A San Mateo birthday gift

But included in this program provided by our friends in Burlingame is a map of what was the original vision of the town of San Mateo by its founder, C.B “Charley” Polhemus, who bought 200 acres here. At its center was the train depot between Second and Third avenues and its center was clearly marked from today’s San Mateo Drive east to Eldorado Street and from First Avenue south to Fifth Avenue. The top end was the San Mateo Creek and the bottom end was his own estate, which had a 14-acre garden to the north that he later sold to the Kohl family, and is now Central Park. To its west was land owned by Alvinza Hayward. There were other large estates until the Stage Road, now El Camino Real, and the land to its west was owned by John Parrott.

The walking tour intended to show the “streets of San Mateo” as it was in the town’s first dozen years, from 1863-75. The first year held just that solitary depot, a lonely warehouse, Polhemus’ wheat field, the salt flats and the San Francisco Bay. Next came the work of James D. Byrnes, considered the father of San Mateo, who bought up the first town lots, and built the first place of business and the first brick building. He later served as member of the state Assembly and state Senate. You can still see his house at the very west end of First Avenue, where it shoots off into two small tiny sections of Eldorado Street south of San Mateo Creek. The house has been modified and chopped up into apartments, but you can still see its location. Reportedly, its location was such that he could keep an eye on the brick livery at the southeast corner of First Avenue and B Street. That house is not the oldest house, that honor belongs to the William Sands house on the northeast corner of First Avenue and South Delaware Street, however, the farm house at the back is the oldest structure, constructed in 1863, while the front Gothic Revival or steamboat Gothic section dates from the 1880s.

Still, Byrnes did a lot of work in this four-block-by-five-block section of the original San Mateo, and created the Union Saloon, and later the Union Hotel just south of the train depot at Third Avenue. If you see old photos of the train depot looking south, you can see the structure that is still there.

Many of the city’s old structures burned down, all the grand estates and even many of the downtown buildings, which spurred interest in a fire department and led to the city’s incorporation Sept. 4, 1894. That makes this coming Thursday the city’s birthday, 131 years to be exact.

Of course, the Ohlone and Raymaytush tribes were here long before. Wouldn’t it be great to find a way to honor the tribes, along with Polhemus, the founder, and Byrnes, the father, in the original section of the “town of San Mateo” before it was incorporated?

The city is finally creating a historic resources program, a sort of assessment if you will, piggybacking off a 1989 historic building survey, which was never completed. As part of that effort, it has established a Digital Time Capsule. The idea is for San Mateo residents, or anyone else for that matter, to add photos, videos, memories, historical documents or even stories as it relates to the history of San Mateo. I plan to upload the pamphlet and map I received from the 1975 walking tour in the next few days, then perhaps some photos of notable older homes near downtown and in the original four-block-by-five-block section of the city.

As we proceed into the future, it’s important we recognize the past and the contributions of our founding families and the founding era during which the foundation for this great city was built. Go to tinyurl.com/SanMateoDTC to upload your own items or see what others have contributed. And happy birthday San Mateo!