Middleton Tract, California facts for kids

Middleton Tract is a quiet community located among the redwood trees in San Mateo County, California. People have used the name "Middleton Tract" for this area since at least 1925. Today, it's an official name used by the county government. You can find it on county maps.

This community is found east of Portola Park Road and south of Skyline Boulevard. It's close to Portola State Park and the town of La Honda. The area's ZIP Code is 94020, and it uses area code 650. A local fire station, San Mateo County Fire Department Station 54, is also known as "Middleton Tract," which shows how official the name is.

History of Middleton Tract

How Middleton Tract Started

William Middleton bought the large area of land known as Middleton Tract before 1923. This land was about 640 acres, which is like a square mile. He bought it through several legal deeds.

In the late 1800s, some parts of this land were used for logging. Trees were cut down and processed at the "Old Page Mill" site, which is now inside Portola State Park. However, many very old redwood trees were left untouched in certain areas, especially in steep canyons. Some of these ancient trees have bases more than 40 feet wide! After the logging, new trees grew quickly from the old stumps. Today, many of these "second growth" trees are also very large, with bases over ten feet wide.

William Middleton divided the land into smaller pieces. He sold these pieces for people to build summer homes. An important rule in his plan was that no logging or hunting would be allowed on the land.

Famous Residents and Summer Homes

From the late 1920s to the early 1950s, many important people from Stanford University bought land here and built summer cabins.

One famous owner was Frederick Terman. He helped make Stanford University a leader in engineering and electronics. J. Wallace Sterling, who was the President of Stanford University from 1949 to 1968, also built a rustic log cabin here. Several other university professors and even descendants of President Herbert Hoover built summer homes in Middleton Tract.

By the 1970s, many of these summer homes became places where people lived all year round. William Middleton passed away in 1962.

Protecting the Land from Logging

Even though Middleton had divided the 640 acres into 80 smaller pieces, many of them, especially those on steep hills, were not developed.

Later, a company called Holmes Lumber Company bought about 150 acres of these undeveloped parcels. In 1986, Holmes Lumber got a permit to start commercial logging on their property.

Many residents of Middleton Tract were worried about the logging. They feared it would harm their peaceful community. So, they formed a group called the Greater Middleton Association (GMA). This group decided to go to court to stop the logging. They wanted to make sure Middleton's original rules, which were written in the property deeds, were followed. Key residents like Laura A. Bryan, Timothy G. Geiser, and Malcolm McGilvray, Jr., helped create the GMA.

After a long court case, the judge ruled in favor of the Greater Middleton Association. The judge said that Holmes Lumber Company was permanently stopped from logging in Middleton Tract.

Holmes Lumber Company tried to appeal the decision, but both the higher court and the Supreme Court of California agreed with the first ruling. This ban on commercial logging was upheld under a legal idea called "equitable servitude." This means that certain rules about how land can be used can stay with the land, even if it's sold to new owners.

This court case, "Greater Middleton Assn. v. Holmes Lumber Co. (1990)," was one of the first important legal decisions about "equitable servitudes" in 70 years. It is often mentioned in court cases in California and other states. Much of the history of Middleton Tract can be found in the documents from this court case.

Other Notable People

Besides those mentioned, other well-known people who owned cabins in Middleton Tract include:

• Birge Clark, a famous architect from Palo Alto.
• William R. Larson, who founded Round Table Pizza.
• Avlarez, a professor of Education at Stanford University.
• Asa Dotzler, one of the founders of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation.