By Don McDonald

As part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Los Altos a few weeks ago, a time capsule was buried in the ground. It is hoped the capsule will give our successors in 2102 a personal look at what things were like in Los Altos 100 years earlier.

A few days after the anniversary event, I had the pleasure of actually opening an early Los Altos time capsule. It had been carefully sealed and legally buried since 1930. It contained personal data from the 1930 U.S. Census, recently released after the legally stipulated delay of 72 years.

Looking at it highlighted the many differences between our present-day cities of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills and the largely rural Los Altos area from which the two cities sprang.

First, the gross figures. According to the 2000 census, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills had a combined population of 35,595.

The 1930 census figure for the same area was 2,911. In other words, we grew over 12 times larger in 70 years.

This was many times more than the total U.S. population growth of 2.3 times during that period.

Of course, enormous growth was typical in other parts of the Bay Area, and so that increase in itself wasn’t a surprise. What a closer look revealed, however, was how much this area has changed in its cultural dynamics.

More so than Palo Alto and Mountain View, Los Altos was largely agricultural in 1930. Farm families and their workers constituted around 30 percent of this area’s population. In terms of space, farms took up more than 70 percent of the area’s land.

Los Altos has grown into an important part of urban Silicon Valley, with little evidence of its agricultural past.

There are no farmers left, and our chief visual tie to our agricultural past is the residual Heritage Orchard at the civic center.

The mix of cultures has changed a lot too. The 1930 census asked in column 12 about “Race or Color.” Answers show that this area was about 87 percent white, 10 percent Japanese and 2 percent Filipino. There were also five Chinese and five blacks. Five men were listed as “Mexicans,” apparently being considered nonwhite.

Virtually all the “nonwhites” worked in agriculture. The Filipinos were mostly concentrated in the berry farms along Springer Road and Miramonte Avenue. The Japanese worked in the plentiful fruit orchards as well as the area dairies, vineyards, horse farms, truck/vegetable farms and poultry farms.

The remainder of the population had occupations in a diverse mix of businesses, professions and other nonfarm activities.

Although the Great Depression had begun, more local households had at least one full-time servant than you would find today.

Local estates typically had more.

For example, on his twelve acres estate, where he apparently lived alone in the 26-room mansion he built in 1925, retired San Francisco stockbroker Edward McCutcheon had a Chinese cook, Chinese handyman and Filipino gardener, plus a white nurse, maid and housekeeper.

He was reputed to give lively parties for friends.

Property values ranged from $150,000 for McCutcheon’s mansion to as little as $1,000. Outside of these extremes, the average was around $7,000.

In fancier sections, as around University Avenue, house values were almost all above $10,000. The Paul Shoup and Mariani residences were both valued at $25,000.

The Jesuit retreat at El Retiro was valued at $100,000. Except for the Twelve Acres mansion, which burned down, these places still stand today.

One out of four houses was rented. Monthly rents varied widely, ranging from $5 to $125 a month, with an average of about $15.

Except for the Furuichis, all local Japanese families rented - probably because native-born Japanese couldn’t legally own property at that time.

Other minority groups rented too, except for two black-owned households.

It turned out that most 1930 families had a radio, exceptions being largely limited to households headed by foreign-born parents.

One category of people largely absent from the work force was married women.

As we know, they were not to join the work force in significant numbers until World War II. Another reason for their rarity could be that during the Great Depression there was some stigma attached to a woman who took a job that could be filled by a man with a family to support.

We know that in the Los Altos area there were 16 veterans of the Spanish-American War and 74 who were in World War I.

Of the 2,911 residents listed in 1930, only seven men and nine women were in their 80s. Only one man and one woman were in their 90s.