Almost 90 years old, William Joseph Nachazel, is the first tenant of his house and has been living in Milpitas since 1972, he said. The first memory from that time is buying his house, right when Milpitas High School was newly built, Nachazel said. The biggest change from back then to now is the number of people that live in Milpitas, he said.
“When we came here, there were 28,000 to 30,000 people; now it’s 60,000 plus,” Nachazel said. There has been a boom in construction throughout the city, Nachazel said. Every corner you turn has a new development being built, he added. “Back when this house was built, they did not provide insulation in the walls,” Nachazel said. “Houses nowadays have not only the roof and the walls insulated. but everywhere else.”
Senior citizen reminisces on growth of Milpitas in the past forty years One of the landmarks that Nachazel
remembers from when he first moved to the city was the house in Jose Higuera Adobe Park, he said. “My church, St. John the Baptist, the Catholic church, has a cemetery there,” Nachazel said. “Between those two, the Adobe home and the cemetery, those are probably the two oldest things that I know of in the city.”
The firetruck in the library, Leaping Lena, is quite old, Nachazel said. The city should polish it up and make it look better, Nachazel said. “Where the library is right now used to be one of the original schools,” Nachazel said. “The side that’s out in the front is left from the original school.”
Nachazel never had children, but in 1972, he moved next to Milpitas High School only three years after it opened, he said.