The plaque for California Historical Landmark No. 976 credits the idea of a high-technology region to Stanford’s Frederick Terman, who urged his students to start electronics companies near the university instead of joining firms in the East. Hewlett and Packard were the first to follow his advice.
Palo Alto has an earlier claim too: California Historical Landmark No. 836, at Channing Avenue and Emerson Street, marks the Federal Telegraph laboratory where Lee de Forest built the first vacuum tube amplifier and oscillator in 1911-13.