City of Mountain View, California

Rancho Pastoria de las Borregas was split between Mariano Castro and Martin Murphy. The south eventually became the city of Sunnyvale, and the north became the city of Mountain View. The town began as a stage stop on the route between San Francisco and San Jose (corresponding to El Camino Real), close to present-day Grant Road. With the coming of the railroad, the center of town eventually moved to its current location at Castro Street.

Much of Mountain View was agricultural through the 1940s, 1950s, and most of the 1960s. Row crops and orchards were common during this era, when there was still open space between Palo Alto and Mountain View. In Bittersweet: Memories of Old Mountain View, an Oral History, residents of Japanese ancestry recall their family's strawberry fields adjoining Moffett Field. Orchards lined much of Grant Road and Miramonte. In the early 1900s, grapes were a common crop in the area of present-day Continental Circle. Phylloxera ended grape production in Mountain View in the early 1900s.

In the 1950s, the most popular places for young folk were the Monte Vista drive-in movie theater on Grant Road, Johnny Mac's Scottish-themed burger drive-in (the building still stands vacant on El Camino), and the Eagles Shack dances in the Adobe Building.

During the Cold War, the drone of Navy P-3 turboprop aircraft was a constant presence, Moffett Field being the home of squadrons of them and their almost constant touch-and-go training flights. The horns of railroad locomotives were also frequently heard.

Mountain View was once the home of Arrow Development, a designer and builder of amusement park rides. During its time in Mountain View, Arrow was contracted to build many of the original rides at Disneyland.^[3]

— City —
The Rotunda (main entrance) of City Hall, Mountain View

The El Camino Hospital District, a government entity called a Special District under the California Government Code, came to life in the 1960s. The hospital facility at 2500 Grant Road has been in continual operation since.

Nearly anyone using the term Silicon Valley would include Mountain View in that region. An early Silicon Valley company was Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, located along Whisman Road. Several of Intel's founders came from Fairchild. Local watering holes for workers included Chubby's Broiler (which once stood at Ellis and Fairchild near Hwy 101, but which moved in 1999 to near Tasman and Lawrence Expressway in Sunnyvale^[4]) and Walker's Wagon Wheel on Middlefield Road near Whisman (since torn down). Folklore was that semiconductor pioneers were collaborative and met at the Wagon Wheel to discuss problems they were having with production.

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