Although San José is one of the newest of cities, it is one of the oldest of communities in the State of California. It has a history both rich and varied. From the Spanish Conquistadors to the Mission padres to the mountain men voyageurs’ to the 49’ers, San José has been a glowing hope for the future. And so it remains. Here in this beautiful valley one group of travellers after another have found a tremendous opportunity to fulfill their dreams. It has provided a vision of a better life to those who arrived as overland emigrants in covered wagons or in tempest-tossed boats from lands at the other side of the Pacific Rim. It has always stood for things simple and profound: freedom and hope.

Those things that occurred in our past are more valuable to the present than any other commodity This has been a rapid and at times dizzying journey from the Llano de los robles to the Valley of Heart’s Delight to Silicon Valley, but it has been a journey filled with certain constants. The pueblo of San José is quite visible in the agricultural hub of early Twentieth century San José , just as that entrepreneurial place is present in the rising metropolitan high technology center of our own time. Whether it was cattle on the mission pasture or cherries and prunes in a crate or information onto a chip, San José has always been innovating, and improving. We remain so today. As we reap the benefits of a preeminent City of the future, we must never forget the lessons and values of our past. For generations San José has been the destination of choice and a wonderful home for my family and hundreds of thousands of others. In these pages we will relive the founding and emergence of our City as recounted by one who knows it better than any other. Enjoy the trip.

Lighting by electricity came to San José in the fall of 1881 as a result of an editorial written by publisher J. J, Owen of the Mercury on May 13. Owen, an ardent champion of all things electrical, had conceived a “high light theory” for eradicating San José’s nocturnal darkness. He would build a 237-foot-high tower in the center of the city and place at the top of it a circle of six 4,000 candle power arc lights covered by a giant reflector. This, he reasoned, would send abundant light into every shadowy recess of the community.

The idea found immediate favor with a large number of the townsfolk. A public subscription soon raised $3,456.75 of the estimated $4,000 necessary for construction, Following a short delay for adjusting plans to costs, contracts were let to foundryman Frederick Altman and builder J. D. Campbell. The ground breaking took place on August 11, and construction got under way with brick mason Michael Kenney’s laying the foundations.

Meanwhile, Owen and his associates had conferred with George H. Roe of the California Brush Electric Company. Roe, born in Ontario, Canada, came to San Francisco at the age of twenty-three in 1875. Largely self-educated, he had been on his own since the death of his father ten years earlier. In the course of his occupation as a money broker, he had taken a Wallace-Farmer dynamo and lamp as security on a loan that the borrower forgot to pay off. Neither item amounted to much, but in arousing his interest in electrical machinery and lighting, they marked a turning point in his life.

Roe soon formed a close friendship with William Kerr, sole Pacific Coast agent for Brush Electric Cornpany equipment, manufactured in Cleveland, Ohio. I-le next incorporated the California Electric Light Company, which acquired Kerr’s rights to that equipment for a directorship and large block of stock in the new utility.

Though Brush products were strictly of Ohio origin under patents held by a former telegraph lineman named Charles Brush, Roe’s advertising genius made them synonymous with electricity in California. The same genius also discerned their business possibilities in San José’s electric power. A Brush generator would furnish the electricity for its lights.

Roe installed this generator in the engine room of Thomas J. Gillespie’s planing mill on the south side of El Dorado Street, between San Pedro and Orchard, more recently the site of the Greyhound Bus Station. The same big steam engine that powered the mill by day turned the generator by night. The electricity thus generated signaled dedication of the tower at 6:30 p. m., December 13, 1881.

The 24,000 candle power blaze of light from the top of this structure brought worldwide fame to San José, Publishers of La Lumiere Electrique, Journal d’Electricite of Paris chided France for not being so progressive as San José in lighting.

At home, Owen’s supporters wrote enthusiastic letters of commendation. Carefully avoiding mention of any other paper, one subscriber said he could read his Mercury by tower light at a point thirteen blocks away. Praise in another form came from a farmer near what is now Morgan Hill. He complained that his farm’s egg production had fallen off because the abundant light roundabout had upset his hens’ laying time. They could not tell night from day.

Non-subscribers and rival newspapers were not so complimentary. To them the tower was little short of an abomination unto heaven. Even before construction, they labeled it “Owen’s Folly,” a shameful waste of money, and a hazard to wild ducks and geese in foggy weather. Among the severest critics were the town’s gas manufacturers.

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