'Fremont' () is a city in
California that was incorporated on
January 23,
1956, from the merger of five smaller communities:
Centerville,
Irvington,
Mission San Jose,
Niles, and
Warm Springs. The area now comprising Fremont and the adjoining cities of
Newark (now an
enclave within Fremont) and
Union City was formerly known as
Washington Township. Fremont is located in the southeast area of the
San Francisco Bay Area in
Alameda County. The city is named after
John Charles Frémont, "the Great Pathfinder."
Home to 210,158 people as of a 2005 estimate, Fremont is the fourth most populous city in the
San Francisco Bay Area. Due in large measure to immigration by
refugees fleeing the
Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan,
Afghan Civil War, and small amounts during the
Taliban government during the late 1980s and 1990s, Fremont had the largest
Afghan population in the
United States in
2001. The diverse city demographic includes many
Asian ethnic groups, including
Indians,
Chinese,
Taiwanese, and other Asian groups, concentrated most heavily in the Mission San Jose District.
Fremont is the
sister city to
Elizabeth, South Australia, and to
Fukaya, Saitama, in Japan.
Geography
Mission Peak ''(L)'', Mount Allison ''(C)'' and Monument Peak ''(R)'' after a rare snowfall in March of 2006.
Fremont is located at (37.542943, -121.982786).
According to the
United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 225.6
km² (87.1
mi²), of which 198.6 km² (76.7 mi²) is land and 27.0 km² (10.4 mi²), 11.97%, is water. Fremont is bordered to the east by hills of the
Diablo Range. The most prominent of these hills is
Mission Peak, among the tallest points in the region at 2,517 feet (767 m). Mission Peak is a popular hiking spot in the East Bay Area.
Demographics
As of the
census of 2000, there were 203,413 people, 68,237 households, and 52,201 families residing in the city. The
population density was 1,024.1/km² (2,652.3/mi²). There were 69,452 housing units at an average density of 349.7/km² (905.6/mi²). The
racial makeup of the city is 47.67%
White, 36.95%
Asian, 3.10%
Black or
African American, 0.52%
Native American, 0.40%
Pacific Islander, 5.52% from
other races, and 5.84% from two or more races. 13.47% of the population were
Hispanic or
Latino of any race. Fremont is the home to the largest concentration of Afghans in the United States. This is noted in the prominent place Fremont has in
Khaled Hosseini's
2003 novel ''
Kite Runner''. Fremont also has a large Deaf community, in large part due to the fact that it is home to the Northern California campus of the
California School for the Deaf.
There were 68,237 households out of which 40.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62.7% were
married couples living together, 9.2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.5% were non-families. 16.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 4.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.96 and the average family size was 3.34.
In the city the population was spread out with 25.8% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 36.8% from 25 to 44, 21.4% from 45 to 64, and 8.3% who are 65 years of age or older. The
median age is 34 years. For every 100 females there were 101.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.2 males.
The
median income for a household in the city is $76,579, and the median income for a family was $82,199. Males have a
median household income of $59,274 versus $40,625 for females. The
per capita income for the city was $31,411. About 3.6% of families and 5.4% of the population were below the
poverty line, including 5.9% of those under age 18 and 6.2% of those age 65 or over.
Education
Fremont is home to the
Fremont Unified School District and lies within the
Ohlone Community College District.
The Fremont Unified School District has five
comprehensive high schools for students in grades 9-12:
American,
Kennedy,
Irvington,
Mission San Jose and
Washington. These five high schools, along with
James Logan High School in
Union City and
Newark Memorial High School in
Newark, make up the
Mission Valley Athletic League (M.V.A.L.).
In addition to the five comprehensive high schools, the district has a continuation high school (
Robertson); an independent study program (Vista); an
adult school; five
junior high schools for grades 7-8 (
Centerville,
Hopkins,
Horner,
Thornton and
Walters); and
29
elementary schools (K-6).
[1] The district operates the
Mission Valley Regional Occupational Programjointly with Newark and New Haven Unified School Districts.
The main campus of
Ohlone College is located in Fremont, with a smaller center in Newark. The
University of California, Berkeley has an
extension campus located in Fremont, and
Northwestern Polytechnic University and
DeVry University offer undergraduate and graduate programs in technology and management areas.
The city is also home to
Fremont Christian School and
California School for the Deaf, Fremont, which serves
Northern California. It shares its campus with the Statewide
California School for the Blind.
History
Mission Peak as seen from the Central Park/Lake Elizabeth area.
The recorded history of the Fremont area began on
June 9,
1797 when
Mission San José was founded by the Spaniard Father
Fermin de Lasuen. The Mission was established at the site of the Ohlone native village of Oroysom. On their second day in the area, the Mission party killed a
grizzly bear in
Niles Canyon. The first English-speaking visitor to Fremont was the renowned trapper and explorer
Jedediah Smith in 1827. The Mission prospered, eventually reaching a population of 1,886 inhabitants in 1831. The influence of the missionaries declined after 1834, when the Mexican government enacted
secularization.
The family of Don
José de Jesus Vallejo, brother of
Mariano Vallejo, was the most influential in Fremont in the late colonial era. His family owned a large rancho and built a
flour mill at the mouth of
Niles Canyon. In 1846 they were visited and robbed by the town's namesake
John C. Frémont. Fremont grew rapidly at the time of the
Gold Rush. Agriculture dominated the economy with grapes, nursery plants and olives as leading crops. In 1868 a magnitude 6.8 earthquake on the
Hayward Fault collapsed buildings throughout Fremont, ruining Mission San José and its outbuildings. Until the
1906 San Francisco earthquake caused its destruction, Fremont's Palmdale Winery was the largest in California. The ruins of the Palmdale Winery are still visible near the Five Corners in Irvington.
[2]
From 1912-1916 the Niles section of Fremont was the earliest home of California's motion picture industry.
[1] Charlie Chaplin filmed several movies in Fremont, most notably "The Tramp." Fremont was incorporated in
1956, when five towns in the area came together to form a city. Fremont became more industrialized in the
1950s and
1960s. The
1980s brought an automotive assembly plant of
Toyota and
General Motors called
NUMMI. A boom in high-tech employment in the
1980s to the late
1990s, especially in the Warm Springs District, caused rapid development in the city.
Constituent towns
Centerville, Irvington, Mission San Jose, Niles, and Warm Springs make up the five former independent towns which combined to form Fremont. Today, these places are no longer separate communities and are usually considered districts of the city of Fremont. The town of
Newark declined to join Fremont, and is now an
enclave.
Centerville
Centerville was perhaps the main town in
Washington Township. The area is served by two high schools,
American High School and
Washington High School. It also has two junior high schools,
Thornton Junior High School and
Centerville Junior High School.
Centerville includes all of North and most of Central Fremont. The
Centerville Pioneer Cemetery contains the burial places of many of the city's founding pioneers.
Centerville is the focal point of a sizeable
Afghan community, and the area is informally known in some circles as
"Little Kabul" [2] . The best-selling novel The
Kite Runner was based partly in Fremont's Afghan community. A
99 Ranch Market is one of many East Asian businesses in the area.
Irvington
Irvington is centered on the intersection of Fremont Blvd. and Washington Blvd. Irvington has many antique shops and restaurants, many of which were established in the late
1800s. The neighborhood was named after
Irvington, New Jersey, the birthplace of a local railroad executive at the time. The neighborhood is ethnically mixed and is primarily working class. The local high schools are
Irvington High School,
Robertson High School and
John F. Kennedy High School. The Irvington district has two main neighborhoods: Irvington Woods and the Irvington Square.
Mission San Jose
The reconstructed misson.
Nestled at the base of Fremont's rolling hills is the
Mission San José, one of the oldest of the historic
Spanish missions in California, which gave its name to this historic town. The church building that exists today is a re-construction of the original mission church (completed in 1982). One side of the original mission quadrangle remains and houses a museum.
Fremont's community college,
Ohlone College, is situated one block away from the mission and serves over 12,000 students.
Mission San Jose has the highest concentration of
Asian Americans in Fremont - over 50% of the population as of the
2000 census. The local high school is
Mission San Jose High School. The median family income for the Mission San Jose area (
ZIP code 94539) exceeded $114,595 in 2005. Owing to an influx of professionals and other affluent families seeking access to the top-performing local public schools, Mission San Jose's median home value reached $760,000 in 2006, earning the community a rank of 309 on
Forbes magazine's list of the 500 most affluent communities in the United States.
[3]
In 2001 an attempt by community organizations in the Mission San Jose district to withdraw from the
Fremont Unified School District caused state-wide controversy and led to accusations of racism from both sides. The attempt was prompted by a re-drawing of the school enrollment areas, under which some Mission San Jose residents would send their children to
Horner Junior High and
Irvington High schools. The controversial effort to secede was dropped later that year. Fremont's public schools continue to rank among the best in California.
[4] [5]
Niles
Niles Art Walk 2005
Unlike most cities in the Bay Area, Niles retains a small town feel anchored by a tight-knit community. Geography partly explains the community's cohesion; in addition to sitting against the base of Fremont's hills, the town is physically divided from other parts of Fremont and neighboring Union City by
Mission Boulevard (
State Route 238) to the east and north, Alameda Creek to the south,
Union Pacific railroads to the west and southeast, and the Quarry Lakes to the southwest. Old Town Niles features its own library, post office, and silent movie theater as well as a large number of antique and craft stores. The town is named after
Addison Niles.
Niles was the home of one of the first West Coast motion picture companies,
Essanay Studios.
Charlie Chaplin and
Bronco Billy Anderson filmed some of their most famous silent movies in Niles. Scenic
Niles Canyon stretches between Niles and
Sunol. The nonprofit
Niles Essenay Film Museum offers both artifacts of Niles' early years, and each Saturday evening, screenings of early-twentieth-century silent films, many of which were filmed locally.
The
Niles Canyon Railway runs along
Alameda Creek, and carries passengers on weekend excursions, including a holiday 'train of lights' which is extremely popular - tickets for these trains typically sell out by early October. The Niles Canyon Railroad has a small but well-maintained collection of historic rail stock.
Of special note is the annual antique fair and
flea market which takes place on the last Sunday in August. The entire town turns out with things to sell as early as Saturday morning, with bargain hunters from the Bay Area and beyond visiting in search of bargains. Niles is also home to the
Fremont Gurdwara, which serves the large
American Sikh community of Fremont as a religious shrine open to not only the Sikhs but to everyone disregarding their caste and religion. For more information on Niles, please visit
The Niles Main Street Association Page.
Warm Springs
The Warm Springs district is the southernmost portion of Fremont whose hub is the Warm Springs and Mission Boulevard intersection. Due to its proximity to the center of Silicon Valley, Warm Springs has attracted the headquarters of many high-tech companies including
Nielsen Norman Group,
Corsair Memory and
Lexar of the US as well as foreign high-tech companies such as
Elitegroup Computer Systems,
AMAX Engineering Corporation,
ACMA Computers,
Asus and
Universal abit. The district is also home to
blue-collar industry.
NUMMI, a joint automobile manufacturing plant for
General Motors and
Toyota is the city's largest employer.
Warm Springs also serves as commercial center for the mainly residential Mission San Jose district. The large Asian population in Mission San Jose comes to Warm Springs for authentic Asian stores such as the Lion Supermarket and the Little Taipei shopping center, as well as more traditional
supermarkets such as
Safeway Inc.
Currently, Warm Spring is included in a study to determine the feasibility of extending the
BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system further south.
Transportation
Fremont is served by
Interstate 880 (Nimitz Freeway) and
Interstate 680 (Sinclair Freeway), which do not meet or cross each other in the city. In addition, it is served by
SR 84 and
Mission Boulevard. The city is the eastern terminus of the
Dumbarton Bridge. Regional rail transportation is provided by
BART and the
Altamont Commuter Express (ACE). Fremont's
BART station serves as the southernmost terminus for the BART system (BART extensions to the Warm Springs district and southward into
San Jose have been in the planning stages for several years). Centerville station provides a stopping point for ACE service which travels from
Stockton to San Jose. Bus service is provided by
AC Transit locally.
Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority provides express bus service to various points in
Silicon Valley, including
downtown San Jose and
Knott's Great America (seasonally) in
Santa Clara, thus providing an alternative to the already heavy traffic on I-880 and I-680.
Elevated sound levels exist in some areas of Fremont, especially along
Interstate 880. Since the 1980s efforts have been made by
CalTrans and the city to
mitigate sound levels by construction of
sound barriers.
[3] The Federal design level for freeway noise is 67 Leq, which standard has been used in analysis of the proper sound wall height.
Notable people
★
Julie Pinson
★
Kristi Yamaguchi
★
Gary Plummer
★
Dennis Eckersley
★
Helen Wills Moody
★
M.C. Hammer
★
Emcee Lynx
★
Abdul Rashid Benish
★
Richard Wagner
★
Shoshannah Stern
★
Len Wiseman
Baseball stadium
On
7 November 2006, reports surfaced that the Bay Area's
American League baseball team, the
Oakland Athletics, plans to build a 36,000-seat
baseball stadium in Fremont, to be called
Cisco Field.
[6] A formal announcement given a short time later (from the franchise and the city of Fremont) confirmed that the team will relocate from the city of Oakland and move to Cisco Field in South Fremont in 2010 or 2011. A sizeable portion of the team's fan base already resides in the southern Alameda County area; the new stadium's closer proximity to the lucrative Silicon Valley market is also seen as a positive aspect of the relocation. There is much controversy regarding this proposal, for many reasons, including the lack of public transportation, chronic and severe traffic congestion, wetlands intrusion, deterioration in quality of life, loss of business taxes, and financial doubts.
On February 27, 2007, the San Jose Mercury News reported that just across the street from the envisioned ballpark village site sits Scott Specialty Gases, a distributor of highly toxic materials used in semi-conductor manufacturing. Fremont officials advised team owner Lew Wolff last year that he'd need to either relocate the plant or find another way to mitigate the potential hazard posed by a toxic gas cloud floating over a ballpark filled with 32,000 people.
References
1. Fremont USD Directory of Schools
2. Jill M. Singleton. Lost Wineries and Vineyards of Fremont, California. Fremont Museum of Local History. Accessed 2006-11-09
3. ''Acoustical study for the widening of Interstate 880 in the cities of Newark and Fremont, Alameda County, California'', Earth Metrics Inc, for the Federal Highway Administration, October, 1989
External links
Orientation
★ City of Fremont official web page
★ FremontOnline - Community web site
Business
★ Fremont Chamber of Commerce
★ Niles Main Street Association
★ Mission San Jose Chamber of Commerce
★ Centerville Business District Webpage on the City of Fremont's Website
★ Warm Springs Business and Community Association
Information pages
★ FremontOnline map of Fremont neighborhoods
★
★ List of News Sources
★ "Little Kabul" in USA Today, September 19, 2001
★ History of Fremont by Philip Holmes
★ The Museum of Local History
★ Modern Photography of Fremont Area
Community
★ Fremont Events
★ Fremont Festival of the Arts - Billed as the largest free street festival on the west coast, always the first weekend in August
★ Fremont's 50th Anniversary Celebration (2006)
★ List of Community Organizations
★ Fremont Youth Today - City of Fremont's teen newspaper
★ Fremont Information - City of Fremont information directory
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