A Short History of Burlingame
The earliest documented European contact with what is now the Burlingame area was made by the Juan Bautista de Anza expedition in 1776. Although earlier Spanish expeditions had passed through this area, notably the Portolá expedition in 1769, de Anza is the first to have camped in what is now Burlingame. In his diaries de Anza refers to the dry arroyo "half a league" north from " arroyo San Matheo". It can be assumed that this is what locals now refer to as Burlingame creek. From that date, the Spanish missionaries developed the San Mateo/Burlingame area as the farm to support their mission in San Francisco.
With the advent of Mexican independence in 1822 the mission lands were secularized and the Burlingame area was part of a land grant given by Governor Pio Pico to his secretary, Cayetano Arenas. Cayetano had hardly taken possesion of the land when the uprising in Sonoma that led to the founding of the Bear Republic caused Cayetano and his father to dispose of the land to a San Francisco based merchantile company, Howard & Mellus. William Davis Merry Howard soon bought out his partner and retired to the country to live in splendor with his young wife for the remaining eight years of his life, but his early death in 1856 led to the sale of most of the land to William C. Ralston, a prominent banker and founder of the Bank of California who had amassed a vast acreage from today’s Belmont northwards. Ralston’s vision was to create a "sacrosanct colony". Ralston, who had made his fortune in the development of the Comstock Lode, admired the Peninsula’s warm, tranquil setting of oak-clad, rolling hills nestled between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Coastal Range.
One of the first of many famous guests invited to Ralston’s estate was the United States Minister to China, recently appointed by President Lincoln, the Honorable Anson Burlingame. Ralston showed his guest a portion of the estate set aside for the summer homes of his wealthy friends. So impressed was Anson Burlingame with the locale, he chose a villa site for himself of 1100 acres to be used after his retirement from the China mission. His host, in honor of the occasion, named the new town site ’Burlingame’ and presented the handsome diplomat with the choice holding he had selected. The genial banker’s vision of an exclusive suburban colony remained little more than a dream until the founding of the Burlingame Country Club in 1893. The exclusive country club built its own railroad station in 1894.
With the advent of the streetcar service from San Francisco to San Mateo, the town began to spread out from the railway station. Following the construction of this streetcar line at the turn of the century, the present town of Burlingame was surveyed. In 1901, the first two stores opened for business on Burlingame Square.
The town grew slowly until 1906 when the San Francisco earthquake and fire sent hundreds of people in search of a safe residential area. Burlingame was the choice of many. The town site which Ralston had laid out in 1868 was so excellent that it was incorporated on June 6, 1908. The year before incorporation the first volunteer fire department was established and was followed in 1909 by the establishment of the first library.
After more than 95 years, Burlingame retains the very qualities that impressed and attracted its first residents.
