General Contractor Piru

The area was originally inhabited by the Tataviam, who often established villages along near permanent water sources at lower elevations, including Piru Creek and the Santa Clara River. The Tataviam village of Piiru was the original village of the area. There was also a nearby shared village between the Tataviam and Chumash of Kamulus in the corridor.

Piru Creek was generally known as the place where the Chumash and Tataviam shared the land with one another, being on the respective edges of each of their lands. Important plant foods for the Tataviam included yucca stalks and hearts, acorns, sage seeds, juniper and holly leaf cherry berries. The yucca hearts were collected in the spring each year and roasted in earth ovens.

The town was founded in 1887 by David C. Cook from Elgin, Illinois, a wealthy publisher of Sunday School tracts and supplies who bought the Rancho Temescal Mexican land grant from the sons of Ygnacio del Valle. Wanting to establish a “Second Garden of Eden” in this part of the Santa Clara River Valley, Cook specified, tradition says, that the acreage be planted with fruits identified with the Biblical garden-apricots, dates, figs, grapes, olives and pomegranates. That same year, he built his first home, a Colonial Revival structure, at the southwest corner of Main and Center Streets.