Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains , [ 12 ] the population was 82, at the census. Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley , and is the location of many high technology companies. Mountain View houses the headquarters of many of the world's largest technology companies, including Google and Alphabet Inc.
The fertile land between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the shores of the southern San Francisco Bay once supported multiple villages of the indigenous Ohlone people. Spanish missionaries utilized the land for sheep pastures. Eventually, the former land grant was developed as the cities of Mountain View and Sunnyvale. The southwest shore of San Francisco Bay was settled by European-Americans in as a stagecoach station. This was after the United States acquired California.
By the early s, it was a shipping point for fruit and grain, as well as a center of religious book publishing. This is now the site of the present city library and park, known as Pioneer Park.
Reverend Henry Merrill Henderson, born in Maryland, arrived here at age 35 with his family in ; he was meeting relatives: the Ricketts and others who had migrated from Missouri and Kentucky.
He was the first Baptist minister in town. He soon rode a circuit for preaching, going by horseback to Half-Moon Bay and McCarthysville for services.
