Our Pick
Posted on @rawstates
Hayward Park, a gold millionaire's deer park that burned and became streets
1920
San Mateo, California
Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Alvinza Hayward took a fortune out of Mother Lode gold and spent part of it on an 800 acre estate here in the 1880s, with a lake, a private race track and fenced deer and elk. After he died the mansion reopened as the Peninsula Hotel, which never filled its hundred rooms and shut in 1915. It burned on 25 June 1920 with the fire chief out of town and the volunteers using equipment the voters had just declined to replace. Developers cut the grounds into the subdivision that still carries the Hayward Park name, and Caltrain's stop here carries it too.
That was 1 of the hidden places.
Location: approximate area
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