War Department Affect

The Hopkins estate was deeded over to Stanford University in 1941 after the death of Mary Kellogg Hopkins. A portion was kept by Stanford for development of a research institute (Stanford Research Institute, now SRI International), but much of the rest was sold off through Wells Fargo Bank and parceled into the Menlo Park Civic Center, expansion room for Menlo/Atherton High School athletic fields (which never ca-me to pass), the commercial / residential development of the Linfield Oaks area, and for use by the War Department. The U.S. Army already had established a presence in the Menlo Park / Palo Alto area since the days of World War I.

During the first World War, open unincorporated areas along Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo were covered with the tents and buildings of a U.S. Army training ground called "Camp Fremont." (Some recycled quonset huts still survive as garages/warehouses/retail stores in the Menlo Park /Palo Alto area. The stylish USO building, moved to a new location, survives today as "MacArthur Park' restaurant). Preceding World War II, the Army eyed the Hopkins farm as the site for heavy construction of a large general hospital to process casualties from the war with Japan. They bought 127 acres of land and in March 1943 began building the Dibble General Hospital. It served as a surgery and burn center from 1944-1946.

Prior to World War II, government geologists worked out of the Interior Building in Washington D.C. and field workers were temporarily sent to rented space as needed, By the end of the war office space was too little to provide for staff, particularly in the greatly expanded Mineral Deposits Branch which had the task of exploring for strategic minerals essential to both the national economy and military defense. Consequently, local offices were set up for Mineral Deposits personnel in various places throughout the country. In the West, small offices grew in Salt Lake City, Spokane, and San Francisco. After the Second World War, USGS Director William E. Wrather saw it fit to consolidate these widely dispersed field scientists into regional field headquarters. The task was made easy in the mountain states because a surplus military armaments plant and ordnance testing facility (built on a ranch way out in the Denver boondocks) became surplus after the war, but useful to civilian agencies hard pressed for space in downtown Denver. Hence, the Rocky Mountain Center (a.k.a. Denver Federal Center) was developed (actually it's in Lakewood, Colorado) as the home to several U.S. Government agencies, starting with USGS Rocky Mountain area geologists. Denver Federal Center buildings # 15, 21, 25, 41, 53, 80, & 82 became comprised the USGS Central Region Headquarters. Government geologists working in the San Francisco bay area were hoping to consolidate at a major university, particularly to gain access to one with a substantial library and earth sciences department; U.C. Berkeley was the preferred choice. Personal accounts differ on the subject, but it seems either Berkeley's geologists weren't interested in cohabitating with the USGS scientists, or they simply didn’t have room, but Stanford's geologists were interested in cooperating with USGS. Together the geologists shared thoughts for a foothold on a piece of land along San Francisquito Creek near the "Geology Comer" of the Stanford Main Quadrangle. Tom Nolan (in Washington D.C.) and Ward Smith (in San Francisco) were instrumental in pushing this idea of a Stanford location along. Charles Park (who had just moved to Stanford's staff from employment with USGS) was one of the points of contact in negotiations with the University. An idea sallied was for a new building that could be shared by USGS and Stanford's Geology Department (eventually Stanford built the Mitchell Earth Sciences Building), but Stanford's administrators at the time were dragging their feet interminably on mere the idea of having a potentially large group of U.S. government employees on campus. They preferred, if USGS was to be on Stanford property so that the government geologists would be stuck in the outback well behind the main quad, and on income producing property for the University. Ward Smith recalls that Page Mill Road industrial research area was the area Stanford had in mind, but the space proffered would only be leased on a term contract, USGS would either have to negotiate a new agreement or move out, and Page Mill was a high rent area anyway. When it appeared that the Stanford campus idea was losing momentum and Page Mill was not going to be cost effective, as a ploy to spur things along to obtain land within a half mile of the main campus, General Services Administration (GSA) put the USGS contract out for bid. There was other land near Stanford that looked appealing, so GSA drew up specifications (they thought) would only be met by suitable pieces of land adjacent to Stanford University. The plan somewhat backfired (depending on one's point of view) because the unforeseen loophole regarding the specification for land "adjacent to Stanford University" was met by a piece of land in Menlo Park on the other side of the tracks. The developer of Linfield Oaks had land which was adjacent to the Federal surplus Dibble Army Hospital (which was being used by Stanford for graduate and G.I student housing at the time, and on this technicality, met the criterion for land adjacent to Stanford University), the land was already zoned "administrative-professional," and he was ready and able to build on Homewood Drive faster and cheaper than what appeared might be associated with any Stanford campus location. Smith recalls, about this same time, "Somebody in Washington, in the Director's Office perhaps?" found out that Dibble hospital was going to be eventually sold off by the Army. With an eye for possible expansion onto Dibble Hospital land, General Services Administration contracted in 1953 with Ray & Claude Lindsay to a lease-purchase agreement for "Building Number One" with the understanding that an adjacent lot would be reserved to construct a "Building Number Two" of complementary design. Lindsay would build Building One as a general purpose building (should USGS default on its lease, he wanted a marketable building he could still rent out).

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