Learn about the rich history of Mission La Purísima Concepción: how it started, the people who ran it, the indigenous population, and its legacy today.

Describes the history of the California Mission La Purisima Concepcion from its founding in 1787, through its development and use in serving the Chumash Indians, and its secularization and function today.

Learn about the rich history of Mission La Purísima Concepción: how it started, the people who ran it, the indigenous population, and its legacy today.

Los Altos would never have existed if not for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Since the 1850s, Los Altos, Spanish for "heights" or "foothills," was the name generally applied to the two ranchos (San Antonio and La Purisima Concepcion) between Palo Alto and Mountain View southwest of El Camino Real. In 1906, visionaries Paul Shoup, who worked for the railroad, and Walter Clark, a Mountain View real estate developer, saw the potential to turn Sarah Winchester's ranch near Stanford University into an ideal San Francisco suburb. They would capitalize on new commuters-those who wanted to live in comfort in the country but work in the city. Slowly, a new town grew in influence well beyond its original Altos Land Company plat, realizing tremendous post-World War II expansion. Now two communities solidly embedded in Silicon Valley, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills share a school system, downtown shopping, libraries, and water system, as well as a history of interesting people.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The first volume in the Border Trilogy, from the bestselling author of The Passenger and the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Road All the Pretty Horses is the tale of John Grady Cole, who at sixteen finds himself at the end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself. With two companions, he sets off for Mexico on a sometimes idyllic, sometimes comic journey to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. Look for Cormac McCarthy's latest novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.