Alum Rock & East San Jose

Alum Rock Park, set aside in 1872, is California’s oldest municipal park. Its 720 acres along Penitencia Creek hold 13 miles of trails, and from the late 1800s through the 1930s it was a nationally known resort of sulfur and soda springs. (Wikipedia)

The park’s name is a mistake: rocks near the entrance thought to be alum turned out to be thenardite. You can still walk to the 1913 stone grottos and see the old railway’s bridge supports. (Wikipedia, Local News Matters)

Mayfair has been a working-class Mexican American neighborhood since the early 1900s and was a center of the Chicano movement; the Mexican Heritage Plaza opened there in 1999. (Wikipedia, Wikipedia)

Little Portugal grew around Five Wounds Portuguese National Church, founded in 1914, and Little Saigon is the hub of the Vietnamese community of San Jose, which has more Vietnamese residents than any city outside Vietnam. (Wikipedia, Wikipedia)