Burlingame
Burlingame History
Spanish Era
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 here. 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 southern Burlingame area was part of a land grant, known as Rancho San Mateo, given by Governor Pio Pico to his secretary, Cayetano Arenas. Arenas had hardly taken possession of the land when the uprising in Sonoma that led to the founding of the Bear Republic caused him and his father to dispose of the land to a San Francisco based mercantile company, Howard and Mellus.
Beginnings
During the 1860s, William C. Ralston, a prominent banker and partner in the development of the Comstock Lode, purchased vast acreage on the Peninsula for a grand estate. One of the first of many famous guests to his estate was the Honorable Anson Burlingame, who had recently been appointed by President Lincoln as United States Minister to China. Ralston showed his guest the portion of his estate set aside for the summer homes of his wealthy friends. So impressed was Burlingame with the locale that he chose a villa site of approximately 1,043 acres for himself, to be used after his retirement from the China mission.
The name “Burlingame” was now on the property maps and in the news because of the “Burlingame Treaty” with China.
The Burlingame Country Club was founded in 1893 and a year later the Burlingame Post Office opened, making the name official.
As more and more people came to the area and recognized its gentle charms, they chose to stay and soon Burlingame was a flourishing village. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake people continued to settle in Burlingame. In 1907 a volunteer fire department was established, and in 1908 it became incorporated as a municipal corporation of the sixth class, “The Town of Burlingame,” later reclassified the City of Burlingame.
Burlingame Train Station
Southern Pacific and the Burlingame Country Club worked together to build the Burlingame train depot, “a very picturesque Spanish Structure,” which opened October 10, 1894 under Stationmaster Ben Wright. It featured a square tower, a hipped roof, Moorish decoration on the main arch, unique quatrefoil windows and authentic California Indian roof tiles, salvaged in part from the ruins of Mission Hospice on the Howard property in San Mateo, as well as from the Mission San Antonio de Padua, in Monterey County. Burlingame’s depot was the country’s first permanent Mission Revival-style building.
Until the 1950s, an agent lived in the station quarters; the space was later leased to a variety of tenants. In 1971, on the basis of its architectural style, the Burlingame station was designated a California State Registered Landmark, the first station so honored. In 1978, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In June 1986, the city and its Save Our Station Committee held a festival to celebrate the restoration of the depot, completed in cooperation with the Office of the State Architect and Caltrans. The ticket office was staffed by an agent until 2004. The station underwent a $13 million upgrade project in 2007, which included platform reconfiguration and the installation of several new mission-style shelters and period appropriate plantings. The Burlingame Hillsborough History Museum opened at the station in 2008 and features an eclectic collection of artifacts, displays, and exhibits.
Text courtesy of:
https://www.burlingame.org/165/History-of-Burlingame