The Valley of Heart's Delight, what Silicon Valley was once known as, long before industrialization and suburbanization altered it forever.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

In my childhood I used to be driven on Sunday trips to see the orchards in the Santa Clara Valley, at that time one of the principal centers of California fruit production. In the springtime we would drive through what seemed to be endless vistas of fruit trees in bloom. Here was the center for prune and cherry production. Here also grew plums, pears, peaches, apricots, and other fruit- and nut-bearing trees. Santa Clara fruit and other farm produce was exported over the nation and the world. —Raymond Dasmann, The Destruction of California, MacMillan Co., 1965

As our collection slowly encompasses more and more of the Bay Area, we are adding new categories beyond San Francisco neighborhoods. This one is the place to find what we have on South Bay and Peninsula stories.