The area of Menlo Park was inhabited by the
Ohlone people when the
Portolá expedition arrived in 1769. In 1795, the
Rancho de las Pulgas Spanish land grant was made that included the area of the current city. Before and during the
1849 Gold Rush, successful businessmen from
San Francisco, like
Faxon Atherton and
George C. Johnson began investing in real estate on this portion of the peninsula located midway between
San Francisco and
San Jose.
Original Menlo Park gate In 1851, two Irish immigrants, Dennis J. Oliver and his brother-in-law, D.C. McGlynn, purchased a tract of land on the former
Rancho de las Pulgas. In 1854, they erected a gate with a wooden arch bearing the inscription "Menlo Park" and the date "August 1854" at the entrance to their property (now the intersection of Middle Ave and El Camino Real). The wooden gate was modeled after the stone gate that stands at the entrance to the
Menlo Castle estate in Menlo, Ireland.
Railroad In 1863, the
San Francisco and San Jose Rail Road had built the railroad from San Francisco to as far as Mayfield (now
California Avenue station in Palo Alto) and started running trains to the area. They named a nearby station "Menlo Park" after the sign.
Menlo, Washington, also derived its name from the California community.
Camp Fremont In 1917–18, a large portion of Menlo Park was the site of
Camp Fremont, a training camp for, at its height, 27,000 men being sent to fight in
World War I. Army engineers paved the first streets in Menlo Park and laid the first water and gas lines. In the autumn of 1918, a
flu pandemic hit Camp Fremont and killed 147. Although the camp was dismantled after the war, its hospital was retained, today the site of a Veterans Administration Hospital off Willow Road in Menlo Park.
SRI International At the start of
World War II, the US government bought the estate of
Timothy Hopkins from his widow and created the Palo Alto General Hospital, later renamed the Dibble General Hospital (after Colonel John Dibble, who was killed in 1943). After the war ended, some of the land was sold to the city and became the sites of the main library and city hall. More of the land was bought by
Stanford University to house the increase in students due to the
G.I. Bill; the area was known as the "Stanford Village", which existed as student housing until the mid-1960s. This land also was the site of the Stanford Research Institute (now
SRI International) starting in 1947; between 1955 and 1968, SRI bought the rest of the Stanford Village.
Sunset magazine headquarters Sunset magazine had its headquarters in Menlo Park from 1951 to 2015, designed by architect,
Cliff May, with a similar layout to a California
ranch-style house.
Sunset referred to its Menlo Park headquarters as the Laboratory of Western Living.California
Sharon Heights In the 1960s, the former estate of Frederick W. Sharon (1859–1914) (son of Senator
William Sharon) and his wife, Louise Tevis Breckinridge Sharon (1858–1938; daughter of
Lloyd Tevis and divorced wife of
John Witherspoon Breckinridge), in the hills of south west Menlo Park was developed and called "Sharon Heights".
Development of Google The development of leading Internet search engine provider
Google occurred in 1998 in the garage in a Menlo Park home owned by
Susan Wojcicki. Wojcicki's Menlo Park garage was used as the office for Google co-founders
Larry Page and
Sergey Brin for $1,700 a month.
Replica of Menlo Park gate In 2015, the Menlo Park Historical Association (MPHA) began a project to raise funds for and build a replica of the original Menlo Park gates. The completed gate was placed in front of the Menlo Park public library at 800 Alma Street, and officially dedicated on March 17, 2019, by Menlo Park Mayor Ray Mueller. ==Geography==