OpenHistoricalMap/Projects/Santa Clara Valley

The community of mappers in Santa Clara Valley, the South Bay, Silicon Valley, and Santa Clara County has begun building OpenHistoricalMap's coverage of this region.

Focus areas

Some potential focus areas:

• Tamien, Muwekma, Ohlone settlements
• Missions
• Railroads and railroad stations
• Orchards and canneries
• San Jose streetcar lines
• San Jose Chinatowns
• East San Jose barrios
• San Jose downtown redevelopment projects
• History Park and the former locations of everything therein
• City and township boundaries
• Bridges

Progress

• Various railroads, including some which are railway=disused and railway=abandoned
• San Jose city boundary
• Buildings and businesses near San Jose City Hall
• San Jose parks
• Former towns annexed by San Jose

Resources

Subscription databases:

• San Jose Mercury (1861–1900) on NewsBank (accessible to SJSU students and faculty only)
• San Jose Mercury and San Jose News (1900–1985) on NewsBank (publicly accessible)
• San Jose Mercury News (1985–present) on NewsBank (accessible with a San José Public Library card) [1]

Other publications:

• Continuity (1990–present), the quarterly newsletter of the Preservation Action Council of San Jose
• Clyde Arbuckle's History of San Jose (1985, public domain) [2]
• History of Santa Clara County, California (1881)
• The History of San José and Surroundings (1871)
• "Early Banks", Michael Hurley (2018)

Federal government records (public domain by law):

• BankFind Suite – FDIC database of financial institution histories
• National Information Center – Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council database of financial institution histories, including individual branches
• USGS topoView

State and local government GIS layers (public domain by law):

• Santa Clara County Surveyor Record Index (enable the Historic Annexation Maps layer)
• Santa Clara County Heritage Resource Inventory
• County Office of Planning Photographs
• San José Historic Resource Inventory
• Caltrans bridge inventory comes with start dates

State and local government databases (public domain by law):

• GILES (San José ordinances, resolutions, and contracts)

Aerial imagery layers:

• NAIP at 1-meter resolution of Santa Clara County in 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014
• USGS at 2-foot resolution of Santa Clara County in 1995

Other websites:

• The San Jose Blog and its San Jose restaurant database
• Sourisseau Academy for State and Local History
• Maps of Santa Clara County from the David Rumsey Map Collection
• U.S. Telephone Directory Collection - San Jose, from the Library of Congress
• Japantown Atlas