El Palo Alto
A few blocks northwest of the downtown station, beside the railroad bridge over San Francisquito Creek, stands El Palo Alto, the coast redwood that gave the city its name and still appears on its logo and on Stanford’s seal.
Discover El Palo Alto
El Palo Alto is a coast redwood about 110 feet tall, thought to have sprouted around the year 940. Of the thousands of redwoods in Palo Alto today, it is one of only a few not planted by people; the creek gives it the water it needs. (Wikipedia)
Tradition holds that Gaspar de Portolá’s expedition camped beside the tree from November 6 to 11, 1769. A plaque set in a granite boulder by the Native Sons of the Golden West in 1926 marks the camp. (Wikipedia, The Stanford Daily)
The tree once had two trunks; one fell in the late 1800s. Train smoke and a falling water table left it declared moribund by the late 1920s, but decades of care by the city, Stanford, arborists and the railroad brought back new growth. (Wikipedia)
The tree stands in El Palo Alto Park, a half-acre city park with a walking and cycling path across the creek to Menlo Park. It appears on the City of Palo Alto logo and the Stanford seal, and the Stanford Band’s Tree mascot goes back to it. (Wikipedia, The Stanford Daily)
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Palo Alto magic: Redwoods, oak hills and a town by the bay
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