El Palo Alto
germinated around AD 940, when the
San Francisco Peninsula was populated by the
Ohlone people, one of the
indigenous peoples of California. The tree is thus contemporaneous with the
Viking Age, the
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in China, or the
Fatimid Caliphate in the Islamic world. Prior to European contact, the
Ramaytush speaking subgroup of the Ohlone people lived near to the tree, in the village of Puichon.
Portolá's expedition Before conquest by Spanish missionaries in the 18th century, the land around El Palo Alto was home to the Ohlone. They traveled southwest and arrived at
San Francisquito Creek on November 6, 1769, where they camped until November 11. In 1776, A 1777 map of the bay by Font indicated a large tree on San Francisquito Creek.
Early landmark In July 1850, a highway from
San Francisco in the north to
San Jose to the south was ordered to be built. Previous travelers took narrow trails on horseback or slightly wider tracks on
oxcart; it was joked that the road between the two cities was "three miles wide". The highway passed close to El Palo Alto and likely brought it to prominence. The tree was nearly cut down in 1850, but was saved by a timely shipment of lumber. El Palo Alto was first known as the Palos Colorados, the name "Rancho of Palo Alto" was used as a disambiguation in 1857. The
Southern Pacific Transportation Company purchased the company in March 1868; the tree was featured in Southern Pacific advertising.
Edward Vischer's
Pictorial of California (1870) contains a drawing of the tree with two trunks, noting it to be "one of the very few instances of that mountain monarch [the redwood] being found in the open level country", and suggests that the tree originally had three trunks, describing it as "[t]wins, once a trio".
Land transfers and the Stanfords The land beneath and nearby the tree passed through various owners before becoming part of the city of Palo Alto, which did not yet exist. Some references state that the tree lay at the northwest corner of a
Mexican land grant called
Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito, which spanned of
oak trees and brush. This corner abutted
Rancho San Francisquito to the west and
Rancho de las Pulgas to the north. In 1835, the Rinconada grant was first given to Don Rafael Soto, whose father had settled in the de Anza expedition of 1775–76. Soto's widow inherited the grant in 1841. She entered a dispute with the US government—which
acquired California as a state in 1850, after the
Mexican–American War—over whether her claim was valid. Soto's heirs were finally declared the rightful owners in 1872, and gave the contractors who had represented them about of land as compensation; the heirs kept the other, northern part. In 1876, parts of Rancho San Francisquito was purchased by
Leland Stanford—who later founded
Stanford University with his wife
Jane Stanford—for his
Palo Alto Stock Farm, a place for breeding and training horses. It would eventually grow to about . Following the death of
their son in 1884, the Stanfords established a university in his honor on their land. In 1887, Soto's heirs sold their land to a good friend of Leland Stanford,
Timothy Hopkins, who used it to develop the nearby town of University Park (see 1894 view). In particular, Hopkins acquired land near El Palo Alto, adjacent to Southern Pacific–owned land, that eventually became the city-owned El Palo Alto Park.), adorned with to its left and to its right as a motto. Yet, even as the tree became so enmeshed with the university's branding, its position east of the railroad right of way confirms that there never was a time when El Palo Alto was on land owned by Leland Stanford.
One trunk falls El Palo Alto had two trunks until some time between 1875 when the north, more-curved trunk fell. However, in a Palo Alto Historical Association talk on October 6, 2024, and in a follow up article in the Palo Alto Historical Association newsletter, Jeff Watt, a local Palo Alto electrical engineer, presented evidence that one of the twin trees likely fell in 1875. He presented a clipping from the Nov 20, 1875 issue of the San Mateo Times that referred to a large redwood growing next to the San Francisquito creek falling during the recent severe rainstorm (6 inches of rain). The article adds that "This tree was one of two giant redwoods growing near each other." Jeff also presented photographs showing only a single trunk for the tree after this date. The San Francisquito Creek's eroding banks further threatened El Palo Alto. Fearing its loss, after the first trunk fell, Leland Stanford directed a wooden bulkhead to be built reinforcing the tree's side of the creek. In 1904 Jane Stanford ordered the building of a cement wall, which was further reinforced around 1909 by Southern Pacific. Early Stanford students had a tradition of climbing the tree and placing a flag as high as possible. The day before admissions day of 1909, a Stanford student (or possibly an employee) was marooned and had to be rescued by other students at night time, marking the last known climb. Nearby wells and water being taken from San Francisquito Creek lowered the
water table, depriving the tree of needed water. Stanford botany professor
George James Peirce already found in 1901 that the tree's crown was seriously injured, that the railway had caused changes in the nearby soil's drainage, and that a "thicket of
suckers" was present around the tree, akin to those seen "around the stump of a felled or fallen redwood of advanced age." In 1915 Peirce planted seven redwoods on university grounds so that one of them could succeed El Palo Alto following its death. Six remain—one was crushed as a sapling by a lawnmower. The
Native Sons of the Golden West, an organization dedicated to the preservation of California landmarks, took stewardship of the tree in 1920. Southern Pacific leased the tree to the Native Sons in 1922 and in 1925 the surrounding land was converted into a park, now El Palo Alto Park. University tree surgeons filled decayed cavities with cement and the tree's base was irrigated using six-inch pipes, sunk eight feet into the earth at regular intervals. Southern Pacific hooked up
guy wires to stabilize the tree. Fearing the tree's death, the Native Sons placed a plaque set in a granite boulder under the tree in 1926, in a ceremony attended by more than a thousand people and featuring speeches from the mayor, a Stanford professor, a Southern Pacific representative, and several Native Sons. Despite continuous preservation efforts, by the late 1920s newspapers declared the tree moribund. The top of the tree continued to die and measurements in 1950 found a height of , compared to in 1930.
Recovery A watering system—dubbed the "Fool the Redwood Plan" by a caretaker A Jeep-mounted pump was used twice a month to pump water for two hours up the line, which reached above the tree. It soon became clogged and bent out of shape by high winds, but was fixed in 1958 in a collaboration with the city fire department. In 1961 six local arborists together deemed the tree to be in fair condition, but suffering from smog, insufficient water, termites, and a deteriorating root system. Smaller, "nurse" trees were planted to protect El Palo Alto's root system from compacted soil. Dead wood and termite infestations were progressively removed, mulch was added at the tree's base, and the tree's top was cut off as it died. With their disbandment in 1974, the Native Sons' lease of the land immediately around the tree from Southern Pacific expired. The city of Palo Alto, who had long cared for the tree, had incorrectly assumed they were part of the lease. The city sent Southern Pacific a new lease in 1978. The switching of nearby cities to the
Hetch Hetchy water system incidentally let the water table return. Together with watering and fertilization efforts the tree was finally adorned with new growth. A 1999 appraisal concluded that "notwithstanding a catastrophic event ... it is expected that the El Palo Alto redwood will persevere and grow for centuries to come." == Legacy ==