Home > California > Menlo%252BPark > San Francisco & San Jose Railroad Station, 1100 Merrill Street, Menlo Park, San Mateo County, CA
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Item Title
San Francisco & San Jose Railroad Station, 1100 Merrill Street, Menlo Park, San Mateo County, CA
Location1100 Merrill Street,
Menlo%252BPark, CA
Find maps of Menlo%252BPark, CA
Created/Published
Documentation compiled after 1933.
Notes
Survey number HABS CA-1994
Unprocessed field note material exists for this structure (FN-189).
Building/structure dates:
1867 initial construction
Building/structure dates:
1870 subsequent work
Building/structure dates:
1917 subsequent work
Significance: The oldest railroad station still in use in California, this station was built in 1867 by the first incorporated railroad line in the state. The coming of the railroad marked the beginning of a double transformation: the growth of the town and the development of the countryside by fashionable estates. The railroad reduced the traveling time from Menlo Park to San Francisco from 3 hours to 80 mins. / The oldest railroad station still in use in California, this wood frame structure was built by the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad Company, the earliest incorporated line in the state. The original depot was rectangular in plan with a bay window on the south and a gable roof on the north-south axis with an additional steep gable in the center of the east side. The major decorative element was the use of flat arch drip moldings over the doors and windows, as illustrated in architectural handbooks of the period. In its form and details, this 1867 structure was typical of a popular house type of the 1850's and 60's called the "picturesque cottage." The present depot displays rich ornamentation resulting from its expansion in the late nineteenth century in accord with the rising prosperity of the region. The station was enlarged with the addition of an ell at the south west corner and a later extension to the north with its corresponding ell to the west. A wide variety of machine carved elements were applied including door and window hoods, eave brackets, shingled gable ends, incised carvings, finials, roof cresting, etc. The waiting shed at the north end was added during World War I. The depot remains a center of activity and a charming document of the changing, fanciful taste of the late nineteenth century in the Bay Area.
Collection
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
Contents
Photograph caption(s):
1. NORTHEAST (TRACK) SIDE
2. SOUTHEAST AND NORTHEAST SIDES
3. SOUTHEAST SIDE FROM EAST
4. SOUTHEAST SIDE
5. NORTHWEST AND SOUTHWEST SIDES
6. NORTHWEST SIDE
7. NORTHEAST SIDE, DETAIL OF WINDOW
8. NORTHWEST GABLE FROM WEST
9. NORTHWEST GABLE FROM NORTH
10. INTERIOR, DETAIL OF BAY WINDOW IN SOUTHEAST END
11. INTERIOR, DETAIL OF TICKET WINDOW
NORTHEAST (TRACK) SIDE
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