Among the settlers of European
heritage, the first & foremost is
Martin Murphy, Jr. (d. 1984),
whose Irish father immigrated to
Santa Clara Valley by way of
Missouri & the CA gold country.

The younger Murphy purchased
about half of Rancho Pastoria de
Borregas from the Castro family of
the Mountain View area, and he is
credited with having planted the
first orchards in Santa Clara Valley.

Orchards and vineyards flourished in Sunnyvale's mild climate,
and the city still shows remnants of its agricultural past. At
El Camino and Mathild, you will see Olson's Cherry Farm, founded
in 1899.

On Cascade, tucked amid pedestrian suburbs, is the house that
was once part of the Collins-Scott Winery, founded in 1880.
Angelia Russell Collins Scott, one of the winery's proprietors,
was known to produce fine wines and a prize-winning brandy.

Builder W. E. Crossman bought 200 acres in 1898 and began to
lay out streets and plan plots. For a time he called this
settlement Encinal, a Spanish name meaning "a place where oak
trees grow", but it needed another name since a town called
Encinal already existed in the East Bay.

The story has it that Crossman, looking out over the fields on
a sunny day, shaded his eyes and said, "Let's call it Sunnyvale."
The name stuck and in 1912 Sunnyvale was incorporated. It had a
hopeful motto: "City of Destiny."

Shortly after the 1906 earthquake, Sunnyvale began giving away
land, hoping to bring in more business. Soon industrial companies
were moving to Sunnyvale.

After World War II, aerospace and electronics companies began to
cluster around the research laboratories established near Stanford
University in Palo Alto. Soon plums, cherries, and apricots began
to give way to vacuum tubes, transistors, and finally the silicon
chip. Like many cities in the Santa Clara Valley, Sunnyvale now
hosts a multitude of high-tech
companies.

Today Sunnyvale is known for its model city government
and excellent safety record.