When someone first moves to a new city, the first thought seems
to be
“Where did that street name come from?”
When someone first moves to a new city, the first thought seems to be “Where did that street name come from?”
Every city has its own legacy and much of that legacy is left in the names of the streets. Much of the history of Morgan Hill’s early residents lies in the street names found here.
Murphy, Diana, Hill and Machado avenues are all self-explanatory coming from the very roots of Morgan Hill’s legacy. But there are plenty of other names whose histories don’t come so easily.
East Dunne Avenue borders the property once owned by Catherine O’Toole Murphy. Dunne inherited 18,000 acres of Las Llagas when her husband, Bernard Murphy, died in the explosion of the Jenny Lind. The side-wheel steamboat exploded on San Francisco Bay in 1853. Also killed was Bernard’s nephew Thomas Kell, Jr. Bernard was the son of Martin Murphy, Sr. who came to the Morgan Hill/San Martin area in the 1840s.
The land was known as the Catherine Dunne Ranch and was subdivided by her son Peter Dunne. The property covered the area from the Coyote River in the east hills to Llagas and Uvas creeks in the west hills, a distance of about five miles. Its frontage was on Monterey Highway. Today the property boundaries could be marked at the area between Dunne and Tennant avenues, and Monterey and Llagas Creek.
Fisher Avenue is known for Captain William Fisher, who brought his family to the Rancho Refugio de la Laguna Seca in 1846. He bought the 19,972-acre ranch for $6,000. The ranch was adjacent to the Ojo de Agua, owned by Daniel Murphy, who married Fisher’s daughter, Maria.
Tennant and Tennant Station became known after the original 21-mile house was rebuilt in 1853 by William Tennant, a piano tuner from England. Since the Butterfield stage and later the Southern Pacific train went past the site, the house became known as Tennant Station.
What is known as Tilton Avenue, located in the north end of Morgan Hill, gets its name from the ranch owned by Howard Tilton and his family in 1918. The Tilton ranch was located in the foothills bordering Santa Teresa Boulevard and Willow Springs Road. Originally, the ranch was a part of the Rancho de Laguna Seca owned by Captain William Fisher and later inherited by Daniel Murphy and his wife Mary Fisher Murphy.
In about 1900, Henry W. Coe came to Morgan Hill and settled east of the budding city, in the Pine Ridge area, purchasing about 12,000 acres of land for the Coe Ranch. The ranch formed the bulk of Henry W. Coe State Park, now the largest state park in California.
The Cochrane family arrived in the area in 1869 and established their ranch in the valley along Coyote Creek, which is now partly covered by Anderson Dam. John E. and Aphelia F. Cochrane owned several hundred acres of land, which became one of the most prosperous dairies in the state. It also had 125 acres devoted to raising fruit. John Cochrane completed the road at its present location in 1893. He died on Nov. 20, 1899 and left his land to his wife. The couple had five children, three of whom died at early ages. Elsie and Aphelia May remained in the area with their mother.
It is through the Cochranes’ daughter Aphelia that the Jackson heritage comes to Morgan Hill. She married Alfred Joshua Jackson and they expanded the Cochrane Ranch land holdings. The couple had two children, Alfred John and Gladys. They took in Ruth Lowe after her parents died, and she became a lifetime companion to Gladys.
The two sisters became very involved in the community as well as hard workers on the ranch, where they worked cattle, picked prunes, trapped furs and were avid horsewomen. The areas known today as Jackson Oaks, Jackson Meadows, Holiday Lake Estates and Lake Anderson Ranchos on Finely Ridge were all part of the Jackson property.
L.M. Hale owned the first water works system in Morgan Hill around 1906. He piped the water into town from the springs where the Murphys first took up residence. Hale Road now runs along the western part of the city.
George Albert Edes came to Morgan Hill in 1892. He had a strong family heritage of printers and newsmen, and founded the Morgan Hill Sun-Times, taking over an earlier Sun, started in 1894. From 1920 to 1928, he was the elected mayor. Edes Court is a tribute to that family, whose members still live in Morgan Hill.
John Telfer, for whom John Telfer Drive is named, owned a grocery store in town and served as mayor of Morgan Hill from 1931 to 1946. He died when struck by a car on Monterey Road.
Paul Condit and his family owned 15 to 20 acres of land located on what is now Tennant and Murphy avenues. In addition to working on his farm, he worked for the Farmers Union. When the city was constructing a new road off Dunne Avenue, it was decided to name it after an early settler.
Alkire Avenue is in tribute to Harvey Alkire, who was the Public Works Director of Morgan Hill nearly 30 years ago. He married Bonnie Johnson, whose father, Ed Johnson Sr., was the undertaker.
Thomas Grade, the winding road leading from East Dunne into the Jackson Oaks area, received its name from Eleazer Thomas, who came to the area in 1876. Thomas purchased the squatters’ rights on the White Oak Flat area near Pine Ridge and immediately applied for a homestead there. Later, he acquired another 160 acres next to his own from his father-in-law, Thomas Richards, and had a working ranch in the eastern foothills. Members of the Thomas family still remain in Morgan Hill.
