A glimpse into Mountain View's past at Los Altos History Museum A glimpse into Mountain View's past at Los Altos History Museum (April 06, 2001)

By Justin Scheck

The Los Altos History Museum, which opened March 18, gives Mountain View residents a new opportunity to see their community's development in a regional context.

While the museum focuses on the development of Los Altos, the current exhibits detail the history of land use and conservation in the area, and show how the development of Los Altos and Mountain View has been intertwined for more than a century.

The permanent exhibition, "Crown of the Peninsula: Los Altos Land Use Over Time," details the changes Los Altos underwent from the 19th century, when it was ranch land and orchards, through the early 20th, beginning with the development of a railroad line in 1907 that led to the growth of Los Altos as a population center.

Madelyn Crawford, the director of the museum, said this transformation was orchestrated by Paul Shoup, an official with the Southern Pacific Railroad who established the Altos Land Company in 1906. Shoup's plan-- to use the railroad to make a profitable real estate company-- did not take long to become successful. The village of Los Altos grew up around the train station and soon became a popular destination for wealthy San Franciscans, who built vacation homes there.

"These days what Shoup did would probably be considered a conflict of interest, but then people probably did not pay much attention to that, maybe because this was the West and was still thought of as wild," said Crawford.

According to Ruth Erichsen, a Mountain View native and Los Altos resident active in the historical associations of both towns, Los Altos was an outgrowth of Mountain View made possible by the railroad. Mountain View served as the commercial hub for the area; Los Altos, which did not want the kinds of commercial development that were turning its neighbor into a city, remained largely residential.

In 1952, when Mountain View sought to annex parts of Los Altos, then an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, Los Altos residents objected to the prospect of having commercial zoning in their community. They voted to incorporate as a town in order to preserve their land-use priorities.

The museum points out that despite these divergent land-use philosophies, Mountain View and Los Altos share a common element of economic history. The grounds include a working apricot orchard, a vestige of the vast orchards for which both places -- like other communities now part of Silicon Valley -- were known from the 1870s to the 1960s.

"It was a world center for dried prunes. And the apricots were recognized for their quality," said Yvonne Jacobson, a Los Altos Hills resident and the author of "Passing Farms: Enduring Values," a history of Silicon Valley's orchards.

The new museum building, designed by the local architect Goodwin Steinberg with community input, integrates modern elements with the traditional structure of a barn. Steinberg sought to complement the historical buildings and agricultural equipment from the early 20th century on the grounds.

In addition to the permanent installation, the museum has a temporary exhibition describing conservation efforts in Los Altos. Crawford said it was put together by curator Beth Hansen in response to a survey of residents.

Crawford said the museum will host a number of traveling exhibits over the next year, including "Red, Hot and Blue," a tribute to American musicals assembled by the Smithsonian Institution, as well as an interactive exhibit on mechanical devices called "Make it move!"