Palo Alto Stanford HeritageMembers of PAST Heritage may be interested in learning more about the history of a specific house (or other building) in our community. Your curiosity may be drawn to an unusual home you see while traveling in town, or the desire to learn more about your own house. If you are lucky, the Guy Miller Archives in room K–7 in the Cubberley Community Center may have a file on your house of interest and your work is done. A visit to the archives and everything you wanted to know is at your fingertips.
Most of the houses in town do not have an existing file; therefore you might be interested in conducting the research (with our help) into the history of the house in question. I call this process house genealogy. Answers are sought to numerous questions including when was the house built, who lived in there previously, and what did the house look like when it was new.
The strategy for researching is the same for most houses, specific sources depend on the age of the house. An older home located north of University Avenue will require a different list of resources to be reviewed than would an Eichler home in south Palo Alto built in the 1950s. Homes built in the old town of Mayfield, on the Stanford campus, or on lands that were unincorporated Santa Clara or San Mateo counties present a separate list of issues to contend with.
If you are interested in researching a house (does not have to be yours), please feel free to contact Steve Staiger at the Guy Miller Archives and we can help you get started. It can be frustrating at times, but it also can be fun and exciting to discover pieces of the puzzle. Aside from the opportunity to explore the Archives and examine old documents, maps and photographs, your search may take you to other places (either in person or by communicating with organizations or persons in nearby places such as San Jose, the county seat for Santa Clara County, or far off places where descendants of former Palo Altans live today).
For some, there is a specific need to do this research (perhaps a legal issue). But for most of us, the search is an excuse to discover additional pieces of our history, explore the archives, and to have a great adventure. Perhaps this winter is a great time for you to go exploring a piece of your history.
The Guy Miller Archives are located at the Cubberley Community Center, 4000 Middlefield Road, Room K–7 (out back by the tennis courts). We are open Tuesdays 4–8 pm and Thursdays 1–5 pm. Or email Steve at steve.staiger@cityofpaloalto.org
E-mail us at either webmaster@pastheritage.org or president@pastheritage.org.
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