Martin Murphy Home and Estate

Santa Clara County · 252 North Murphy Avenue, Sunnyvale · location approximate

Martin Murphy, Jr., arrived in California with his family in 1844 in the first wagon train to cross the Sierra Nevada. The founder of Sunnyvale, he constructed here his house of prefabricated lumber, brought around the horn in 1849. Members of the Murphy family lived here continuously until 1953, when the property was acquired by the City of Sunnyvale. (Destroyed by fire in 1961.)

1971 register text, presented as a historical document. It uses the period's terms for Native people; the state's landmark listings still carry most of this wording, and the California Office of Historic Preservation maintains the program's current texts.

Many of these plaques have since been recast or their texts revised. The California Historical Landmarks program and its current texts are maintained by the California Office of Historic Preservation. California Office of Historic Preservation ↗

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Marker data: State of California, Department of Parks and Recreation, California Historical Landmarks (1971)

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