San Mateo County Historical Association

The San Mateo County Historical Association started in 1935. Dr Frank Stanger, the first executive director, goals were preserving the county's historical sites, developing an archive for the county’s history and creating a museum dedicated to preserving reminders of the county’s past. 

Today the San Mateo County Historical Association serves over 53,429 people in the community through three historical sites: the San Mateo County History Museum in Redwood City, the Woodside Store in Woodside, and the Sanchez Adobe in Pacifica. It also runs school programs at the Folger Stable in Woodside.

The original goals of the Historical Association have expanded to include providing meaningful learning experiences for the county’s residents and guests with special attention devoted to children’s programs. Through hands-on experiences, students are much more likely to learn, appreciate, and integrate historical information into their current lives. In this last completed fiscal year, we served 19,224 children and their chaperones on their school field trips.

We also offer an exciting calendar of public programs including workshops, lectures and family days. 

 

Your contribution will help support the core elements of the Historical Association’s activities including:

• Operating our three museums - - San Mateo County History Museum, Sanchez Adobe and Woodside Store.
• Conducting our school programs at the three museums plus Folger Stable.
• Providing public access to our archives through our research library.
• Caring for the 420,000 two-dimensional and three-dimensional historic items in our collections.
• Organizing special educational programs for adults and children on a monthly basis.
• Continuing a creative schedule of changing exhibits at the San Mateo County History Museum.
• Publishing our journal, La Peninsula.
• Acting as a clearing house for matters of historic preservation throughout the County.