1850
Town of Mountain View begins to form near a stage coach stop on present day El Camino Real.

1858
Mountain View Grammar School built on corner of Calderon and El Camino Real.

1864
The train arrives in Mountain View. Town of New Mountain View/Mountain View Station (present day Downtown) begins to form.

1867
Rengstorff House built.

1888
Southern Pacific Train Depot built.

1900
Historic Castro City Neighborhood built near site of Rengstorff Park. Originally a neighborhood of small vacation cottages for wealthy San Franciscans.

1902
Mountain View incorporates as a city.

First Mountain View High School built in Old Mountain View on El Camino Real.

1904
Pacific Press Publishing moves from Oakland to Villa Street in Mountain View, bringing with it dozens of Seventh day Adventist families who build homes along Mountain View Avenue, Palo Alto Avenue, Pettis Avenue, Mariposa Avenue, and Chiquita Avenue.

1906
Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 damages many buildings in Mountain View, leveling some in the downtown and the two year old Pacific Press plant.

1911
Castro family, original landowners of all of what is now Mountain View, build their mansion, Villa Francesca, on the site of Rengstorff Park.

1927
Mountain View Union High School is built on Castro Street

1933
Moffett Field opens. Moffett Boulevard, an extension of Castro Street is laid out and Mountain View begins to grow northward.

1934
Adobe Building built on Moffett Boulevard as a WPA project.

1939
NACA (now NASA) opens Ames Research Center in Moffett Field

1946
Arrow Development, pioneer ride designing firm for theme parks sets up shop at 243 Moffett Boulevard.

1952
City of Los Altos incorporates, Mountain View and Los Altos have "annexation wars" over who will get land South of El Camino Real. Suburban residential development replaces the countryside which once separated the two cities.

1955
Famous inventor, William Shockley, opens the lab where he invented the electronic transistor on San Antonio Road in Mountain View. His employees go on to form a pioneering Silicon Valley company, Fairchild Semiconductor.

1960
City begins efforts to "modernize" downtown. Many buildings destroyed including the Train Depot and City Hall.

1969
Bailey Avenue (now Shoreline Boulevard) widened from a two lane road to six, dividing old Mountain View in half. Historic neighborhood along Washington and Jackson Streets destroyed, and many houses removed.

1981
Mountain View Union High School closed, students split between Awalt High School and Los Altos High School. Awalt changes its name to Mountain View High School.

1986
Shoreline Amphitheater opens.

1987
Mountain View Union High School on Castro Street is demolished.

1991
After being moved to Shoreline Park in 1980, the Rengstorff House, now Mountain View's oldest home, opens to the public.

1994
Present day City Hall and Center of the Performing Arts are built.

Netscape Communications forms, with its first location in Downtown Mountain View.

1997
The new Mountain View Library opens.

2001
Historic Adobe Building renovated and opened to the public.

MVPA Forms.

2002
City Council adopts first Historic Preservation Ordinance

Replica of city's 1888 train depot dedicated on city's Centennial, Nov. 7th.