 |
|
|
|
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Happy Birthday Campbell: 'Charlie' leads the Peninsula Banjo Band and the crowd at the city's 50th anniversary celebration into a rousing group sing-a-long of such songs as 'Roll Out the Barrel.'
Campbell's golden anniversary
Campbell celebrates its 50th birthday with party and colorful history
By Moryt Milo
Campbell owes its 50th year of incorporation to 50 voters. By this small margin of approval, the town's future was changed forever when 1,324 citizens voted in favor of incorporating as a city in a special election on March 11, 1952.
The incorporation--officially recognized as March 28, 1952--prevented the town from being absorbed by the cities of Santa Clara and San Jose and losing its identity.
"One of the reason's we incorporated was to [retain] the town's primary philosophy of 'this is my town, these are the people who know me, and these are the people who are going to live the way [they] want to live," Campbell Mayor Jeanette Watson says, recalling the historical occasion. "This was the main layer and what has stayed with our community throughout the years."
This sense of community is what drew more than 500 Campbell citizens to a festive golden birthday celebration March 24, standing-room only event in the City Hall Room of the Campbell Community Center.
"Birthdays are special events, no matter how old we are ... celebrating the city's birthday means we're celebrating a birthday that includes all of us," Watson told those gathered for the anniversary party Sunday. "We look to the accomplishments of the past that have brought us to the present. This is our heritage and it's a great one."
Bob Stephens, who served as Campbell city manager from 1964 to 1981, looked forward to the event. During his tenure, he saw the "Orchard City" change dramatically during its early growing years and said, "I couldn't imagine living anywhere else. It's a great community."
Campbell City Councilman Donald Burr credits Stephens' management skills with the town's successful growth. "Without his guidance, we wouldn't be here today," Burr said.
The crowd enjoyed music from the Campbell Union School District schools, Rolling Hills Middle School Advance Band, Del Mar High School Symphonic Band and Concert Choir and Forest Hill Elementary School music students.
Those is attendance also watched a commemorative video of Campbell's history, partook in the planting of a tree for Arbor Day, and enjoyed birthday cake.
For Watson the day was especially meaningful. Her father, Joseph Gomes, served on the first city council and was mayor pro tem.
Photograph courtesty of the Campbell Historical Museum
Old City Hall: This was the first municipal-owned building by the newly incorporated Campbell in 1952. It served as the first city hall, police and fire departments.
Early History
Campbell dates back to its founding father and namesake Benjamin Campbell who made the journey to California in 1846 with his parents and siblings. He was 20 years old when he arrived in the Santa Clara Valley. In 1851, he bought160 acres of land, which he planted with hay and grain. This acreage would later become the city's downtown business hub.
Thirty five years later, Campbell sold 1.15 acres of land for $5 to the Southern Pacific Coast Railroad, which created the first subdivision of land. The railroad opened a telegraph station in 1886 known as Campbell Station. The railroad's arrival brought prosperity to the town, giving orchardists transportation to outside areas.
As the railroad lay down tracks, the town grew into a center for the shipping of dried and canned fruit. Area farmers saw the railroad as an opportunity to expand, transport and sell their crops. They planted more orchards to increase production and thousands of people were employed. Campbell soon became known as the "Orchard City."
Although it was decades later, Wilbur Morton, brother of Richard Morton, the first mayor of incorporated Campbell, told the city council at its March 19 meeting, "I remember the silence that used to be in the area when there were very few cars and you could hear the bees and flies buzzing on a warm summer day."
Morton's orchard memories were full of the early 1920s and '30s when canning and drying fruits was the backbone of the community, and predominant growers like John Colpitts Ainsley employed more than 500 people in a season.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Saluting the Past: Caroline Williams, 7, and her mom, Mary, listen to the Del Mar High School Concert Choir at Campbell's 50th birthday celebration. Caroline later helped to close the ceremony, singing with her fellow classmates from Forest Hill Elementary School.
The Canneries
Ainsley, a native of England, came to Campbell in the late 1800s. He had a successful dry canning business in Campbell for 42 years. In 1929, during the peak season, he had more than 750 employees working for the packing company, which shipped 30,000 cases of canned fruit. He was one of the town's major employers.
His family is still remembered today through the efforts of the Campbell Historical Museum. The Ainsley House and carriage garage were moved from their original site on Bascom and Hamilton avenues to Grant Street and were preserved as a historical museum.
Another important part of the city's canning and fruit history was the Campbell Fruit Growers Union. It was incorporated in 1892. The organization was a cooperative owned by local growers who dried, packaged and shipped fruit.
The union, under the leadership of Francis Righter, believed that farmers needed to organize. It grew to be successful and highly regarded in Santa Clara Valley. Its trademark was a two-humped camel, which became a well-known symbol.
But with the fluctuation of crop prices and the unpredictability of seasons, the cooperatives began to wane and George Hyde, the union's major stockholder in 1909, changed its name to the George E. Hyde Company.
Hyde was also one of the town's major employers. His company canned and dried fruits from 1909 to 1929. During peak season, he employed more than 200 people and dried and canned more than 1,000 tons of fruit. His drying grounds spread from Alice Avenue to Winchester Boulevard --approximately 17 acres.
Hyde was a progressive thinker for his time, and built a cafeteria for his employees, men's and women's living quarters and a day nursery for the employees' children. The canneries were later used as fruit-drying and packing facilities by various owners until operations shut down in the 1970s.
The buildings along Railroad Way and Central Avenue were later redeveloped for office and retail use. His granddaughter, Martha Hyde, came from her home in Mendocino to attend Sunday's celebration. She grew up on Alice Avenue and graduated from Campbell High School in 1967.
"I am forever impressed with [this] city ... It's hard to believe that a place called the 'Orchard City' has no more orchards," she said.
The California Prune and Apricot Growers Association also had roots in Campbell. The organization purchased a building in Campbell that became known as Sunsweet Plant 1. The association was formed to help control fruit pricing. It worked hard to get farmers to join, and, like the California Fruit Growers Union, became strong and profitable.
The fruit from the association was labeled Sunsweet and people referred to the association by this name. The local apricot and prune growers from Campbell and Los Gatos became well known under the label.
The association became the town's most successful cooperative, but as the orchards were sold off and the land was subdivided for development, Sunsweet no longer had the fruit to exist. It closed in 1971.
Art Ring, a member of the city's civic improvement commission, recalled when Sunsweet was drying fruit, the smell permeated the town. "It smelled sweet everywhere."
Sarah (Shadle) Benzel, and her twin sister Kathryn (Shadle) Wood, cousins of Martha Hyde, also attended the celebration and remember their years as young girls cutting and drying apricots.
"I remember picking apricots and filling up my punch cards--the cards were punched every time a fruit tray was filled [for drying]," Benzel said. "We probably got about 25 cents a tray.
One time I put my punch card in my pants pocket and forgot to take it out. My mother washed my pants and the card was destroyed. When I turned in the destroyed card the woman in charge wouldn't pay me. My mother marched right down there and made sure I got paid," she remembered.
The sisters went to Campbell High School, graduating in 1969. Wood lives in her grandmother's house on Alice Avenue.
Benzel's 13-year-old daughter Katie accompanied her mother to the celebration and said, "It's cool that my whole family comes from here."
The women's father, Martin Shadle, owned a drugstore in downtown Campbell and was an active member of the community after the city incorporated.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Birthday Fun: 'Charlie,' leader of the Peninsula Banjo Band, recruits (from left) Vice Mayor Dan Furtado, and council members Matthew Dean and Jane Kennedy to sing along to a lively rendition of 'Ain't She Sweet.'
Early years of incorporation
The city tried twice, in 1906 and in 1946, to incorporate, but it took the flooding of San Tomas Creek, hot-rodders, and a concern about city services to finally convince citizens to incorporate.
"During the early years we were a very poor city," Campbell City Councilman Donald Burr said. "We looked at the budget every year and hoped we had enough money to get by."
In 1952 Campbell had a population of just 7,779, and its city offices were shared with the police and the fire department in the fire station.
"Our city clerk [Dorothy Trevethan] had a desk with three phones," Watson said. "One phone was for the police, one was for the fire and one was for the city."
City council meetings were held in the Country Woman's Club building on First Street and if the council needed a city chamber the fire trucks were moved out.
As the city grew, more schools and services were needed, said Campbell Vice Mayor Dan Furtado.
Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
City Historian: Campbell Mayor Jeanette Watson addresses the large gathering of people who came to celebrate the 50th year of Campbell's incorporation as a city at the Orchard City Hall in the Campbell Community Center.
Modern Campbell
Campbell continued to struggle until 1967 when the Campbell Citizen's Advisory Committee was formed to convince voters that the city needed to pass a six-year $2.6 million capital improvement bond.
Stephens said passage of the bond was the greatest thing that happened while he was city manager. It enabled the city to build a city hall and administration complex, a police and public works facility and a public library.
It was the turning point that allowed the city to provide services and support to its residents without a continual strain on its budget.
The town continued to expand with the building of the Kirkorian Plaza and the Pruneyard Shopping Center in the 1960s. The Pruneyard also added high-rise offices in the 1970s. These developments brought added revenue to the city, which allowed it to improve public services.
The city also started renovating its park system in the late 1960s, with John D. Morgan Park getting the first facelift.
By 1977, Campbell's population had grown to 29,550 citizens.
But some of the decisions were bittersweet, which was the case when the Campbell Union High School District closed the doors of Campbell High School in 1980.
"[Our town's] identity was connected with Campbell High School," Watson said. "There was a strong feeling about the red and blue and that it was the best school in the entire valley, which meant Campbell was the best city in the entire valley."
When the district closed the school, residents hoped it would eventually reopen. But when that didn't happen, the city became concerned about losing the school's historical value, and purchased it from the district in 1984 for $9 million.
Heading into the 21st century, the city now is connected to the community via the Internet and through cablecast broadcasting of city meetings.
Although Watson has accepted the changes, she said, "I remember when the town felt like you lived in a flower garden because trees bloomed everywhere,"
For the citizens who have been a major part of the town's history, reflecting on the past brings sweet memories but Campbell City Council is also excited about the future.
"Our city has carried our attitude of small-town caring into the schools, churches, and city services," Watson said. "It makes us a very tight-knit community even though we have grown to 38,000 people. I'm looking forward to the next 50 years and hope that the young people want to be part of this community."
|
|
|
|
Campbell, California
