Gilroy, the Garlic Capital of the World

27 February 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, San Francisco Bay Area Reading Time:  8 minutes

Old City Hall © Sanfranman59/cc-by-sa-3.0

Old City Hall © Sanfranman59/cc-by-sa-3.0

Gilroy is a city in Northern California’s Santa Clara County, south of Morgan Hill and north of San Benito County. Gilroy’s origins lie in the village of San Ysidro that grew in the early 19th century out of Rancho San Ysidro, granted to Californio ranchero Ygnacio Ortega in 1809. Following Ygnacio’s death in 1833, his daughter Clara Ortega de Gilroy and son-in-law John Gilroy inherited the largest portion of the rancho and began developing the settlement. When the town was incorporated in 1868, it was renamed in honor of John Gilroy, a Scotsman who had emigrated to California in 1819, naturalized as a Mexican citizen, adopted the Spanish language, and converted to Catholicism, taking the name of Juan Bautista Gilroy.   read more…

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