People
Dance
of Indians at Mission in San José, New California, between 1803 and
1807 Dairy Hill has been lightly impacted by its inhabitants over the past 10,000 years. The Ohlone people gathered chert from the hill and tule reeds from its base. The Spanish surrounded the hill with ranchos and a cemetery and let their cattle roam throughout the area.
Americans bred dairy cattle here; the first to do so was a native New Yorker, Tyler Beach. Beach also bred swine and grew fruits and vegetables at the base of the hill.
For some 55 years, three families of Portuguese immigrants ran dairy cattle on Dairy Hill. The head of this family, Manuel Azevedo, arrived as a teenager and built the American Dairy Company into a prominent Valley enterprise.
Until the turn of the 21st century, precious few people lived or worked on this land. Dairy Hill was one of the last undeveloped places in the Santa Clara Valley.
