Overview

The USGS Western Region Center is spread on a natural landscape with an interesting and colorful history of colonization, conquest, and some unscrupulous land exchanges. The climate, geology, and soils were productive toward establishing a verdant landscape of grassy open space enriched by tracts of forest trees (oak, bay, willow), manzanita, and coyote brush. The area was first settled about 5000 years ago by a tribelet group of Ohlone Indians called the Puichan who lived along the creek and bay margin in village dwellings of tule reeds, tree bark, and dirt. They survived on a diet of fish, mussels, nuts, berries, and abundant game animals (including some large Tule Elk, Pronghorn Antelope, and Blacktail Deer). An advance team of the Gaspar Portola expedition led by Sergeant Jose Francisco de Ortega camped under "el palo alto" along a creek "arroyo San Francisquito" in 1769. In the spring of 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza sought the same site to establish a colony, but finding the streamflow of San Francisquito marginal, eventually located the colony of Mission Santa Clara on the banks of the Guadalupe River farther to the south. When the regional government was headquartered in Monterey, Spanish settlers to the bay area were allowed to claim large ranch holdings; locally the Buelna, Robles, Soto, and Arguello families settled along Arroyo San Francisquito. Jose Arguello (the San Francisco Presidio Commandant) by a 1775 authorization from the Spanish governor was allowed 69,000 acres (much of the peninsula between Arroyo San Francisquito and Lago Merced) for his "ranch of the fleas," Rancho de Los Pulgas.

The Hispanic hold on alta California became tenuous after the Mexican revolution of 1822 and several Indian uprisings circa 1833-1841. An altercation between Anglos and Hispanics over a herd of horses intended for a Mexican militia unit was pretext for Charles Fremont (officially a pathfinder for the Army Corps of Topographic Engineers) to send a detachment from his "survey party" to support the Anglo rebels. Fremont advanced from New Helvetia to Monterey (June/July 1846) where he rendezvoused with U.S. Navy units under the command of Commodore John Sloat. He then advanced south to San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Cahuenga. By the end of 1847, California was well within the hands of U.S. Army and Navy units. Continued harassment of Hispanic Californios by Union soldiers led to a local rebellion of about 100 compatriots (Don Secundino Robles of Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito among them) who took a Union raiding party hostage. A rescue squad dispatched from San Francisco literally got stuck in the mud on its way to Mission Santa Clara and had to negotiate a settlement. Later, Secundino Robles sold 250 acres of land from his Rancho Rincon claim to Elisha Crosby who started "Mayfield" farm. The village became a hub of activity, and because of its proximity halfway between San Francisco and San Jose, railroad baron Leland Stanford eventually set to building a university on ranchland there.

Luis Arguello (Jose's son and heir) drowned in 1830 while crossing the bay in a whale boat leaving the Rancho de Las Pulgas without a Mayordomo in control, and Rafael Mesa died in 1839 leaving Rinconada de Eltaro de Arroyo to his wife Antonia Mesa. Wives of deceased husbands had difficulty holding onto spousal land claims, and since women had few rights and no power (especially Spanish widows who could be taken advantage of) during the wild-west period of Unionization, dozens of Anglo squatters set up homesteading on the Arguello and Mesa ranches with a tacit U.S. Government noninterference blessing. A fellow named Steinberger built a fence along the north side of the mission road which separated grazing fields from marshlands (this came to be known as the middle field fence and hence the general alignment of Middlefield Road).

In 1861, ground was broken for the San Jose to San Francisco Railroad. The newest owner of the New Almaden Cinnabar Mine, William Eustache Barron, built a glorious mansion (he called "Thurlow Lodge") on a 380 acre estate between the fence and the railroad tracks. It was a copy of the opulent Bidwell Home (still standing) in Chico, California. This estate was later bought by Senator (and former governor of California) Milton Slocum Latham 1871, (the Barron house was damaged by fire on February 13, 1872 during remodeling). Senator Latham replaced it in 1875 with a grander mansion which was later sold to Mrs. Mark Hopkins who presented it as a wedding gift to her adopted son Timothy. The magnificent 50 room mansion built by Senator Latham was then named "Sherwood Hall" by the Hopkins in honor of Mrs. Hopkins family name. Its grounds included a Victorian traffic circle garden and Egyptian motif pool house. Unfortunately, the mansion was irreparably damaged by the great 1906 earthquake and made unlivable. The calamity forced the Hopkins family to move into their Gate House (which still exists in service today as a Menlo Park community office building). Timothy Hopkins developed the land into an efficient horticultural farm which sold ornamental flowers and dried fruit worldwide. It was known as "Sherwood Hall Nursery" and later as "Sunset Feed and Plant Company." Upon the death of Mrs. Mary Kellogg Hopkins, the estate was donated to Stanford University which had Wells Fargo parcel it up for development into Menlo Civic Center, Linfield Oaks, Dibble Hospital (U.S. Army), and Stanford Research Institute. About this time, some remaining furniture and salvaged architectural pieces of Sherwood Hall were auctioned off (much to a Hollywood movie studio) and it and Sunset buildings demolished for construction of a WW-II hospital.

Around World War II, the U.S. Geological Survey (est. 1879) headquartered in Washington D.C., had fieldworkers stationed throughout the United States, many searching for strategic minerals, uranium, and petroleum. When USGS Director William Wrather supported a plan (circa 1950) for widely dispersed fieldworkers to consolidate into regional centers, a surplus ordnance plant outside Denver became the home of a USGS Rocky Mountain Center (Central Region Headquarters), and land adjacent to (and partially upon) the surplus U.S. Army hospital property in Menlo Park (being recycled by Stanford University for use as G.I. and graduate student housing) became the home of the USGS Pacific Coast Center (Western Region Headquarters). Building Number One, the first of many, began being staffed in late 1953 / early 1954. Early USGS buildings in Menlo Park were lease-purchased by General Services Administration or legally secured by maneuvers of government lawyers. "Win-Win Situation" land swaps with Stanford University were also arranged. A covert Central Intelligence Agency dock at the Port of Redwood City became the moorings for boats of the Geological Survey's Pacific Marine Geology fleet. Remaining wooden buildings at SRI and shacks at USGS are relics of the military era and among the oldest buildings still surviving here as tangible links to a rich historic past. In one of these buildings, magnetic reversals of the earth were identified and chronicled and the results used as proofs for seafloor spreading and plate tectonics theory.

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