Santa Teresa, San Jose

Santa Teresa is a neighborhood of San Jose, California, United States, located in South San Jose. Founded in 1834, Santa Teresa was originally established as Rancho Santa Teresa by the Bernal family, a prominent Californio clan. Today, Santa Teresa is largely a residential area, but also home to numerous Silicon Valley tech campuses.

For other uses, see Santa Teresa.
Santa Teresa
Neighborhood of San Jose
Top: Ramac Park; middle: shops on Village Oaks Dr; apartments on Palmia Ave; bottom: view of the Santa Teresa Hills from Ascent Apartments; apartments on Vía del Oro.
Santa Teresa is located in San Jose, California
Santa Teresa
Santa Teresa
Location within San Jose
Coordinates: 37.227948°N 121.778641°W / 37.227948; -121.778641
CountryUnited States
StateCalifornia
CountySanta Clara
CitySan Jose

Santa Teresa is the southernmost urban district of San Jose, bordering the largely protected Coyote Valley to its south. It is bound by the Santa Teresa Hills to its west and the Bayshore Freeway (101) to its east.

History
Don Bruno Bernal ran Rancho Santa Teresa from 1837 to 1863, following the death of his father and founder of the rancho, Don José Joaquín Bernal.
Main article: Rancho Santa Teresa

Santa Teresa was founded in 1834 as Rancho Santa Teresa, a rancho grant given by Governor José Figueroa to Don José Joaquín Bernal, a retired soldier who came to Alta California as part of the De Anza Expedition in 1776.[1] Prior to receiving the rancho grant, José Joaquín Bernal had already settled in the area since 1826.[1][2] Bernal named the area Santa Teresa after attributing the healing waters of the Santa Teresa Spring to Saint Teresa of Ávila, the 16th century Spanish saint.[2] Rancho Santa Teresa quickly became an important center for Californio life in the southern Santa Clara Valley, attracting vaqueros and their families from the region with regular fiestas featuring Fandango dancing and large feasts.[2]

Following the death of Don José Joaquín, his second son, Don Bruno Bernal, takes over the rancho's administration, while his two brothers, Agustín and Juan Pablo, sought businesses ventures outside of Santa Teresa.[2] By the time of the California Gold Rush, Agustín and Juan Pablo were selling their cattle to miners in Gold Country, while Bruno managed affairs at home.[2] Don Bruno became one of the region's most prominent public figures and ran the rancho until his death in 1863.[2] Today, a part of the original rancho is preserved as the Rancho Santa Teresa Historic District, though the original adobe hacienda of the rancho has since burned down.

The Treaty of Santa Teresa (Spanish: Tratado de Santa Teresa) was signed at the rancho in 1844, temporarily ending the hostilities between Governor Manuel Micheltorena and the revolters led by former Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado.[3]

RAMAC Park is named after the IBM 305 RAMAC, the first computer to use a disk drive, which was developed at the IBM Santa Teresa Lab in the 1950s.[4]

Geography
Western Digital headquarters.
Aerial view of Santa Teresa.

Santa Teresa is located in South San Jose. It is separated in the west from Almaden Valley by the Santa Teresa Hills and located north of Coyote Valley, which separates Santa Teresa from the Madrone neighborhood of Morgan Hill. To the northeast of Santa Teresa is Edenvale and to the northwest is Blossom Valley.

Tulare Hill serves as the barrier between the southern tip of Santa Teresa and Coyote Valley.

It is made up of the ZIP Codes 95119, 95123, 95139, 95193, and the parts of 95138 that are west of Coyote Creek.

The Cottle Transit Village is an Urban Village of Santa Teresa located in the north-central portion of the neighborhood.

Parks and plazas
Santa Teresa County Park.
  • Santa Teresa County Park
  • Palmia Park
  • Los Paseos Park
  • George Page Park
  • Ramac Park
  • Raleigh Linear Park
  • Avenida España Park
  • Black Mountain Bowmen

Education
Santa Teresa High School and Canoas Creek to the left.
Santa Teresa branch of the San José Public Library.

Santa Teresa is mostly served by the Oak Grove School District, which includes:

The southernmost portions of Santa Teresa are served by the Morgan Hill Unified School District, which operates two schools in Santa Teresa:

  • Los Paseos Elementary School
  • Martin Murphy Middle School

Transportation
Santa Teresa station on the Blue Line of the VTA light rail.

Santa Teresa is served by three stations of the VTA light rail.

Landmarks
  • Santa Teresa is the home of Kinsey Millhone in Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series of detective novels. However, in the novels Santa Teresa is a fictional town in Santa Barbara County ninety miles north of Los Angeles.

References
  1. Santa Clara County Parks: Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch
  2. Friends of Santa Teresa Park - Newsletter Summer 2020
  3. San Jose Mercury News - Santa Teresa County Park is a hidden jewel in South San Jose
  4. Cadence Community - RAMAC Park and the Origin of the Disk Drive
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