A new self-guided history trail wound its way through downtown Morgan Hill for the first time Aug. 29, as the Leadership Morgan Hill Class of 2026 cut the ribbon on “Many Stories, One Morgan Hill,” the capstone project to the nine-month leadership development course.
The trail includes 19 stops, 10 of which follow a walking trail across downtown and nine more spread across a driving route. Each site is marked with a plaque containing a QR code linking to a fuller story, photos and other material online.
A permanent trailhead sign is expected to go up within the next week, organizers said; a temporary one stood in for Saturday’s ceremony.
“Morgan Hill has a rich history filled with remarkable people, places and stories that shaped the community we know today,” the class wrote in describing the project.
Sharon Wagner, a member of the class who helped lead the effort, said the goal was to move beyond any single building or event.
“We wanted to represent more than just a historical building,” Wagner said at the ceremony. “We looked for places that reflected different eras, neighborhoods, industries, institutions and lived experiences. … Morgan Hill was not shaped by one person or one event, but by many generations, and thus many stories.”
Leadership Morgan Hill, a nonprofit founded in 1995 under the motto “Inspire, Connect, Serve,” has graduated more than 500 alumni through its nine-month program, which pairs community education with a class-led capstone project. Last year’s class restored a stolen bronze owl sculpture along the Little Llagas Creek Trail and revived the Native Plant Garden at Villa Mira Monte.
This year’s 15-member class turned its attention downtown.
Class members said they designed the trail by cross-referencing existing historical markers, including sites already registered with a national registry, against a list of sites significant to different facets of the town’s history, from indigenous life to its agricultural history and the city’s founding families.
The resulting nineteen sites were then divided among class members, who researched and wrote one or two stories apiece before volunteers with the Morgan Hill Historical Society reviewed each for accuracy and thoroughness.
“We were really working in tandem to make sure these stories were historically accurate,” said Wendelyn Sherbart, a class member who also led Saturday’s inaugural walking tour.
Sherbart consulted with Amah Mutsun and Muwekma Ohlone tribal representatives to develop the story for the tour’s indigenous site at Murphy Springs.
“All these other sites are [around] 250 years old, but the indigenous history is 12,000 years old,” Sherbart said. “They’ve been here, been caretakers of this land for so long, and they’re still here, and still wanting to be recognized.”
Roger Knopf, president of the Morgan Hill Historical Society, emphasised that the trail was the Leadership class’s brainchild, with the society serving only as a research partner.
“The society is proud to have been consulted and utilized from a research perspective,” Knopf said, “particularly in ensuring the writing is historically sound.”
Morgan Hill Chamber of Commerce CEO Nick Gaich, whose organization hosted the ceremony, called the collaboration between the class and the Historical Society “a very, very powerful example of what a nonprofit collaboration looks like.”
Chris Ghione, the city’s assistant city manager for public services, said the plaque designs drew no objections from city staff, the city’s Library, Culture and Arts Commission, or the City Council, which approved the project unanimously.
“Chris mentioned the fact that the council unanimously approved [this project], and in about two seconds,” Mayor Mark Turner said during the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “It’s rare that the council unanimously approves anything, but we really did see the value in this.”
The class raised roughly $15,000 to fund the project, according to Sherbart. Organizers said no taxpayer money was used; instead they collected donations from local businesses and individuals including the Morgan Hill Wine Trolley, Johnson Lumber Ace Hardware, the Susan and Charles Berghoff Foundation, Rosy’s at the Beach, Kathy and Brian Sullivan, Jeff and Kayla Schumacher, and many others.
Class members also credited “webmaster” Morgan Prickett, who built and maintains the trail’s website, and said their next goal is to add audio narration to each stop so visitors can listen to the stories rather than read them on their phones while walking.
The trail map and full stories for each stop are available at morganhillhistoricalsociety.org/history-trail.
