Special Feature Stevens Creek Tails
By Pamela Baird MVHA President
From Wild to Tamed
From its start on the west side of Black Mountain to where it enters the bay , Stevens Creek covers over 20 miles of varied terrain and uses . Its early visitors were the local Ohlone Indians who �ished , ate berries , and hunted game near the creek . What the Ohlone called the creek is unknown .
Four-hundred acres of land around the upper portion of the creek were purchased in 1924 to become the �irst county park in Santa Clara County . In 1935 , a dam was built by the Santa Clara Valley Water Conservation District across the upper creek to meet the growing demand for aquifer replenishment . Today , a wide variety of activities are available around the dam and the 1,077-acre expanded park . These include hiking , bird watching , picnicking , �ishing , and bicycling .
Flood control measures were built on lower portions of the creek in the 1940s – 1950s . Areas where the concrete channel was constructed changed the appearance and use of the creek . But large portions of the creek were still wild enough that Santa Clara County considered these unaltered areas as a series of possible parks and parkways along the creek in 1961 .
Today the creek is one of the most natural in the San Francisco Bay area , even in the most heavily populated areas . It �lows through Cupertino , Los Altos , Sunnyvale , and Mountain View where it enters the Bay between Mountain View and Moffett Field .
The Creek ’ s Friends
The Friends of Stevens Creek Trail was the brainchild of Rhonda Scherber Farrar . As a Mountain View Environmental Planning Commissioner , she was surprised to learn about 40 acres of public land along the creek in Mountain View that had been envisioned as part of a park trail more than 30 years earlier . In Silicon Valley fashion , she wrote a business plan for a community organization that would aid the cities and other jurisdictions along the trail to get it built . She recruited prominent members of the community to form the Friends as a 501 ( c )( 3 ) organization in 1993 . The Friends have been working diligently ever since to promote the value that the Stevens Creek Trail brings to the area and supporting local government efforts to get a trail built from the San Francisco Bay to the Santa Cruz Mountain Ridge . Friends has successfully encouraged the expansion of the trail in Mountain View and construction of the trail in portions of Cupertino . More efforts are planned for the future .
Who was “ Steven ”?
Who is the man for which Stevens Creek is named ? Not much is known about his early life , other than Elisha Stephens was born in South Carolina and moved to Georgia at a young age . Evidently , he was in the fur trade , which is probably why he was in Council Bluffs , Iowa , and later was employed by the Potawatomi Indian sub-agency as a blacksmith . It was from there that he embarked on a dangerous and exhausting seven-month odyssey to Alta California . In 1844 , at the age of 40 , he joined a wagon train heading west and was soon selected captain of the 11 ox-drawn wagon party of 50 people , later known as the “ Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party .” The route the group followed for the �irst 1,600 miles was mostly along the established Oregon Trail .
But it was the last 400 miles that was truly a ground-breaking endeavor . Not knowing the exact route to Alta California , the party encountered a Paiute Indian who told them there was a river quite a distance to the west that may lead them to the Sierra Nevada . The group followed the information , which did lead them to the Sierras . The route had never been traversed by a wagon train , but by sheer force of effort , a portion of the group successfully went over the pass in two-foot-deep snow . The details are too complicated to list here .
After entering California , Stephens participated in the lead-up to the Bear Flag Revolt — the rebellion of American settlers against the Mexican rule of Alta California . From 1846 – 1848 , Stephens was an ordnance blacksmith in San Diego during the Mexican- American War .
In the 1850s , Stephens purchased a total of 330 acres of land along a creek named Arroyo San José de Cupertino , later known as “ Cupertino Creek .” The creek was eventually named after Stephens ( although misspelled ) along with a road that led to his property , Stevens Creek Road . Stephens named his land Blackberry Farm and there he grew grapes and blackberries , �ished , and hunted . He stayed there until 1864 when he left because the area was getting “ too durn civilized .”
Stephens then moved to the Bakers�ield area where he lived until his passing in 1887 . Several historic markers in the Sierras note this groundbreaking crossing of the Sierras . In addition , a mountain near Donner Lake is named for him .
Join us on Sunday , February 20 at our quarterly meeting where we ’ ll share more information about Elisha Stephens , Stevens Creek , and the trail !
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