Smith’s Corners/Campbell’s Corners



This is the site of the oldest continuously occupied commercial lot in Milpitas. There was a store built on the corner of the Mission Road (now called Main Street) and the Alviso Road (now called Serra Street) in 1855 by Frederick Creighton. Alviso Road crossed Penetencia Creek at a ford about 200 feet west of the corner which is why the intersection came to be located where it is today (Penetencia Creek was relocated to its present location, 500 feet west of Main Street, in the 1960s to help control the frequent winter flooding of the downtown district.)

It wasn’t long before the store was replaced with a saloon. It was here the travelers, ranchers, and traders passing through the area would stop to rest and partake of liquid refreshment.

According to Clarence Smith, nephew of John Smith and owner of the bar until the late 1940s, his uncle built the present structure around the mid-1890s. The records of the city are uncertain as to the construction date but typically place it after the turn of the century. The building can be seen on the Sanborn Fire Insurance map of 1908 but is not shown on the 1893 Sanborn map.  In 1893, the Godwin Hotel was located here but it is assumed that it burned and was replaced by the present structure.

In the 1940s, Clarence Smith sold the property to the Campbell family who renamed it Campbell’s Corners. Although the property was owned by others the name remained unchanged until it was purchased in 1997 for use as a restaurant. The new owner removed the west wall and gutted the interior. In 1999 he applied for a permit to demolish the remaining shell but the request was refused. The above photo (view is from the northeast) was taken just prior to the the building changing hands in 1997. The building has served as a restaurant under several different names since then.

Across Serra Street (on the right in the photo) from the Corners was the location of several hotels beginning with French’s hotel in 1857 and followed by the Milpitas Hotel. The fire of 1910 is thought to have destroyed the Milpitas Hotel, as well as a store and a saloon to the north. What occupied the lot between 1910 and 1923 is uncertain but after 1923, a restaurant of the first fast food chain in America, the Fat Boy, was built. (The Bob’s Big Boy chain has a legacy to the old Fat Boy restaurants.) When the last restaurant to be located there closed, Sal Cracolicci purchased the building and leased it to a real estate firm. It was demolished in 1986 shortly before the city formally enacted historic building preservation ordinances. The site is now occupied by a dental office building.

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