Place Information
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Santa Clara County is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It is the primary site of Silicon Valley. As of 2000 it had a population of 1,682,585. The county seat is San Jose.
History
Santa Clara County was one of the original counties of California, formed in 1850 at the time of statehood. Part of the county's territory was given to Alameda County in 1853. The county is named after Mission Santa Clara, which was established in 1777, and named for Saint Clare of Assisi, Italy. The name "Clare" or "Clara" means "clear" or "bright." In 1882, Santa Clara County tried to levy taxes upon property of the Southern Pacific Railroad within county boundaries. The result was the U.S. Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394 (1886), in which the Court extended Due Process rights to artificial legal entities. In the 1980's and 1990's, many hi-tech companies began operations in Santa Clara County, which became the headquarters for such companies as Apple Computer, Hewlett Packard, Quest, Intel, and many others. Today the county is the main area of the Silicon Valley, which includes several other counties both north and south of Santa Clara. Some tribes of the Ohlone Indians lived at Coyote Creek in Santa Clara. Timeline
Population History
Note: The 1850 total is incomplete; the returns for Contra Costa and Santa Clara Counties were lost before reaching Washington; those for San Francisco County were destroyed by fire. The State census of 1852 showed a population of 2,786 for Contra Costa, 36,154 for San Francisco, and 6,764 for Santa Clara; the 1852 State total was 215,122, excluding El Dorado County, whose population was not enumerated but was estimated at 40,000. Research Tips
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