After the former rancho of Don Mariano Castro was split, the south eventually became the city of Sunnyvale, and the north became Mountain View. The town began as a stage stop on the route between San Francisco and San Jose (corresponding to El Camino Real), close to present-day Grant Road. With the coming of the railroad, the center of town eventually moved to its current location at Castro Street.
Much of Mountain View was agricultural through the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Row crops and orchards were common during this era when there was open space between Palo Alto and Mountain View. In Bittersweet: memories of Old Mountain View, an oral history, residents of Japanese ancestry recall their family's strawberry fields adjoining Moffett Field. Orchards lined much of Grant Road and Miramonte. In the early 1900s, grapes were a common crop in the area of present-day Continental Circle. Phylloxera ended grape production in Mountain View in the early 1900s.
During the Cold War, the drone of turboprop aircraft was a constant presence. The horns of railroad locomotives were also frequently heard.
The El Camino Hospital District, a government entity called a Special District under the California Government Code, came to life in the 1960s. The hospital facility at 2500 Grant Road has been in continual operation since.
The preponderence of persons using the term Silicon Valley would include Mountain View in that region. An early Silicon Valley company was Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company, located along Whisman Road. Several of Intel's founders came from Fairchild. Local watering holes for workers included Chubby's Broiler (which once stood at Ellis and Whisman) and Walker's Wagon Wheel on Middlefield Road near Whisman. Folklore was that semiconductor pioneers were collaborative and met at the Wagon Wheel to discuss problems they were having with production. Things are more competitive and proprietary today.
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