About Me | Updated site policies. See Legal & Cookie Information below. ↓
New: Palo Alto tourism information with reviews and tips.
Palo Alto History | Overview
By Ardan Michael Blum
Palo Alto’s history is a rich tapestry woven from indigenous heritage, colonial transitions, and pioneering American enterprise, culminating in its modern identity as a global technology hub.
Long before European contact, the San Francisco Peninsula was home to the Ohlone people for thousands of years. The local Muwekma Ohlone Tribe represents the surviving lineages aboriginal to the San Francisco Bay region, maintaining their connection to this land since time immemorial. The presence of these established communities means that European explorers were not entering a "wilderness" but an already inhabited and organized world —a crucial context often overlooked in simplified historical accounts.
The earliest recorded history of the Palo Alto area by Europeans dates to 1769 with the Gaspar de Portolá expedition. Led by Captain Portolá, this Spanish exploratory mission set out from San Diego with 64 men and 200 horses, aiming to find Monterey Bay. The expedition ascended Sweeney Ridge on November 4, 1769, becoming the first Europeans to sight the San Francisco Bay [Video].
The group later trekked southeast, camping from November 6–11, 1769, by a distinctive tall redwood tree that would later be known as El Palo Alto. The tree, whose name is Spanish for "the tall tree," served as a significant landmark visible for miles. This initial European marking of the landscape symbolized the beginning of profound changes for the indigenous populations and the land they had stewarded for millennia.
Spanish and Mexican Rule
Following the Portolá expedition, Spanish colonial efforts intensified. On January 12, 1777, Father Junípero Serra established Mission Santa Clara de Asís, whose northern boundary was defined by San Francisquito Creek, encompassing lands that now include modern Palo Alto. Just a few miles south, the Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe (now the city of San Jose) was established on November 29, 1777, as California's first civil settlement, despite initial displeasure from the local mission over the encroachment.
The region remained under Spanish control until the Mexican War of Independence concluded in 1821. However, San Jose did not officially recognize rule by the new Mexican government until May 10, 1825. This delay highlights the fragmented nature of political authority during this transitional period. Under Mexican rule, the secularization of mission lands often resulted in their redistribution to Mexican citizens rather than the indigenous populations they were ostensibly intended to benefit, laying the groundwork for complex future land disputes.
American Acquisition and Early Settlements
The United States seized Alta California in 1846 during the Mexican–American War, a change formalized by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on July 4, 1848. While the treaty stipulated that existing land grants would be recognized, the validation process under American law was arduous, leading to prolonged legal battles that frequently favored American settlers and speculators.
Several significant land grants shaped the early landscape of modern Palo Alto:
Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito: This 2,230-acre tract on the lower reaches of San Francisquito Creek (covering parts of modern Menlo Park and northern Palo Alto) was granted to María Antonia Mesa in 1841. Her daughter, María Luisa Soto, married John Coppinger, the grantee of the nearby Rancho Cañada de Raymundo. After Coppinger’s death, she married John Greer, who owned a home on the site of the present-day Town & Country Village.
Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito: To the south, the brothers ecundino and Teodoro Robles acquired this rancho from the original 1841 grantee, José Peña, in 1847. Bounded by what is now Mountain View, this vast tract became known as the Robles Rancho, encompassing approximately 80% of present-day Palo Alto and Stanford University. The Robles hacienda, near present-day Ferne and San Antonio Road, was famous for hosting fiestas and bullfights before being destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. Its lumber was reportedly repurposed for a large barn that stood until the 1950s.
In 1853, Elisha Oscar Crosby purchased 250 acres of the Robles estate, naming it Mayfield Farm. This land, which includes modern Barron Park, was transferred to Sarah Wallis in 1856 to satisfy a debt.
The Township of Mayfield
The township of Mayfield was established in 1855, centered around a stagecoach stop and saloon known as "Uncle Jim's Cabin" near the intersection of El Camino Real and present-day California Avenue. The arrival of the San Francisco to San Jose railroad in October 1863 significantly boosted the town's development. El Camino Real became Main Street, and cross streets were named after Civil War heroes, with California Avenue originally named Lincoln Street.
In 1875, French financier Jean Baptiste Paulin Caperon, better known as Peter Coutts, acquired over a thousand acres in the area, naming his estate Ayrshire Farm. A distinctive 50-foot-tall brick tower he built near Matadero Creek still stands today, likely marking his property's southern boundary.
|| NAVIGATION: TOP | PALO ALTO TOURISM INFO (NEW PAGE) ||
Founding of Stanford University and Palo Alto
The trajectory of the region shifted dramatically with the arrival of Leland Stanford, who began purchasing land for his Palo Alto Stock Farm in 1876. A profound personal tragedy—the death of his only child, Leland Stanford Jr., from typhoid fever in Florence, Italy, on March 13, 1884—prompted Leland and his wife Jane to establish a university in their son's memory.
In 1886, the Stanfords considered making Mayfield the gateway to their new university but conditioned this on the town banning alcohol. Mayfield, known for its 13 rowdy saloons, rejected the request. This refusal led the Stanfords to pursue the formation of a new, "dry" college town.
With the help of Timothy Hopkins, 740 acres of private land were purchased in 1887 to create University Park. This new community was incorporated as the City of Palo Alto on April 23, 1894. (Sources vary slightly on the exact day on which the city was incorporated. Some cite April 9 or April 16, while others align with April 23. This could reflect differences between the date of the incorporation election/petition and its official certification or filing).
However, the transition from "University Park" to "Palo Alto" was born out of a strategic rivalry. Leland Stanford had originally intended for the neighboring town of Mayfield to serve as the university’s gateway, but when Mayfield’s leaders refused to close their thirteen saloons, Stanford decided to build his own "dry" town instead.
By 1892, Stanford pressured a nearby developer to surrender the "Palo Alto" name so he could claim it for this new community, effectively branding it as the official home of his estate and university. This move marginalized Mayfield. After years of civic debate, Mayfield eventually passed an ordinance banning saloons in 1905.
Two decades later, on July 2, 1925, Palo Alto voters approved the annexation of Mayfield, and the two communities were officially consolidated on July 6, 1925. This union gave Palo Alto its unique dual-downtown structure: the original University Avenue and the former Mayfield downtown along California Avenue.
Palo Alto continued to expand through the 20th century. Major annexations included the Stanford Shopping Center and Stanford Research Park in the 1950s, followed by vast tracts west of Foothill Expressway (including Foothills Park) between 1959 and 1968. The annexation of Barron Park in 1975 and bayfront marshlands in 1979 rounded out the city's boundaries, reflecting a strategy that balanced economic vitality with environmental preservation.
Key Historical Districts and Innovations
Palo Alto is home to several historically significant districts and sites of groundbreaking innovation. Many of Stanford University's first faculty members chose to settle in the Professorville neighborhood, which is now a registered national historic district. This area is roughly bounded by Kingsley, Lincoln, and Addison Avenues and the cross streets of Ramona, Bryant, and Waverley.
Professorville boasts a large number of well-preserved residences dating from the 1890s, including notable examples at 833 Kingsley, 345 Lincoln, and 450 Kingsley. The house at 1044 Bryant was the home of Russell Varian, co-inventor of the Klystron tube, a pivotal invention in microwave technology.
Another important site is the Federal Telegraph laboratory, located at 218 Channing, which is recognized as a California Historical Landmark. While working at Federal Telegraph in Palo Alto between 1911 and 1913, de Forest and his team discovered the Audion's ability to work as an amplifier and oscillator, which was the critical breakthrough for modern electronics.
Although the tube itself was invented earlier, the application that changed the world was perfected here. (The Audion tube, which de Forest created in 1906 and patented in 1907, was the first successful electronic amplifier. It was a three-element vacuum tube that could detect wireless signals more sensitively than other devices at the time.)
The HP Garage: While not open to the public, the garage at 367 Addison Avenue is officially recognized as California Historical Landmark No. 976 and is famously considered the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley"—a designation largely credited to the mentorship of Frederick Terman —where Hewlett-Packard was launched in 1939 with the invention of the audio oscillator used in Fantasia.
The house and garage were acquired by the company in 2000 and underwent a meticulous restoration completed in 2005 to return them to their original condition —celebrated in the corporate ethos known as the "Rules of the Garage"—and can now be viewed by visitors from the sidewalk and driveway.
These locations are not just static historical markers but serve as tangible evidence of the city's foundational role in shaping both academic excellence through Stanford University and the global technology landscape, later scaled up by institutions like the Stanford Research Park.
Downtown Palo Alto features a second significant area, the Ramona Street Architectural District, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is situated specifically between University and Hamilton Avenues.
This district is characterized by its cohesive collection of 1920s Spanish Colonial Revival and Monterey Colonial Revival buildings, designed by noted figures like Birge Clark and Pedro de Lemos to evoke a distinct style.
The active preservation of these sites underscores a recognition of their enduring economic value, illustrating a unique convergence of intellectual and entrepreneurial activity that links the city's past directly to its present technological prominence.
Cultural Institutions and Businesses
Palo Alto has a rich cultural history beyond its technological renown; the Palo Alto Chinese School, founded in 1963, holds the distinction of being the oldest Chinese school in the entire Bay Area.
The city is also home to the West Bay Opera, established in 1955, which is the second oldest continuously running opera company in California.
Another pillar of the local arts scene is the Palo Alto Players, formed in 1934, which became the first theatre company on the Peninsula. The longevity of these cultural organizations reflects a sustained commitment to community and arts, indicating that Palo Alto's identity is multifaceted, extending beyond its technological prominence.
Historically, a major business in the area was the Bayside Canning Company. In 1918, Thomas Foon Chew, owner of the Bayside Canning Company in Alviso, expanded his operations by starting a cannery in what was then Mayfield.
This cannery initially employed 350 workers and expanded significantly, becoming one of the largest in the world by the 1920s.
However, the Palo Alto cannery, operating under the ownership of Sutter Packing Company and later Safeway, closed in 1949. At the time of its closure, it was Palo Alto's largest employer, with approximately 1,000 workers. The building later housed various businesses, including Fry's Electronics.
Silicon Valley
The transformation of the Santa Clara Valley from a quiet expanse of fruit orchards into the global heartbeat of technology is not a happy accident. It is a deliberate masterpiece of academic foresight, rebellious innovation, and high-stakes capital. This is the story of how Palo Alto and its neighbors built the modern world, one era at a time.
The blueprint for Silicon Valley was drawn by Frederick Terman, a visionary dean at Stanford University. In the post-WWII years, Terman grew tired of watching his brightest engineering graduates flee to the East Coast for work. His solution was radical: build the industry here.
He encouraged students like William Hewlett and David Packard to stay and start their own companies, personally investing in their potential. In 1951, he cemented this legacy by establishing the Stanford Industrial Park. By leasing university land to high-tech firms like Varian Associates, GE, and Lockheed, he created a unique ecosystem where academia and industry could feed off each other—a model now copied worldwide.
While HP’s famous garage on Addison Avenue became the spiritual birthplace of the Valley in 1938, the region earned its name through the semiconductor revolution of the 1950s.
The catalyst was the "Traitorous Eight"—eight brilliant scientists who resigned from Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory to escape the tyranny of their boss, William Shockley. Their new venture, Fairchild Semiconductor, pioneered the silicon transistors that would power the future. Fairchild became the ultimate incubator; its former employees "spun off" to found dozens of other companies, including Intel and AMD. By 1971, the concentration of semiconductor firms led journalist Don Hoefler to permanently christen the region "Silicon Valley."
As chips became more powerful, the focus shifted to what they could do. In the 1970s, Xerox PARC in Palo Alto became a factory of ideas, inventing the graphical user interface (GUI), the mouse, and Ethernet. Yet, it took an outsider to see their potential. A 1979 visit by Steve Jobs inspired the intuitive interface of the Apple Lisa and the Macintosh.
Apple, founded in a garage by Homebrew Computer Club members Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, democratized technology. The Apple II didn't just sell computers; it launched the PC revolution. Simultaneously, the region helped birth the internet, with SRI International serving as one of the first two nodes of the ARPANET in 1969.
The 1990s brought the World Wide Web and a frenzy of investment. The 1995 IPO of Netscape lit the fuse for the dot-com boom, turning Sand Hill Road into the "Wall Street of the West." Venture capitalists poured billions into startups, fueling a bubble that burst spectacularly in 2000.
But the crash didn't kill innovation; it refined it. Amidst the chaos, Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google, setting up shop in a Menlo Park garage. Their superior search algorithm allowed them to rise from the dot-com ashes to become a global titan.
The new millennium redefined how we connect. Facebook arrived in Palo Alto in 2004, its rapid expansion from a college directory to a global social network cementing the Valley’s dominance in social media.
Three years later, the world changed again. Steve Jobs’ 2007 unveiling of the iPhone put the internet in our pockets. The subsequent launch of the App Store created the "App Economy," a multi-billion dollar ecosystem that fundamentally altered daily life and commerce.
Today, the Valley continues to reinvent itself. The Stanford Research Park is now home to Tesla, leading the charge in sustainable transport. Meanwhile, the region is at the center of the Artificial Intelligence boom.