San Mateo, California

San Mateo is is a city in San Mateo County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the East, and Belmont to the south.

The San Mateo Performing Arts Center, located on San Mateo High School, is one of the largest theatres on the peninsula outside of San Francisco. The College of San Mateo is also located here and is home to radio station KCSM. A heavily attended attraction has been the Bay Meadows horse-racing track. The San Mateo Arboretum in Central_Park_San_Mateo_CA.jpg is of interest. U.S. Route 101, Interstate 280 , and California State Highway 92 pass through San Mateo. Its sister city is Toyonaka, Japan, which the Japanese garden in Central Park was made to commemorate.

San Mateo is the birthplace of actors Lina Basquette, Barry Bostwick, Keith Carradine, Dennis Haysbert, Marc McClure, Michael Trucco, and Diane Varsi, as well as actor, producer, and game show creator Merv Griffin, prolific animated film producer Paul Terry, musician Neal Schon, politician Zoe Lofgren, baseball pitcher John Wetteland, and New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. Patty Hearst, an American newspaper heiress, socialite and occasional actress was born here. San Mateo is also home to Junipero Serra High School where graduates have included Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, Lynn Swann, Gregg Jefferies and Dan Serafini.

Environmental features and geography

Perhaps the most well known natural area is Coyote Point, a rock outcropped peninsula that juts into San Francisco Bay. The early Spanish navigators named it la punta de San Mateo (Brown, 1975), but cargo ships carrying grain in the bay renamed it Big Coyote (BLM, 1853). In any case sailors had a penchant for naming promontories at the edge of San Francisco Bay after the coyote, since across the bay in Hayward are the Coyote Hills. By the 1890s the shore area was a popular beach called San Mateo Beach, originally named by the Spanish in 1842 as playa de San Mateo. Today Coyote Point is home to the Coyote Point Museum, one of the best natural history museums and wildlife centers in California.

San Mateo enjoys a mild Mediterranean climate, shielded from the Pacific Ocean by the Montara Mountain block of the Santa Cruz Mountains. There are a variety of natural habitats present, including mixed oak woodland, riparian zones and bayland marshes. One endangered species, the California clapper rail, was sighted feeding on mudflats by the Third Avenue bridge in San Mateo (Pfeifle, 1980). The marsh areas are also likely habitat for the endangered Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse, who enjoys the middle and high zones of salt and brackish marshes, as well as for the endangered marsh plant, Point Reyes bird's beak.

Sugarloaf Mountain, whose name derives from at least 1870, is a prominent landform between the forks of Laurel Creek (Brown, 1975). In recent years, this mixed oak woodland and chaparral habitat, has been a site of controversy involving proposals to develop a portion of the mountain for residential use.

San Mateo is located at (37.554286, -122.313044). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 41.3 km² (16.0 mi²). 31.6 km² (12.2 mi²) of it is land and 9.7 km² (3.7 mi²) of it (23.43%) is water.

History

Possibly the earliest recorded history of San Mateo is in the archives of Mission Dolores, indicating the Spaniards in 1789 had named a Native American village along Laurel Creek Los Laureles or the Laurels (Mission Delores, 1789). The Pulgas Ranch sketch map of 1835 refers to the creek as arroyo de los Laureles, but by now most of the Laurels have vanished.

As noted above Coyote Point was an early recorded feature of San Mateo in 1810. Beginning in the 1850s some wealthy San Franciscans began looking for summer or permanent homes in the milder mid-peninsula. While most of this early settlement occurred in adjacent Hillsborough and Burlingame, a number of historically important mansions and buildings trickled over into San Mateo.

A.P. Giannini, founder of the Bank of Italy (that became Bank of America), lived here most of his life. His mansion, Seven Oaks, currently in disrepair and listed in the National Register of Historic Places (No.99001181), is located at 20 El Cerrito Drive.

The Howard Estate was built in 1859 on the hill accessed by Crystal Springs Road. The Parrott Estate was erected in 1860 in the same area, giving rise to two conflicting names for the hill, Howard Hill and Parrott Hill! After substantial use of the automobile by about 1935, neither name was commonly applied to that hill (Brown, 1975}. The Borel estate was developed near Borel Creek in 1874, with present uses being modern offices and shops; the property is still managed and owned by the Borel Estate Company.

Scholars Cottage, at 37 E. Santa Inez Avenue, was built by Ernest Coxhead in 1875 in the Tudor Revival style. The Eugene J. De Sabla Teahouse and Tea Garden was established in 1900 at 70 De Sabla Avenue, designed by Makota hagiwara. It exists today as a garden of a later home, and it features rock art and other sculpture. San Mateo was incorporated in 1894.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 92,482 people, 37,338 households, and 22,328 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,922.1/km² (7,569.5/mi²). There were 38,249 housing units at an average density of 1,208.5/km² (3,130.6/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 66.23% White, 2.59% African American, 0.48% Native American, 15.10% Asian, 1.64% Pacific Islander, 8.93% from other races, and 5.03% from two or more races. 20.52% of the population were Hispanic.

There are 37,338 households of which 25.9% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.9% were married couples living together, 9.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 40.2% were non-families. 31.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.09. The age distribution is: 20.4% under the age of 18, 7.2% from 18 to 24, 35.1% from 25 to 44, 22.2% from 45 to 64, and 15.1% who are 65 or older. The median age is 38 years. For every 100 females there were 95.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 93.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $64,757, and the median income for a family was $76,223. Males had a median income of $51,280 versus $41,231 for females. The per capita income for the city was $36,176. About 3.6% of families and 6.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 6.8% of those under age 18 and 5.9% of those age 65 or over.

References

Alan K. Brown, Place names of San Mateo County, San Mateo County Historical Association, published by Glen Luck, San Mateo, Ca. (1975)

Mission Dolores, San Francisco, Registers of Baptisms and Deaths, (1789)

"San Mateo: A Centennial History", By Mitchell P. Postel; Scottwall Associates, Publisher, San Francisco; 1994. ISBN 0-942087-08-9 (HBK)

U.S. Bureau of Land Management BLM, FN 254-21 (1853)

External links

Cities in California | San Francisco Bay Area | San Mateo County, California

Сан Матео | San Mateo

Gourt Home::Gourt :: San Mateo, California

Environmental features and geography

History

Demographics

See also

References

External links