Explore Mountain View’s Immigrant and Agricultural History
Step inside historic Immigrant House at Heritage Park through an interactive Matterport virtual tour.
EXPLORE THE IMMIGRANT HOUSE VIRTUAL TOUR
This online experience allows students, families, longtime residents and visitors from anywhere to explore one of Mountain View’s important historic resources and learn about the people, agriculture and immigrant communities that helped shape the city.
The virtual tour is live now. Historical photographs, stories and interpretive information will continue to be added, allowing the tour to develop into an increasingly rich educational resource for the community.
Immigrant House was once located in downtown Mountain View. Its preservation provides a tangible connection to an earlier Mountain View — a community surrounded by orchards, farms and agricultural businesses and shaped in large part by immigrant families and workers.
The house was preserved and relocated to Heritage Park, where it can help tell the story of Mountain View before Silicon Valley.
The goal is not simply to preserve an old building, but to preserve and share the stories of the people who lived and worked here and contributed to the development of the community.
The Kiwanis Club of Mountain View and the Kiwanis Club of Mountain View Foundation have been strong supporters of Immigrant House and Heritage Park from the early stages of the project.
When community members organized through Friends of Immigrant House to save and preserve the historic home, the Kiwanis Foundation served as the organization’s fiscal sponsor, providing nonprofit support while the effort to preserve the house and develop Heritage Park moved forward.
Kiwanis members also participated directly in building community support for the project and helping ensure that this piece of Mountain View history would be preserved for future generations.
That commitment did not end when the house was saved.
In 2017, the Kiwanis Club of Mountain View created the Harvest History Festival at Heritage Park.
The annual festival brings together families, local nonprofit organizations, students and volunteers to celebrate Mountain View’s agricultural heritage and introduce new generations to the community’s history.
Local Key Club students volunteer alongside Kiwanis members, continuing the club’s longstanding commitment to youth leadership and community service.
The Immigrant House Virtual Tour represents another step in that continuing effort — making Mountain View history available not only to people who can visit Heritage Park, but to anyone with internet access.
The Matterport tour allows visitors to virtually walk through Immigrant House and explore the building at their own pace.
As the project develops, additional historical photographs, interpretive tags and stories will be incorporated into the tour to provide greater context about Mountain View’s agricultural past, immigrant experience and community development.
The result will be a living educational resource that can continue to grow over time.
The long-term vision for Heritage Park goes beyond preservation.
Friends of Immigrant House and the Kiwanis Club of Mountain View hope to develop a hands-on educational program that will bring local schoolchildren to Heritage Park to experience Mountain View history, agriculture and the natural environment firsthand.
Students could learn about Mountain View’s orchard and agricultural history, immigrant families and workers, sustainable gardening, pollinator gardens, bees and their importance to agriculture, permaculture, soil health, native plants and the relationship between farming, food and community.
Instead of learning about local history only from a textbook, children could walk through Immigrant House, explore the gardens, observe pollinators and experience the agricultural story of Mountain View in the place where that history is being preserved.
The Kiwanis Club of Mountain View intends to remain a hands-on partner in helping develop and support this educational effort as it grows.
Saving Immigrant House was the beginning.
Today, Heritage Park is becoming a place where history, education, agriculture, nature and community come together — preserving the stories of earlier generations while giving today’s children and families a meaningful connection to the community they call home.
Explore Immigrant House today.
