The Blue and Gold: Sunnyvale's Prohibition Speakeasy

In the nineteen twenties, Nicholas Kristmas built a large farmhouse just outside Sunnyvale. Within a few years, Prohibition had transformed it into one of the most notorious speakeasies in the South Bay. The house ran two bars: one for ordinary patrons and a second, fancier room with a ballroom reserved for elite clientele.

The operation was brazen enough to attract visitors from San Francisco and up and down the Peninsula. After Repeal, the property's infamy faded and the building changed hands through the decades. A marker commemorates this chapter in the long, quiet history of the Santa Clara Valley, when farmland concealed whiskey and the whole county looked the other way.