East Palo Alto
East Palo Alto History
Beginnings
The original inhabitants were Costanoan / Ohlone Native Americans. Spanish ranchers took over, followed by Caucasian speculators and settlers. For a time, Chinese laborers were prevalent. Asian and Italian flower growers preceded the flood of middle-class Caucasians drawn to post-war housing developments. East Palo Alto later became the largest African American community on the Peninsula. Today the city possesses a multi-ethnic population which includes a large number of Hispanics and Pacific Islanders.
Growth
Trade has alternately focused on ranching, transportation and shipping, brick manufacturing, farming, servicing travelers of Bayshore Highway and Dumbarton Bridge, and flower growing. With the outbreak of World War I, the north side of East Palo Alto became a military training ground, of which only the Veterans Administration Hospital in Menlo Park still exists. The 1930s to the 1950s was the heyday of flower growing in East Palo Alto and the development of a flower industry with an international market. Before World War II, there was a large Japanese population that contributed to East Palo Alto’s flower-growing economy. Once the war began, Japanese Americans were detained, their property was expropriated, and they were sent to internment camps.
These changes and the population shifts that accompanied them, may be partially responsible for the notion that East Palo Alto lacks the kind of strong community identity possessed by its neighbors. Since it was founded around 1849, the town experienced erratic growth and frequent conflict.
For most of its history, East Palo Alto was part of unincorporated San Mateo County. As such, it did not have an official boundary until it was incorporated in 1983. However, the area historically regarded as East Palo Alto was much larger than the city's current 2.5 square miles. Large tracts were annexed by Menlo Park and Palo Alto from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.
The Nairobi Movement
Between 1960 -1980, The Nairobi Movement was a political, social, and cultural renaissance period in East Palo Alto. It was a time when Black people organized and took political action to gain community control of government, education, health, social and cultural institutions in the community. “Little Nairobi” is a documentary film about the founding of East Palo Alto, gentrification, and the state of police corruption as told by the community members who experienced it. In 1992, the city had the country's highest per-capita murder rate, with 42 murders for 25,000 residents. In 2023, the city had no murders, the first time in its history.
East Palo Alto and Palo Alto are separated by San Francisquito Creek and the Bayshore Freeway (the vast majority of East Palo Alto is northeast of the freeway, while all of the residential part of Palo Alto is southwest of the freeway). In 2006, Page Mill Properties, a large real estate investor, purchased almost all of the west side of East Palo Alto. Revitalization projects and high-income, high-tech professionals moving into new developments, including employees from Google, Facebook, and Sun Industries began to slowly eliminate the historically wide cultural and economic differences between the two cities. A 200-room Four Seasons hotel opened in University Circle in 2006.
The area around the Dumbarton Bridge is an important ecological site, hosting many species of birds, fish, and mammals. The California clapper rail is known to be present in the western bridge terminus area. The Baylands Nature Preserve borders the city of East Palo Alto. The long trail along the marshland connects Mountain View, Palo Alto, and East Palo Alto and is used by bike commuters every day.
Text courtesy of:
https://www.cityofepa.org/community/page/history-east-palo-alto