Fremont, California

Fremont () is a city in California which 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 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 2005 census, Fremont is the fourth most populous city in the Bay Area. Due in large measure to immigration by refugees fleeing the Afghan Taliban and its reign of terror during the 1990s, Fremont had the largest Afghan population in the United States in 2001 and still has a large Afghan population today. The diverse city demographics includes many Asian ethnic groups, including Indians, Chinese, Taiwanese, and other Asian groups, concentrated most heavily in the Mission San Jose District.

NUMMI, a joint automobile manufacturing plant for General Motors and Toyota, is located in the Warm Springs district of Fremont.

Actress Julie Pinson was born in Fremont. Olympic skater Kristi Yamaguchi grew up in Fremont as did Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley (Eckersley was a 1972 graduate of Washington High School). Rap star and Christian minister M.C. Hammer, lived in Fremont during his prime as a music legend, during which such hits as "Can't Touch This" and "2 Legit to Quit" were well known. On the other end of Hip Hop's political spectrum, Emcee Lynx grew up in the Irvington district of Fremont.

Fremont is the sister city to Elizabeth, South Australia and Fukaya, Saitama in Japan.

Geography

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). 198.6 km² (76.7 mi²) of it is land and 27.0 km² (10.4 mi²) of it (11.97%) is water.

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.

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 has a community college, Ohlone College, and five public high schools: Washington, Mission San Jose, Irvington, American and Kennedy. 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.) The University of California, Berkeley also had an extension campus located in Fremont. Another private university offering undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs in technology and management areas is the Northwestern Polytechnic University. The city is also home to Northern California's School for the Deaf and School for the Blind.

History

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.

From 1912-1916 the Niles section of Fremont was the earliest home of California's motion picture industry.^* 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 when a large General Motors assembly plant (later NUMMI) was constructed. A boom in high-tech employment in the 1980s and 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 once formed Washington Township. 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, Washington High School and American 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.

Centerville is the focal point of a sizeable Afghan community, and the area is informally known in some circles as "Little Kabul" ^* . 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

Nestled at the base of Fremont's rolling hills is the Mission San José, one of the oldest of the historic California Missions.

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 place on Forbes magazine's list of the 500 most affluent communities in the United States.^*

An imbalance between Fremont's high-achieving Asian-American immigrant schoolchildren and its underperforming non-Asian children, primarily Latinos, prompted certain Asian-American community organizations to seek to withdraw from the Fremont Unified School District in 2001. The controversial effort to secede was dropped later that year. Fremont's public schools continue to rank among the best in California. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4190129

Fremont's community college, Ohlone College, is situated one block away from the Mission and serves over 12,000 students.

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.

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. Niles is landlocked by Mission Boulevard (CA-238) to the east and north, railroad to the west, and Alameda Creek to the south. 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.

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 Indian American Sikh community of Fremont.

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 Spring 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, Asus and Abit.)

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. and Albertsons.

External links

Orientation

Business

Information pages

"Little Kabul" in USA Today, September 19, 2001

Community

Fremont Events
Fremont's 50th Anniversary Celebration (2006)
List of Community Organizations
Fremont Youth Today - City of Fremont's teen newspaper

Alameda County, California | Cities in California | Fremont, California | San Francisco Bay Area

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