Gilroy's 150th Anniversary

Gilroy artist Carol Peters prepares to paint a time capsule in celebration of the city’s sesquicentennial. The capsule was recently built by Louis Hack, and delivered to Peters for painting. Peters is a retired Gilroy High School art teacher, and the creator of the...

By:  Gilroy Advocate, October 1868 It is not our purpose at present to say much in regard to the claims of the valley of Santa Clara, over other parts of California for a permanent settlement. It is well known, however, conceded by all who have...

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,...

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...