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Hometown History - Visiting San Jose Sunday, June 15 2008

Every true MythBuster geek has said at one time or another, "Kari Byron is so hot." OK, maybe not the lady geeks, but most of us nerdy gus out there. Maybe you don't admit it publicly, but secretly, in the back of your mind the 'hot-nerd' sensor is going wild.

Kari is an artist. She studied film and sculpture at San Francisco State University and traveled the world with a friend after graduation. Besides her infamous cuteness, she is also well remembered for her interesting hair that has ranged from blond to red and a special treat that was as crazy combination of both.

Unfortunately for all the hopeful guys out there, she has been married to Paul Urich since 2006. They currently live in California, the state of Kari's birth.

It is difficult to track down her hometown, but she did graduate from Los Gatos High School in Los Gatos, California. And many of the students who attended that school were from San José or other areas in the Silcone Valley, so for the purpose of this story we will learn a little about San José, which is at least similar to, if it is not, the town where she grew up.

San José is the third-largest city in California and the tenth-largest in the United States. It is the county seat of Santa Clara County. San Jose is located in the Santa Clara Valley, which has been dubbed the "Silicon Valley," at the Southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The term originally referred to the region's large number of silicon
chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high-tech businesses in the area. Despite the development of other high-tech economic centers throughout the United States, Silicon Valley continues to be the leading high-tech hub because of its large number of engineers and venture capitalists and probably partly due to tradition.

San Jose was once a small farming community, but became a magnet for suburban newcomers in new housing developments between the 1960s and the 1990s. The population is now around 989,500.

San Jose was founded on November 29, 1777 as the first town in the Spanish colony of Nueva California, which later became Alta California. It served as a farming community to support Spanish military installations at San Francisco and Monterey. When California gained statehood in 1850, San Jose served as its first capital.

After more than 150 years as an agricultural center, increased demand for housing from soldiers and other veterans returning from World War II, as well as aggressive expansion during the 1950s and 1960s, led San Jose to become what would later be known as the Capital of Silicon Valley.

Growth in the 1970s attracted more businesses to the city. In the late 1980s, San Jose surpassed San Francisco in population to become the third most populous city in California.

Prior to western settlement, the area was inhabited by several groups of Ohlone Native Americans. Though visited briefly by the English two centuries prior, the first lasting European presence began with a series of Franciscan missions established from 1769 by Father Junípero Serra.

San Jose came under Mexican rule in 1825 after Mexico broke with the Spanish crown. It became part of the United States, after it capitulated without bloodshed in 1846 and California was annexed.

On March 27, 1850, San Jose became the first incorporated city in the state. Josiah Belden was its first mayor. The town was the state's first capital, as well as host of the first and second sessions of the California Legislature.

Though not impacted as severely as San Francisco, San Jose suffered damage from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Over 100 people died at the Agnews Asylum after its walls and roof collapsed and the San Jose High School's three-story stone was also destroyed.

As World War II started, the city's economy shifted from agriculture to industrial manufacturing with the contracting of the Food Machinery Corporation (FMC) by the United States War Department to build 1000 Landing Vehicle Tracked.

After World War II, FMC continued as a defense contractor, with the San Jose facilities designing and manufacturing military platforms such as the M113 Armored Personnel Carrier, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, and various subsystems of the M1 Abrams.

IBM established its West Coast headquarters in San Jose in 1943 and opened a downtown research and development facility in 1952.

During the 1950s and 1960s, city manager Dutch Hamann led the city in a major growth campaign. An anti-growth reaction to the effects of rapid development emerged in the 1970s championed by mayors Norman Mineta and Janet Gray Hayes.

Despite the attempted stymie of development, San Jose's position in Silicon Valley triggered more economic and population growth, which led to the highest housing costs increase in the nation, 936% between 1976 and 2001.

Who knows how the hustle and bustle of Silicon Valley, produced and artist like Kari, but it does explain how the brainy cutie ended up a geek like the rest of us.