People had reached California by ship across the Pacific, or around Cape Horn, or traveling up the coast from Mexico, but no one, so far, had been successful bringing wagons on the overland route.
Several attempts had been made in the early s, but all of those expeditions had to abandon their wagons in the end and make it to California on foot or horseback.
It was important for emigrants to be able to go in wagons because they wanted to start a new life and set up shop in the west, so they needed to take the tools of their trade. They left as members of a wagon trek from Council Bluffs, Iowa, in May , and eleven wagons branched off to make their way across the mountains—successfully—with fifty persons traveling together.
One of those infants was Elizabeth, Martin Murphy Jr. Every member of the party had to walk ten to fifteen miles a day, next to the oxen-drawn wagons, which contained tools, weapons, and ammunition.
In , Martin Murphy Jr. At the time, with California becoming a state of the Union, many Mexican landowners had difficulties proving the title to their land and were embroiled in lengthy legal battles. Land was sold to pay for the lawyers and fees.
Martin started out growing wheat and raising cattle and made a tidy profit from hides sold for leather. His brothers, Dan and John, had opened a general store in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada during the gold rush to supply miners with tools and food, and Martin delivered meat and grain to them. The Joshua Hendy Iron Works built marine steam engines, naval guns and rocket launchers to aid in the war effort.
As the defense industry grew, a shortage of workers in the farm industry was created. Immigrants from Mexico came to Sunnyvale to fill this void of workers. Following the war, the fruit orchards and sweetcorn farms were cleared to build factories, homes and offices. In , the aircraft manufacturer Lockheed moved its headquarters to Sunnyvale. In , an indoor mall called Sunnyvale Town Center opened in what used to be the traditional downtown shopping district. After years of successful performance, the mall started to decline in the s.
After numerous changes in plans and ownership, the mall was demolished in , and a new downtown shopping district was constructed. Murphy had the first wood frame house, which was shipped from New England, in Santa Clara County built. The original house was demolished in but was reconstructed in as the Sunnyvale Heritage Park Museum.
When he died in , his land was divided among his heirs. Lawrence Station was later established on the southern edge of Bay View. In the s, county property tax laws, imports and soil degradation caused wheat farming to become uneconomical in Santa Clara County.
Small fruit orchards replaced the large wheat farms. Fruit agriculture and canning soon became a major industry in the county. The invention of the refrigerated rail car further increased the viability of an economy based upon fruit. In the s, Chinese workers made up 48 percent of the farm labor in Santa Clara County.
This percentage reduced over time after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. In the following decade, the s, multitudes of immigrants from Italy, the Azores, Portugal, and Japan arrived to work in the orchards. In , Walter Everett Crossman bought acres and began selling real estate.
He advertised the area as Beautiful Murphy. Later, in the s, real estate developer Walter Crossman described it as "the City of Destiny".
Also in , Encina School opened as the first school in Murphy. Previously, children in the town had to travel to Mountain View for school. In , the residents of Murphy were informed they could not use the names Encinal or Murphy for their post office.
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