USGS 50 Years in Menlo Park

What Tree Was The Tall Tree?

Regarding Palo Alto city's namesake: Friar Pedro Font carefully measured "El Palo Alto" in 1769 using a graphometer and recorded it size as 50 varas high and 5.5 varas in circumference (a vara being about a meter). There was no mention of the tree having a compound trunk... yet today's alleged Palo Alto tree (the one at the intersection of Alma and the CalTrain tracks) had been for many years a compound trunk of three stalks (two stalks when the railroad was laid, of which only one stalk remains today) and not unusually tall. It is, therefore, probably not "the real McCoy." Candidates for the genuine Gaspar Portola "El Palo Alto" were the redwood on Pope Street (which fell in 1852) or the redwood at Hale and Forest (that tree was carried away by high water in 1911). The Alma Street redwood has distinction, however, of being useful to railroad travelers as a place to flag down a train (the Palo Alto train stop), of having a provocative proximity to Stanford University (and thus victim of many sophomoric climbs to hoist school banners), and for it's longevity (having outlasted its big sisters which blew over or were washed away). Hence, the Alma Street railroad crossing tree has (de-facto) been adopted as a legendary surrogate, and is often misidentified in local folklore the namesake Palo Alto. Because of its notoriety (but invalidity as the original Palo Alto) it is registered as an "Historic Site of Interest" with the State of California, but not as a genuine "Historic Landmark." Interesting to note that the roots of this remarkable survivor are over 1050 years old, and thousands of root sprouts (genetic clones) have been harvested and planted all over Palo Alto, Stanford, and Menlo Park. The USGS Western Region Center can proudly boast a rather unique distinction of having examples of each of the world's three species of redwood trees (Coast Sequoia sempervirens, Sierra Sequoia gigantea, and Chinese Dawn Metasequoia glyptostroboides) growing on the Menlo Park campus. The settlement of "Menlo Park" dates back to about the time of the building of the railroad parallel to the old mission route, and the construction of lower income housing for craftsmen, caretakers, and domestic servants.

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