Glossary

The words you’ll hear around Campbell — places, history, weather and local ways, explained

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Architecture

Ainsley House: The Ainsleys’ 1925 English Cotswold-style cottage, moved to 300 Grant Street in 1990 and now a house museum.
Campbell Union Grammar School: The Mediterranean Revival grammar school of 1922-23 on East Campbell Avenue, now offices.
Campbell Water Tower: The 1928 steel water tower on Orchard City Drive, with CAMPBELL across its tank: the town’s best-known landmark.
Farley Building: The 1895 First Bank of Campbell at 365 East Campbell Avenue, the oldest commercial building in town.
Galindo-Leigh House: A house on Peter Drive begun in the 1830s, possibly the oldest home in Campbell.
Heritage Theatre: The 1938 Campbell High School auditorium, designed by William H. Weeks, reopened as an 800-seat theater in 2004.

Boogie: Boogie: Campbell’s Music Festival, held downtown on the third weekend of May.
Campbell Farmers’ Market: The year-round Sunday market on East Campbell Avenue, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Campbell Oktoberfest: The Chamber’s free two-day German-themed festival downtown on the third weekend of October.
Prune Festival: The Chamber’s May festival of the late 1970s to 2000, with its magenta mascot Super Prune.
Summer Concert Series: Free Thursday-evening concerts on Orchard City Green in July and August.

Benjamin Campbell: The town’s founder (1826-1907), who came to California in 1846, bought 160 acres in 1851 and laid out the town in 1887.
Campbell Station: The railroad stop on Benjamin Campbell’s land that the town grew around, first called Lovelady.
Campbell Water Company: The town’s first utility, formed in 1892, which built the water tower.
Country Woman’s Club: The women’s club, founded in 1905, that gave Campbell its library and its history museum.
John Colpitts Ainsley: Campbell’s canning pioneer (1860-1937), an English immigrant who built the Ainsley cannery and the Ainsley House.
Ohlone: The Native American people of the Northern California coast whose land Campbell is built on.
PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins: The 1980 U.S. Supreme Court case that began with high school students petitioning at the Pruneyard.
Rancho Rinconada de Los Gatos: The 1840 Mexican land grant that covered about a third of present-day Campbell; its name means corner of the cats.
Roosevelt redwood: The coast redwood President Theodore Roosevelt planted in Campbell on May 11, 1903.

Agricultural Heritage Plaques: Fruit-and-blossom plaques set into downtown sidewalks in 1992 to recall the orchards.
Bicycle Fire Department: Campbell’s volunteer firemen of the 1930s, who rode bicycles to fires through the orchards.
House moving: Campbell’s habit of moving old houses instead of tearing them down, once done with horses and wooden skids.
Moreland Little League: The league serving Campbell and San Jose whose team won the 1962 Little League World Series.
The Orchard City: Campbell’s old nickname, from the orchards, drying yards and canneries at the heart of its early economy.

Los Gatos Creek: The 24-mile creek from the Santa Cruz Mountains that runs along the east side of Campbell.
Los Gatos Creek Trail: The paved creekside trail that runs through Campbell between Los Gatos and San Jose.
Perc Ponds: Local name for the percolation ponds along Los Gatos Creek in Los Gatos Creek County Park.
San Tomas Aquino Creek: The creek on Campbell’s west side, once the edge of Rancho Rinconada de Los Gatos.

Campbell Cooperative Dryer: The growers’ dehydrator of 1937 that grew into the largest in the world.
Campbell Fruit Growers’ Union: The growers’ cooperative of 1892 that took over Campbell’s big drying yard.
Drying yards: The open fields of fruit trays where Campbell’s apricots, prunes and peaches were sun-dried, once among the largest in the world.
French prune: The prune plum that became the Santa Clara Valley’s main crop, and Campbell’s emblem fruit.
Fruit salad: Canned fruit salad, which Campbell’s J. C. Ainsley is credited with being the first to market.
Hyde Cannery: George E. Hyde & Company’s cannery and drying yard, now Water Tower Plaza.
J. C. Ainsley Packing Company: The cannery J. C. Ainsley began in 1891, which shipped Campbell fruit to England for forty years.
Sunsweet: The brand of the prune and apricot growers’ cooperative, whose Plant 1 stood in downtown Campbell.

Ainsley Park: The small park at East Campbell and Harrison Avenues on the site of the first Ainsley cannery.
Campbell: A city of about 44,000 people in the southwest of the Santa Clara Valley, between San Jose and Los Gatos, incorporated in 1952.
Campbell Historical Museum: The city’s history museum, in the 1951 firehouse at 51 North Central Avenue.
Campbell Park: The creekside park at Campbell and Gilman Avenues where the creek trail comes closest to downtown.
Downtown Campbell: The historic town center along East Campbell Avenue, beside the railroad, with shops, restaurants and the Sunday market.
Dubcich farm: Campbell’s last remaining farm, on West Campbell Avenue near John D. Morgan Park.
East Campbell Avenue: Downtown’s main street, closed to traffic every Sunday morning for the farmers’ market.
Gaslighter Theatre: The 1920 bank building at 400 East Campbell Avenue that became a cinema and then a melodrama house.
Hyde Park: The small park at the foot of the water tower, on the site of the 1890s water company plant.
John D. Morgan Park: Campbell’s second-largest park, on Rincon Avenue, crossed by the old rancho boundary.
Orchard City Green: The civic lawn between City Hall and the library, home of the Ainsley House and the summer concerts.
Pruneyard: The open-air shopping center at Campbell and Bascom Avenues, built on the old Brynteson Ranch and finished in 1970.