Cupertino City Hall
10300 Torre Avenue
Cupertino CA 95014
Phone: 408-777-3200
Fax: 408-777-3366
Description:
Cupertino owes its earliest mention in recorded history to the 1776 expedition led by the Spanish explorer, Captain Juan Bautista de Anza. Starting in Sonora, Mexico, De Anza led a group up the coast of California aiming to establish a presidio (fort) on San Francisco Bay. Leaving the majority of the party of men, women and children in Monterey to rest from their travels, De Anza and his diarist and cartographer, Franciscan priest, Pedro Font and 18 other men pressed on through the Santa Clara Valley in late March towards their San Francisco destination.
In the late 1940's, Cupertino was swept up in Santa Clara Valley's postwar population explosion. Concerned by unplanned development, higher taxes and piecemeal annexation to adjacent cities, Cupertino's community leaders began a drive in 1954 for incorporation. Cupertino rancher Norman Nathanson, the Cupertino - Monta Vista Improvement Association and the Fact-finding Committee, played important roles in this movement. Incorporation was approved in a September 27, 1955 election. Cupertino officially became Santa Clara County's 13th City on October 10, 1955.
A major milestone in Cupertino's development was the creation by some of the city's largest landowners of VALLCO Business and Industrial Park in the early 1960's. Of the 25 property owners, 17 decided to pool their land to form VALLCO Park, 6 sold to Varian Associates, a thriving electronic firm founded by Russell Varian, and 2 opted for transplanting to farms elsewhere. The name VALLCO was derived from the names of the principal developers: Varian Associates and the Leonard, Lester, Craft and Orlando families. Today, Cupertino houses some of the largest high-technology firms in the world, like Apple Computer, Inc. , Hewlett Packard and rapidly growing companies such as Symantec and NetManage.