98 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM {landmark} Believe it or not, the last free-flowing urban creek in the southern Peninsula might be right in your backyard. If you follow San Francisquito Creek from its mouth in the eastern Santa Cruz mountains to where it flows into the San Francisco Bay, your trek would take you through Portola Valley, Woodside, Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, through nature preserves and residential neighborhoods alike. With an estimated length of 12.5 miles, the creek is the largest on the western margin of the San Francisco Bay and has no fewer than 22 tributaries. Though it’s little more than a dry creek bed during the summer, San Francisquito roars back to life in the rainy season. Long before the San Francisquito was “discovered” by Spaniards in 1769, the area was home to the indigenous Ohlone population for roughly 15,000 years. The Lamchin tribe, a branch of the Ohlone, once lived along its banks, though this changed with the arrival of a Spanish exploration party led by Don Gaspar de Portolá in 1769. Portolá’s party camped alongside the creek for five nights, and in the period of Spanish colonialism that followed, the San Francisquito came to mark the territorial divide between the missions of San Francisco and Santa Clara. words by MARGARET KOENIG • photography by ROBB MOST LANDMARK san francisquito creek Today, the creek still serves as a geographical border, separating Palo Alto from East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, along with their respective counties of Santa Clara and San Mateo. After disastrous flooding in 1998 damaged more than 1,700 properties, the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority was formed to oversee the waterway, which is home to California Central Coast steelhead trout, a threatened species. Try to catch a glimpse of them via online images from the city of Palo Alto’s creek monitor cameras, or in-person by strolling across one of its pedestrian bridges, like the one at El Palo Alto Park.
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