Lost Bay Area Stories

In 1918, letters to the editor were the equivalent of social media today, a mixed bag of opinions many times anchored in counter factual...

During the early 1960, Louis Corbetta, a retired 60 year old, decided to build an iconic party house for friends and neighbors in the Los Al

An excerpt from early San Jose Historian, Clyde Arbuckle, on the Spanish Flu era and the wearing of masks. The statistics are a little...

"Big George" Osen, from the Edenvale neighborhood in San Jose, was the first cyclist with a "safety" styled bicycle. He drew so much...

This photo of A.G Col was part of a accumulation of photographs that were found when cycling was just starting in San Jose around 1884. ...

This photo of A.G Col was part of a accumulation of photographs that were found when cycling was just starting in San Jose around 1884. ...

Starting in the late 1800's, San Jose became infatuated with cycling and bicycle racing. In 1908, the San Jose Mercury decided to...

I love old movie billboards. This one was in San Francisco in 1922. Betty Compson was a rising Hollywood startlet and had early...

San Jose's Marcian Rossi was an interesting local character as I've mentioned in other posts.. He was the overseer of the family's...

Ironically, this debate a hundred years ago is the same one that we're having today. Sources: San Francisco Call, October 5, 1921

I've already posted about San Jose resident Marcian Rossi's collection of Marco Polo era maps and their noteworthiness. I've also posted...

Cultural norms and modesty were amusingly different a hundred years ago. Showing legs and ankles were a sign of avant guard fashion. ...

As I've mentioned in a previous post, Marcian Rossi's claim to fame was that he held a collection of maps from the Marco Polo era. He...

There was an Italian San Jose resident and local tailor/machineist that lived in the area 100 years ago who's lineage connected him...

R.B Barrett was quite a celebrity in San Jose during the early 1900's. He was the only one armed chauffer to drive a deliver car in the...

In 1908, H.C Brooks, a native of San Jose, invented a new way of integrating a bike pump into the frame. Pretty clever idea although the...