| The Palo Alto History Project |
| El Palo Alto 117 Palo Alto Avenue |
| El Palo Alto: An Iconic Past Every great city deserves a great symbol. Some sort of natural landmark or iconic structure that looks good on the city letterhead and in tourist brochures, while still recollecting the city’s roots and history. The Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower and Golden Gate Bridge are all man-made structures that represent proud cities in their most idyllic glory. But while Palo Alto is obviously a lot smaller than the sprawling metropolises of New York, Paris or San Francisco, it has a city symbol with just as much grace and dignity. This is the story of California’s oldest living landmark, the tree known as El Palo Alto. Actually to fully tell that story you have to go back more than 1,000 years. El Palo Alto, the tall redwood which still stands near Palo Alto’s northern border has truly been rooted to that spot for a millennium. It’s an amazing fact to consider. Today tree lovers can still walk into a small park and look up at this enormous redwood that was just a small sapling when Leif Ericson first set foot in the Americas. Indeed, El Palo Alto was past 500 years old when Christopher Columbus first arrived and it was nearing its 800th birthday in 1769 when most historians believe Don Gaspar de Portola and his band of explorers first “discovered” the tree while looking for Monterey Bay. Of course, if you visit El Palo Alto today, it’s difficult to get a sense of the landmark that it was in those early days of California exploration. Now it’s just one of many redwoods, oaks and non-native trees that are clustered near the railroad tracks along the Menlo Park border. But part of what makes El Palo Alto such a perfect city emblem is that it transports one back to an earlier era when all that stood between the mountains and the bay were undisturbed grassy slopes and fields. A time when El Palo Alto was the tallest tree for miles around. In those days, El Palo Alto was actually two twin trees standing side-by-side. One of the twins would eventually succumb to a mid 1880s windstorm, but a photo taken a decade earlier records the distinctive character of the twin tree that on a clear day could be seen from San Francisco. Mrs. C.F. de Ramirez recorded what it was like to approach El Palo Alto in the early days. As a little girl in 1837, she first saw the twin trunks from the hills in Belmont. She remembered that “it was a clear day and as we topped the summit of the hill, I saw the two noble trees, intertwined like brothers towering high above the oaks and buckeyes. In those days the twin redwoods, were indeed beautiful trees, green and stately.” Portola’s chief scout, Sergeant Ortega, must have seen it much the same way when he viewed the two tall trees from the high mountains near present day San Carlos. The Portola explorers had come up from San Diego on a mission to search for Monterey Bay. But as early explorers had a tendency to do, Portola’s band got lost and found something else of significance --- namely the San Francisco Bay. As the procession struggled down the hills they used the twin trees as a guide --- later camping beneath El Palo Alto between November 6th and 11th of 1769. The twin trees that the Spanish called “Palos Colorados” (the red trees) and later El Palo Alto (the tall tree) also served as a guide to other explorers. After camping there, Fray Pedro Font included El Palo Alto on his 1770 topographical map of San Francisco. “I beheld in the distance a tree of immense stature rising above the plain of oaks like a grand tower,” he wrote in his diary upon first seeing the twin redwoods. And in 1776, Padre Francisco erected a cross beneath El Palo Alto to mark a proposed mission site, although Spanish engineers and military strategists in San Francisco eventually decided to build the mission in Santa Clara instead. In later years, the city of Palo Alto would grow up beneath the scraggly leaves of El Palo Alto. Senator Leland Stanford first settled Palo Alto Farm and later founded a university that used El Palo Alto on its official seal. And as the University Park tract matured around Stanford, it officially became the city of Palo Alto in 1894. The new city was already a stopping point for the Southern Pacific Railroad, which had laid its track lines beneath the natural landmark. The train depot a half mile south at University Avenue became known to many as “Big Tree Station.” Despite fondness for El Palo Alto, the tree has been in danger since it was first sighted from that hilltop. Poisonous train smoke and emerging farms certainly didn’t do the tree much good. Still, it was nature that did the most damage to El Palo Alto. In 1886 during a particularly harsh winter, the tall tree lost its weaker half from the effects of a violent wind storm. When it came down, locals eagerly counted the rings and found the downed redwood to be 960 years of age. By the mid-1920s, many locals feared that El Palo Alto’s days were numbered. Issuing a kind of last rites, the local Native Sons of the Golden West hurried to honor El Palo Alto in 1926 --- presenting it with a bronze plaque set in a granite boulder. But thanks to help over the years from Southern Pacific, the city of Palo Alto and local caregivers, great effort has been taken to preserve this hearty landmark. Soil and mulch has been filled in near the tree’s base, dead limbs are periodically cut off, spraying is done to combat tree pests, and a pipe runs up its trunk bringing water to the treetop. Having weathered the railroad, loggers, floods, termites, wind storms and smog, El Palo Alto still stands along the San Francisquito Creek towering over the city and refusing to die. So if you ever find yourself near venerable El Palo Alto, stop by and give that old tree a hug. After all, it's earned it. -Matt Bowling |
| A drawing of the pre-1880s twin trees. |
| The famous photo of the twin trees in 1875. (PAHA) |
| Palo Alto: Then & Now |
| 2007 |
| 1951 |
| Sources: Palo Alto Times, Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Daily News, Palo Alto Historical Association |
| The map below shows the Northwest area of Palo Alto. Move in or out with the +/- symbols in the corner... |
| This shot of a Southern Pacific train and the University Avenue Train Depot gives a sense of the isolated nature of El Palo Alto in the early days of the city. (PAHA) |
| An old post card of El Palo Alto. |
| The Native Sons of the Golden West honoring what they thought was a dying tree in 1926. (PAHA) |
| Looking up the tree. A pipe brings the misting system to the tree's upper regions. |
| The El Palo Alto plaque. |
| The old tree in 1890 before the railroad bridge was enlarged. (PAHA) |
| El Palo Alto still looking worn in 1963. (PAHA) |
| The plaque remains today. |
| Gasper De Portola and his men reached El Palo Alto while being hopelessly lost. |
| A train passes a rather scraggly looking El Palo Alto. (PAHA) |
| It's hard to get a sense of the great size of the tree at its base without seeing it first hand. |
| Two shots of trains passing over the bridge at San Francisquito Creek with El Palo Alto at right. The tree is said to be in better health now than it was 60 years ago and that is apparent in these two photos. However, tree is not as tall as it was in those years. |
| Memories added by our readers: |
| "The area around the tree was beautiful, during daylight. It was not the best place to be, after dark, back in the 60's and 70's. I was a police officer then. When we had slow nights in town, we would go down to the bridge and find dozens of people sleeping in sleeping bags, blankets, card board boxes, either under or out in the open from the various trees. We would check out the people for warrants, run-a-way's, under age kids. One night I saw a drunk (it turned out) fall off his bicycle, as he was riding his bike on the railroad tracks. I went to check him for injuries, when he attacked me, I had to call for help cuffing him. At the jail, he admitted he didn't see my patrol car, or notice I was in uniform as he was so drunk. I was off work on light duty for 2-3 weeks after that incident. Another time, one of the town drunks, tried going to the bathroom off the edge, into San Francisquito Creek. He was found at the bottom still with his pants down. The place was never posted with any warning about being closed at darkness, so they kept coming. Another incident, I found a deceased male, in a sleeping bag near by. The Coroner apparently determined it was natural causes, or drugs, they never notified me. My point, was some places were great in daytime hours, but not very nice at night." -Roy |