Gilroy is one of the most thriving and beautiful little cities of Santa Clara County. The first European settler was John (Cameron) Gilroy who arrived in Monterey aboard a trading ship around 1813. Eventually making his way inland to avoid capture, he found a safe haven at Rancho San Ysidro through his marriage to the daughter of Ygnacio Ortega. Before the area was known as Gilroy’s, the southern portion of the County was called Pleasant Valley by the early settlers. The first Spanish explorers in 1770 wrote in their journal about the San Bernardino Valley. Due to the regular flooding of Llagas Creek, the small village of San Ysidro became Old Gilroy and New Gilroy was established in the early 1850’s along the new alignment of the Monterey-San Jose Road. John Gilroy served many years as alcalde of the district for the Mexican government and in 1846 was appointed justice of the peace by Commodore Stockton. He was the subject of article by San Francisco Bulletin which was picked up by the New York Times in 1865 – www.nytimes.com/1865/07/16/archives/the-story-of-a-california-pioneer. Gilroy’s passing in 1869 mirrored the incorporation of the City that would bear his name and arrival of the railroad line boosting the community’s economic prosperity. One great obstacle to the burgeoning town was the question of land titles. The ownership of the land was an undivided interest in the Las Animas Rancho, an early Spanish grant made to the Castro family. The rancho had never been partitioned and there was an uncertainty as to where any particular land holding was legally located. Henry Miller, as the largest landowner in the rancho at this time, filed a partition lawsuit on January 3, 1879 to resolve the disputes. A decree and land survey were finally accepted in June of 1886. Since the settlement of land claims of rancho properties, the municipal population has grown to 3,000 people with another 4,000 people living on adjacent county lands. Gilroy is the business center for this rich and productive territory. The country is devoted to the production of prunes and other fruits, berries, vegetables and alfalfa, to dairying, cattle, hog and chicken raising, and to large seed farms.