Who is the 'Stevens' of Stevens Creek?

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 17 April 2025

⏱️ 16 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A lot of things in the South Bay, specifically around Cupertino and Mountain View, are named after somebody called Stevens. There’s Stevens Creek Boulevard, the Stevens Creek watershed, and Stevens Creek Reservoir, to name a few. Our question asker, Pete Smoot, wants to know: Who exactly was Stevens? Turns out we should really be asking: "Who was Stephens?" with a P-H! We've been misspelling the name of Elisha Stephens for decades. In this episode we learn more about the man behind the name, and his adventurous pioneer life in early California. Additional Resources: The South Bay Is All 'Stevens Creek' This and 'Stevens Creek' That. So Who Is This Stevens Anyway? Read the transcript for this episode Sign up for our newsletter Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Got a question you want answered? Ask! Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Rachael Myrow. Bay Curious is made by Katrina Schwartz, Olivia Allen-Price and Christopher Beale. Additional support from Gabriela Glueck, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Maha Sanad, Alana Walker, Holly Kernan and everyone on Team KQED.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Glenn Washington, the host of the Snap Judgment podcast.
0:05.3	At Snap, we tell cinematic stories that let you feel what it's like inside someone else's skin,
0:11.8	stories that let you walk in someone else's footsteps, storytelling like you've never heard.
0:17.6	The highs, the lows, the joys, the pain, the twist, the turns, the laughs, the life.
0:22.6	Snap judgment drops each and every week. Listen, wherever you get your podcast.
0:30.0	Hey, I'm Jorge Andreas Olivares and I'm hosting a new show, hyphenation. I'm like many other
0:35.1	hyphenated Latinos in the U.S., our cultures and our communities,
0:38.7	and form our choices, like with money.
0:40.6	We had that pressure to be the breadwinner.
0:43.2	Religion.
0:43.8	I just think Jesus was what we would now define as queer.
0:46.8	And family.
0:47.5	We're not physically close and we're not like that emotionally close either.
0:50.7	So join me and some amigas as we have easy conversations about hard things.
0:55.2	Catch hyphenation from KQEDD studios wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube.
1:02.7	From KQED.
1:04.9	The naming of things is a serious matter. Something we've all been paying a bit more attention to in recent years.
1:12.1	Who do we memorialize? And why? If the honorees don't merit a mention in school books,
1:18.6	who even remembers them after the last living person to know them dies? I've been thinking a lot
1:24.6	about this ever since we got this question from longtime listener Pete Smoot.
1:29.2	Who is Stevens? And why is Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose and in Cooperino named after him or her?
1:35.5	Pete's driven along Stevens Creek Boulevard. He's hiked in the Stevens Creek watershed, which tumbles down from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the San Francisco Bay.
	...

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