Honorable Mayor Combs and Esteemed Council Members:
Friday, October 17th, will mark the 1-year anniversary of the signing of a Friendship Agreement between the cities of Menlo Park and Galway, Ireland. Pictured here is Pádraig Conneely, Mayor of Galway City, who along with Menlo Park Mayor Peter Ohtaki signed the agreement in a ceremony at the Stanford Park Hotel. Mayor Conneely is standing next to the Menlo Gates Plaque at 863 El Camino Real (Starbucks), which is near the location of the original gates. The plaque reads:
"Irish immigrants Dennis J. Oliver and his brother-in-law D.C. McGlynn were Menlo Park’s first permanent settlers in 1853. They found the tree-studded pastureland of this area reminiscent of “Menlough,” their hometown located on the outskirts of Galway, Ireland. This led them to purchase a 1,700-acre tract of land at the southern end of the Pulgas Grant, land on which you are now standing.
"In 1854 Oliver and McGlynn erected a magnificent, wooden gateway to their property. The name “Menlo Park” was written on the center, main arch in foot-high letters. The gates, as pictured above, stood on the west side of El Camino Real adjacent to this marker. Unfortunately, a motorist demolished the gates in 1922."
For more about the plaque and the Menlo gates, see the Apr-June 2011 issue of The Gate Post (vol. XXXVII, no. 2), which can be accessed online on the MPHA website: sites.google.com/site/mphistorical (click on "The Gate Post" page).
