San Mateo County, California

San Mateo County adjoins San Francisco on the south. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by Santa Cruz, and on the east by San Francisco bay and Santa Clara County. Its area is 459 square miles. Redwood City is the county seat. Belmont, Menlo Park, Halfmoon Bay, San Mateo, San Bruno, Millbrae, La Honda, and Pescadero are the other towns best known. The population, now estimated at 13,000, was 8,669 in 1880. Dairying, farming, and lumbering are the principal industries of the county. Pescadero, situated on the ocean, 56 miles south of San Francisco, annually ships many millions of shingles and lumber cut from adjoining redwood forests; it also is the center of the butter and cheese industry. Most of the milk supplied to the metropolis conies from dairy farms in the neighborhood of San Bruno, Millbrae, and San Mateo. At Palo Alto, near San Mateo, is located the famous stock farm of Senator Leland Stanford, and here are being erected the buildings of the Leland Stanford Jr. University, destined to be one of the leading educational institutions of the world. The endowment consists of $12,000,000, and the aim of the founder is to furnish mental, moral, and manual training. Liberal scholarships will be provided, and needy students will be aided. In the university town board will be provided at low rates. In connection with the university will be an experimental farm and shops for learning the trades. At Belmont, and other places along the Southern Pacific Railroad, are many splendid suburban residences of San Francisco millionaires. In 1889 the assessed valuation of the county was $13,888,887.

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Source: California State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1890, Volume II, R. L. Polk & Company, 1890.