Rhoades Ranch Morgan Hill, California
National Register of Historic Places Data
Rhoades Ranch has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places with the following information, which has been imported from the National Register database and/or the Nomination Form . Please note that not all available data may be shown here, minor errors and/or formatting may have occurred during transcription, and some information may have become outdated since listing.
- National Register ID
- 13000158
- Date Listed
- April 17, 2013
- Name
- Rhoades Ranch
- Other Names
- Phegley Home Ranch; Strawberry Institute of California
- Part of
- N/A (Multiple Property Submission)
- Address
- 2290-A Chochrane Rd.
- City/Town
- Morgan Hill
- County
- Santa Clara
- State
- California
- Category
- district
- Level of Sig.
- state
- Areas of Sig.
- AGRICULTURE; EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT; ARCHITECTURE
Description
Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.
The 12.27-acre site known as Rhoades Ranch located on Cochrane Road is locally significant under National Register Criteria A , B and C in the areas of Agriculture, Exploration/Settlement and Architecture. It is significant at the state level under Criteria A and B for its association with the Strawberry Institute of California and Harold E. Thomas , its head, who is a person important to California's agricultural development. It is the historic headquarters of what was once a larger ranch in South Santa Clara County (located to the east of Morgan Hill). Today it represents one of the last remaining agricultural settings able to convey the broad patterns of late nineteenth and early twentieth century agricultural development in the now mostly urbanized floor of Santa Clara Valley. This northern California agricultural property contains resources illustrating the early American-era agriculture period, the early twentieth-century development of the property during years of regional horticultural development, and is directly associated with California's pioneering strawberry industry (the largest in the United States). The property is eligible under Criterion C due to the presence of the Rhoades House, a distinguished example of an architect-designed Mission/Spanish Colonial Revival residence designed by Howard Higbie and Andrew Hill Jr. The period of significance begins in 1863 and ends in 1966, the period from initial settlement of the property until the sale of the property to Driscoll Strawberry Associates in 1966. The property meets the requirements of Criteria Consideration G due to the exceptional significance of Harold E. Thomas and the role of the Rhoades Ranch in California's strawberry industry.
