flows north past downtown San Jose and the arena, and reaches San Francisco Bay at Alviso; steelhead and Chinook salmon spawn in it.

Which architect designed San Jose's new City Hall, opened in 2005?

Richard Meier & Partners designed the 18-storey tower and glass rotunda of the City Hall that opened in 2005; downtown heights are capped by the airport's flight path.

San Jose is the largest US city not served by which kind of highway?

San Jose lacks a primary Interstate and is served only by the three-digit spurs 280, 680 and 880, because the system was laid out in the 1950s before the city's boom.

What military nickname was given to the staff of 1950s-60s city manager A. P. Hamann?

Nicknamed 'Dutch's Panzer Division' for its aggressive annexation drives, Hamann's team annexed property 1,389 times, growing San Jose from 17 to 149 square miles during his 1950-1969 tenure.