History

The mission of the organization is to provide community leadership for the development and active use of the park through education, advocacy and stewardship. In addition to working with numerous governmental agencies and providing a citizen perspective on development issues, the Friends promote awareness and community participation by providing educational and outreach programs and volunteer opportunities.

Friends of Guadalupe River Park & Gardens is governed by a  volunteer Board of Directors, composed of community leaders chosen for their expertise and particular interest in this project. A staff of five, three full-time and two part-time employees, carry out the work of the Board.

Approximately 12% of the Friends annual operating budget in 2006-07 comes from the City of San Jose PRNS Department, with other revenues generated through memberships, grants, fee for service programs, events and donations.

Friends of Guadalupe River Park & Gardens serve the broad population of Santa Clara County who will benefit from this new regional park. This includes residents and office workers adjacent to the park who enjoy the trails and open space, bicyclists and pedestrians who use the trails (which will eventually connect to the County-wide trail system) for recreation and transportation, garden enthusiasts, and adults and children who participate in our educational programs.

Timeline of Development

Historically important as the river on which el Pueblo de San José was founded in 1777, the Guadalupe River was neglected for many years. Our modern city was developed with its back turned to the river, reminded of its presence only when the river swelled with winter rains and spilled over its banks. Many times in the past century the river has flooded adjacent homes and businesses, causing human suffering and economic loss. The most recent of these floods occurred in the winter of 1995 and created an estimated $6 million in damage.

The first effort to provide flood protection began in 1941 when a study was authorized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Stopped and started many times over the next four decades, the flood control plans were finally linked to the dream for an urban river park in the 1960s. Today the Guadalupe River Park is being developed by the City of San Jose and the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Jose in cooperation with the flood control efforts of the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The area known as Guadalupe Gardens lies south of the San Jose Airport and immediately west of the river park. Beginning in 1975, over 630 homes were removed from this 240-acre area because of airport noise and safety concerns. Funding was provided by the Federal Aviation Agency. In 1986, Mayor Tom McEnery proposed the creation of an open space and recreation area within this airport approach zone. A Citizens Task Force formed in 1990 developed a Master Plan for the land that calls for extensive gardens that reflect the history of San Jose as the Garden City, promotes environmentally-sensitive gardening, and recognizes the need for low density, passive development.

Woolen Mills Historic Site

In May 1999, a special team of archaeologists, coordinated by Caltrans archaeologist Mark Hylkema, led an excavation of a locally-important historic site along the Guadalupe River at Taylor Street. The occasion for doing the excavation at this time was the construction of the new Taylor Street bridge and a three-mile extension of the Guadalupe Parkway from downtown to the airport and Highway 101. The excavation was timed so as not to interfere with the construction schedule.

Local historians have always been aware that a settlement known as the Woolen Mills Chinatown was located near Taylor Street between 1887 and 1902. The local Chinese population was burned out of their home on the site of the present-day Fairmont Hotel in 1887 and many of the people, mostly single men, moved to this location by the Guadalupe River where they were employed at the Woolen Mills.

The archaeological team did months of careful planning and research, prior to actually working on the site, as a guide to where they were most likely to find evidence of the settlement. During the excavation itself, remnants of building foundations, front porch piers, redwood water pipes, and streets, confirmed the layout of the town. Artifacts discovered in the excavation, together with what can be found in historical records, will tell the experts much about the life of the residents.

During the excavation, volunteers from the Friends of Guadalupe River Park & Gardens had the unique experience of working with the archaeological staff in sifting dirt to discover small objects (mostly ceramics, household utensils, shells and animal bones) and in carefully sorting these objects for future study and documentation.

Excavations such as this are tightly controlled to preserve the context or setting for the artifacts that are found. “Provenience”, knowing the exact location of where an object comes from, is essential to an archaeologist's work. Without direct associations to historic events or people, objects from the past have a limited story to tell.

Additional background information on this project is also available at www.chcp.org, the web site for the Chinese Historical & Cultural Project.

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