Menlo Park Historical Association

The Menlo Park Historical Association (MPHA) was organized in 1971 to collect, preserve, and disseminate the history of Menlo Park. Under Mexican rule, this area was on the southern edge of the huge Rancho de las Pulgas, owned by the Arguello family. About 1854, under American rule, two Irish immigrants, Dennis Oliver and Daniel McGlynn, purchased land from the Arguellos and named their ranch Menlo Park after their home village of Menlough (near Galway), Ireland. They erected a large entrance gate along County Road (today’s El Camino Real) displaying the name of their ranch. When the railroad was constructed in 1862, a station was established nearby and named Menlo Park as seen on the gate. The gate was destroyed by an automobile in 1922. A village grew up around the railroad station, and in 1927 the City of Menlo Park was incorporated.

MPHA is a volunteer non-profit organization with a board of directors and a part-time paid staff of archivists. The annual operating budget is typically $10K of which only about 25% is covered by membership dues. There is no direct funding by the City.

Our principal long range goal is to create a history museum at or near the city’s civic center. MPHA presently operates out of a room of about 1000 sf in the basement of the library provided at no charge by the City. A dedicated building of approximately 4000 sf (including basement) would cost at least $1M to build on city-owned land. MPHA presently has about $100K in gifts dedicated to this project.

Recently we started a short-range project to replicate the original Menlo Park gate to be displayed on public land as near El Camino Real as possible. The footprint of the original 16-ft high gate was about 24x2 ft. The estimated total cost to replicate and mount is $75K. Fund-raising for this project is just starting.