Menlo Park, California, United States

🇺🇸 Menlo Park is a city located at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. Menlo Park is one of the most educated cities in California and the United States; nearly 70% of residents over the age of 25 have earned a bachelor's degree or higher. The city is home to the corporate headquarters of Facebook, and is where Google and Round Table Pizza were founded.

History 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.

In 1851, two Irish immigrants, Dennis J. Oliver and his brother-in-law, D.C. McGlynn, purchased a 1,700-acre (690 ha) 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 word "Menlo" derived from the owners' former home of Menlo (or Menlough) in County Galway, Ireland, and is an anglicized version of the original Irish name of the place, Mionloch, meaning "middle lake".

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. The 1867 station building still stands on the platform of the current Caltrain station, used by the local Chamber of Commerce. It holds the record as the oldest, continually operating train station in California. The town of Menlo Park grew up around this station, becoming a popular home for San Francisco businessmen. A post office was established in 1870, and the city was incorporated in 1874 (it dissolved after two years, but later was permanently incorporated in 1927). The original arch, which gave its name to the stations and ultimately, the city, survived until 1922, when it was destroyed in an automobile accident. The origin of the name of Menlo Park, California (circa 1850) antedates any work done by Thomas Edison (circa 1876) in Menlo Park, New Jersey; Menlo Park, New Jersey, was named after Menlo Park, California, as was Menlo, Washington.

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. It did not last long (the camp was dismantled after the war), but army engineers paved the first streets in Menlo Park and laid the first water and gas lines. The army did retain the camp hospital, and it is now the site of a Veterans Administration Hospital off of Willow Road in Menlo Park. In the autumn of 1918, a flu pandemic hit Camp Fremont and killed 147.

At the start of World War II, the US government bought the 260-acre (110 ha) 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.

In the 1960s, the former 600-acre (240 ha) 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".

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 chosen site was at 800 Alma Street in front of the Menlo Park public library. The replica was completed in 2019. On March 17, 2019, Menlo Park Mayor Ray Mueller officially dedicated the reproduction of the Menlo Gates.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 17.4 square miles (45 km²), of which 9.8 square miles (25 km²) are land and 7.6 square miles (20 km²) are covered by water. Menlo Park is long and narrow on a north-east to south-west axis. The north-east portion borders the San Francisco Bay and includes the Dumbarton Bridge that connects Menlo Park to Fremont on the east side of the bay. The city shoreline includes the city's largest park, Bedwell Bayfront Park (160 acres (65 ha)) and the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. San Francisquito Creek marks much of the south-east border of the city. West Menlo Park (not part of the city despite its name) along Alameda de las Pulgas nearly separates the south-western part of the city (known as Sharon Heights) from the rest. The extreme south-west is clipped by Interstate 280.

The Bayshore Freeway (part of U.S. Route 101) traverses Menlo Park north-west to south-east near the shoreline and somewhat parallel to the Bayshore Freeway to the south-west is El Camino Real. The intersection of El Camino Real and Santa Cruz Avenue is considered the heart of the city. Nearby, the Menlo Park Civic Center is bounded by Ravenswood Avenue, Alma Street, Laurel Street, and Burgess Drive. It contains the council offices, library, police station, and Burgess Park, which has various recreational facilities. Other major roads include Sand Hill Road in the Sharon Heights area.

The residential areas of Menlo Park can be unofficially divided into several neighborhoods. From "east" (northeast toward San Francisco Bay) to "west" (southwest toward the Pacific Coast), they are defined by the Palo Alto Weekly as: Belle Haven is the only neighborhood east of Route 101; much of the rest of that area is business or protected land. Between 101 and the roughly parallel Middlefield Road are the neighborhoods of the Willows, Suburban Park, Lorelei Manor, Flood Triangle, Vintage Oaks, and South of Seminary (the seminary being Saint Patrick's Seminary). Between Middlefield and El Camino Real are the Caltrain track and Felton Gables, Linfield Oaks, and Park Forest. West of El Camino until the foothills of the Peninsula are the neighborhoods of Downtown Menlo Park, Central Menlo Park, and Allied Arts (sometimes also known as Stanford Park, it is named for the Allied Arts Guild in it). In the hills are Sharon Heights and Stanford Hills. Several other neighborhoods are closely associated with Menlo Park but are actually in unincorporated San Mateo county; these include Menlo Oaks and Fair Oaks (latter part of the North Fair Oaks census area) between Bayshore and Middlefield, University Heights (also known as West Menlo Park) between Sharon Heights and most of the rest of the city, and Stanford Weekend Acres, which is somewhat near Stanford Hills.

Economy Much of Menlo Park's economy revolves around the companies on Sand Hill Road, consisting of venture capital, private equity, financial services, law firms, and other professional service companies and investment vehicles focusing on technology. Geron, Katerra, Robert Half International, Exponent, and SRI International are among the companies based in Menlo Park. Meta moved its headquarters to the former campus of Sun Microsystems in Menlo Park in December 2011.

Economy: Top employers In 2012, Meta (then known as Facebook) announced it would be Menlo Park's biggest employer, with 6,600 employees. According to a recent Financial Report, the city's top employers were: 1 Meta; 2 SRI International; 3 Grail; 4 Intersect ENT; 5 Pacific Biosciences; 6 United Parcel Service; 7 Exponent; 8 City of Menlo Park; 9 Personalis; 10 Safeway.

Education For primary schools, the central portions of Menlo Park are served by the Menlo Park City School District, while the Belle Haven neighborhood and VA hospital are served by the Ravenswood City School District, and the Sharon Heights and Stanford Hills neighborhoods served by the Las Lomitas Elementary School District. For high school, Menlo Park is part of the Sequoia Union High School District, with all of the city falling into the boundaries of Menlo-Atherton High School; some areas of the city have the option to attend Carlmont High School.

Private elementary schools include two Catholic parochial schools, St. Raymond Catholic Elementary School and Nativity Elementary School; the Episcopalian Trinity School; Phillips Brooks School, pre-kindergarten to 5th grade; and Peninsula School, from kindergarten to 8th grade; The Willows Campus of the private K–12 Silicon Valley International School, formerly known as German-American International School and Alto International School, is also in the city. Menlo School, a private middle and high school, is in Atherton on the border with Menlo Park. Sacred Heart School, Atherton, a religious middle and high school, is also in Atherton on the border with Menlo Park.

For higher education, Saint Patrick's Seminary and University is a Catholic seminary in Menlo Park.

There are two libraries, the Main branch and the Belle Haven branch. As part of the Peninsula Library System, they share many resources with other nearby libraries.

Transport Santa Cruz Avenue runs as the "Main Street" within Menlo Park; terminates at El Camino Real which runs concurrently with California State Route 82. The city is also the western end of the Dumbarton Bridge, which connects Menlo Park with the East Bay city of Fremont; the Menlo Park end is located immediately adjacent to Meta Platforms' headquarters. The city is flanked by U.S. Route 101 on its eastern end and by Interstate 280 on its western end.

Menlo Park's transit is primarily served by its eponymous train station, served by Caltrain. SamTrans is the primary provider of bus transport throughout the city. Menlo Park's eastern ends were previously considered for a short-lived BART extension along the Bayshore Freeway.

BART and Caltrain are also the primary transit modes for Menlo Park's connections to the San Francisco Bay Area's airports. Menlo Park is located about halfway between San Francisco International Airport and San Jose International Airport; the former can be accessed by using Caltrain and either BART's red line, or yellow line during 3-line service, or SamTrans route 292 (both connecting to Caltrain at Millbrae station), while the latter connects to Menlo Park through Caltrain and VTA services through a transfer at Diridon station. Drivers to and from Menlo Park can connect to both San Jose and San Francisco airports through using US 101. Oakland Airport is the farthest of the three major Bay Area airports from Menlo Park, with drivers having to cross the Bay through one of the three bridges across it, and transit users needing to use either the Dumbarton Express, SamTrans, or Caltrain to connect to BART services.