200 years ago, between the Peninsula’s wooded hills and the Bay, an enormous parcel of land used for grazing and agriculture belonged to Mission Dolores in San Francisco. In 1835, following Mexico’s independence from Spain, the parcel was granted by Mexican governor Pio Picas to his secretary, Cayetano Arenas. Arenas had barely taken possession of the land when an uprising in Sonoma (that would soon lead to the founding of California), forced him to sell the property.

It was then that a New Hampshire merchant named William Davis Merry Howard, enchanted by the opportunity he envisioned in the West, bought the nearly 6,500 acre parcel called Rancho San Mateo. He established a general goods business in the San Francisco area with a partner and settled with his family on his new property, where he planted eucalyptus groves that still characterize Burlingame today.

In 1856 when Howard died, some of the land was sold to William C. Ralston who made his fortune in silver ore and helped found the Bank of California. One of Ralston’s guests who came to visit his new estate was the Honorable Anson Burlingame, the United States Minister to China, appointed by President Abraham Lincoln.

It’s unclear if Ralston gave Anson Burlingame a portion of the land, or just named it after his friend. And even though survey work was done and gardens planned, no ground was broken during Ralston’s lifetime. He died in 1875 and his business partner William Sharon acquired both the land and the Palace Hotel he owned in San Francisco. 

For a decade and a half the site was used as a dairy to supply the hotel, and eventually the land passed to Senator Sharon’s son-in-law, Francis Newlands. It was Newlands who finally subdivided the land for construction of the Burlingame Country Club and surrounding five cottages in 1893, followed immediately by the Burlingame train depot in 1894.

When the great earthquake and fire of 1906 hit San Francisco, wealthy residents began to look for homes outside the city. The Burlingame train station made serene Burlingame an accessible choice, so hundreds of lots were sold and the city incorporated less than two years later.

Central Burlingame was created through the annexation of a small town called Easton, and is known as the Easton Addition. Northern Burlingame was created through the annexation of a large portion of Darius Ogden Mills’ estate, after a long dispute between the towns of Burlingame and Millbrae.

Today, Burlingame is known for its prime real estate on the shoreline of San Francisco Bay, its exceptionally walkable downtown and for its excellent public school system. Burlingame is criss-crossed by five creeks and refers to itself as the City of Trees because of its 18,000 public trees and a 1908 ordinance that prohibits damaging trees.

More than just Howard’s eucalyptus groves have lingered through the years. The Burlingame train station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 2007 was given a $13 million restoration. A 63-room Tudor-style mansion built in 1914 by the Kohl family, that once featured greenhouses and tennis courts, is now the home of Mercy High School in central Burlingame.

Industry in Burlingame historically included agriculture, airline support services and famous candy stores such as Guittard’s chocolate and See’s Candies. Today, because of its proximity to Silicon Valley, it also hosts offices for biotech companies and large tech firms.

The city of about 30,000 covers six square miles and a quarter of that area is water. Families still choose Burlingame for the same reasons they did a century ago. Mild Mediterranean weather and tranquil neighborhoods studded with trees, that lie only a few minutes south of the city.