San Mateo County Zip Codes

Menlo Park is a small town in Silicon Valley directly north of Palo Alto. It's got a strong community feel and the small downtown has a number of independently owned shops.

This is a thoroughly Valley-esque place, full of highly educated, well-paid tech employees, with Facebook being the top employer here.

As for recreation and activities, Menlo park houses over a dozen parks, offering picnic areas, off-leash areas for dogs, walking paths, playgrounds, tennis courts, skateboard zones, and more.

For busier activities, Menlo Park is only a short 20 minutes from San Jose and San Francisco. There are also a number of top rated public and private schools here.

The land now known as the City of Menlo Park was originally the home of Ohlone Indians. These local residents lived off the land peacefully, gathering nuts, berries and fish from both the ocean and the bay.

It was in 1854 that Menlo Park received its official name when two Irishmen, Dennis J. Oliver and D. C. McGlynn, purchased 1,700 acres bordering El Camino Real, and built two houses with a common entrance. Oliver and McGlynn their new home after their old, in Menlough, Ireland. Across the drive they built a huge wooden gate and printed the letters: “MENLO PARK”, with the date, August 1854, under it.

When a railroad was consturcted in 1863, the station had no name. A railroad official looked over at the Oliver and McGlynn's gate and decided that “MENLO PARK” would be appropriate, and so the name was officially adopted.