Gilroy's 150th Anniversary

The Sesquicentennial Time Capsule, featuring items that represent 2020 in Gilroy, has been sealed and will stay shut until 2070. Gilroy artist Carol Peters, a retired Gilroy High School art teacher and the creator of the winning sesquicentennial logo design, painted the capsule.  “When asked to...

Three brothers left their 11 siblings and parents at a northwest Missouri homestead in 1849 to head west to California, in search of gold. They would eventually settle in a place called Gilroy. There is no record of how they got to the Golden State,...

Gilroy’s sesquicentennial was one for the history books. But not in the way anyone had imagined going into 2020. A once-in-a-century pandemic transformed daily life for not only Gilroyans, but the world. As a result, various sesquicentennial events planned throughout 2020 were canceled. However, Gilroy’s 150th...

Nine years after Gilroy was incorporated as a city, most of its landowners didn’t know the exact boundaries of their properties. But when the so-called “Cattle King” Henry Miller came into town and began purchasing property in the 26,000-acre Las Animas Rancho, where Gilroy was...

Gilroy’s 150th anniversary celebration never came to be as planned, despite being months in the making. It was, as organizers describe it, “the best darn party that Gilroy never saw.” But, a year-and-a-half later on Sept. 13, it got a small send-off during the Gilroy...