The history of Belmont

Joshua Baxter

Belmont becoming the first seat in the newly formed San Mateo County. Ten years later, a financer in San Francisco In October of 1926, the city of Belmont was incorporated into San Mateo County as a residential suburb of San Francisco. Nearing the century mark of its incorporation, Belmont has come a long way to become the thriving community it is today: a community where many residents enjoy the people and places around them. “My favorite part about living in Belmont is the people that I am surrounded by. The community is filled with friendly individuals who I have known for a while. I am privileged to be in a place where there are so many affable families,” Thaddeus Duffy, a senior, said. But before Belmont was even considered as a suburb, it started out as a part of a 35,240-acre Spanish land grant known as Rancho de las Pulgas in 1795. It was on this land where many local Ohlone tribes lived, who the Spanish converted to Christianity. In 1850, Belmont was settled with the purpose of serving as a stagecoach station. That year, Charles Aubrey Angelo, an Englishman, established Angelo’s Road House on the intersection of current day Old County Road and Ralston Avenue. The location was originally known as Angelo’s Corners, before officially becoming known as Belmont in 1853, which is thought to have been derived from “bel monte,” the Italian phrase for beautiful mountain. A year later, a U.S. Post Office was established and became the third post office in what was then known as San Francisco County. According to a document from the Historical Resources Inventory of Belmont prepared by the San Mateo County Historical Association, in 1856, former governor John McDougald was instrumental in Joshua Baxter named William Ralston, who Ralston Avenue is named after, purchased property once belonging to Italian consul Leonetto Cipriani. Ralston turned this land into a mansion, which today is a part of Notre Dame de Namur University. The first train station opened in Belmont in 1867, which not only increased business but brought in many tourists to the newly opened of Belmont Park (now Twin Pines Park), created by Carl Augustus Janke The Janke family is also credited with opening the first Belmont industry when they established a soft drink bottling and brewing service in 1876, known as the Belmont Soda Works. Another major aspect of Belmont in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was its Japanese presence. The Belmont School for Boys was known to be the first school in America where Japanese elites sent their children to be introduced to Western culture. The effect of the Japanese in Belmont was seen up until World War II, as their skills in growing and trading chrysanthemums helped Belmont blossom into the chrysanthemum center of the U.S. until the relocation of Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Belmont was also well known for its many sanitariums. In 1901, Dr. Alden M. Gardner founded the Gardner Nerve Sanitarium after expanding a wing of Ralston’s Mansion. Gardner’s sanitarium was the first of many that would be established in upcoming years. The next major sanitarium, the California Sanitarium, was founded in 1910 for lung related issues, and in 1915 Annette S. Alexander purchased land which later was turned into the Alexander Sanitarium. Aside from the Nerve Rest Sanitarium founded by Maude Reed in 1918, the last

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significant sanitarium in Belmont was the Twin Pines Sanitarium, which operated until 1972.

Twin Pines Park also had many houses which served as patient homes with doctors in residence.

“Because of its really unique climate and geography, Belmont was the perfect place to build sanitariums, so a lot of the major businesses in Belmont in the late 19th century and early 20th century were sanitariums,” Sam Hosmer, a former Carlmont student and volunteer at the Belmont Historical Society, said. “A lot of the buildings now are still from that era.”

In 1926, Belmont was finally incorporated as a suburb of San Francisco. Around the time of its incorporation, Belmont was experiencing a small amount of growth. Just before 1926, a San Francisco company began a port project designed to create a docking area on the shore of Belmont.

Projects like the port project as well as the extension of the SF Municipal Railway through Belmont contributed to Belmont’s rise as the chrysanthemum center of the United States.

As WWII took the United States by storm, Belmont was no exception in getting involved. Not only did it help house stationed military personnel, but Belmont also was the location of an army anti-aircraft camp.

To complement the camp, a former clubhouse at 751 Alameda de las Pulgas was used as an officers’ club for the

duration of the war, after previously closing due to the Great Depression. This clubhouse was formerly the Belle Monti Country Club, which was built in 1925 along with a 9-hole golf course as a part of the Country Club Estates.

In fact, the strange French-style kiosk building on Alameda de las Pulgas was a place where brochures for the estates were distributed, and later might’ve served as a caddy shack for the course. Currently, the Belle Monti Country Club building is home to the Congregational Church of Belmont.

After the war, Belmont continued to grow and prosper. In the 1960s and 1970s, the population of Belmont significantly increased, going from roughly 5,000 to nearly 25,000 people.

In recent years, new families have started to move into Belmont, prompting new developments and advancements to be made to the community. This has been noted by Sharon Bologna, secretary to Carlmont Principal Ralph Crame, who moved to Belmont in 1987.

“I’ve noticed more building happening, more cars, more young families moving in (...), at least the neighborhood that I live in. When we first moved to Belmont there were a lot of the original homeowners. As they got towards retirement and beyond, they started to move out of the area. That is when more families with young children started to move in,” Bologna said.

Anika Marino and Joshua Baxter