About 65 people got a glimpse into the history of Menlo Park during a recent walking tour that I led as secretary of the sponsoring organization, the Menlo Park Historical Association.
The tour traveled down Oak Grove Avenue and returned on Ravenswood Avenue, two streets that were mapped as of 1863.
Beginning at the Menlo Park Train Station, constructed in 1867 and the oldest still operating train station in California, the tour stopped at Bright Eagle, a mansion built in 1869 on Noel Drive, a street named for Emma Noel, one of its owners.
From there we visited three religious institutions, beginning with Corpus Christi Monastery, built in 1927 on Oak Grove Avenue by a monastic order of Dominican nuns on the site of a former flower nursery from the 1880s.
We crossed the street to the Vallombrosa Center, a retreat owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco. The center includes an 1880s mansion owned by Edward F. Hopkins, nephew of Mark Hopkins, Nob Hill resident and railroad baron.
Farther down Oak Grove Avenue, we stopped at the Church of the Nativity, originally built off Middlefield Road in 1872 and moved to current site around 1880.
All three religious sites are in Menlo Park, incorporated 90-years ago in 1927.
Returning on Ravenswood Avenue, the tour stopped briefly at SRI International, once part of the Timothy Hopkins Estate before being acquired by Stanford University. The part of the estate not bought by Stanford was the Gatehouse, built in 1864 before the property was acquired by Timothy Hopkins, the adopted son of Mary Sherwood Hopkins, the wife of Mark Hopkins.
Timothy and his wife occupied the Gatehouse after the 1906 earthquake rendered the estate’s mansion uninhabitable. The Gatehouse is now owned by the Junior League of Palo Alto-Mid Peninsula, whose president, Marfrisa Geronimo Gipner, opened the private building to the tour group and gave a brief talk on its history.
The tour is an annual event, held in concert with the county-wide Victorian Days, organized by the San Mateo County History Museum.
This is the second year I’ve led the tour. Last year, the tour included Fremont Park (named for Camp Fremont, the World War I Army training camp in Menlo Park, established 100 years ago in 1917) and the Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity of the Holy Virgin on Crane Street (no relation to the author), originally an Episcopal church chapel built in 1886. A newly formed Russian diocese purchased the chapel for $1 from the Ravenswood Ave Trinity Church, which had built a larger facility, and moved it to the current location at their own expense.
Historical association
The Menlo Park Historical Association (MPHA) has just under 200 members. Its offices are located on the lower floor of the Menlo Park Library at 800 Alma St. in the Civic Center and are open Tuesdays from noon to 10 a.m. and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call (650) 330-2522.
Tour guide Bo Crane, a local historian and author of “The Life and Times of Dennis Martin,” an early pioneer with a ranch off Sand Hill Road.
