El Granada is a place of confusion

First of all, it was supposed to be Balboa, not Granada. The Shore Line Investment Company was developing real estate to complement the railroad. The Ocean Shore Rail Road was intended to open the San Mateo coast to vacationers. In 1905, they hired Daniel Burnham to design Balboa as their new showplace town.

Burnham was the father of the City Beautiful Movement. The Chicago architect was the urban planner of his day. He agreed to look into it, and asked that plaster of Paris relief maps and photos be sent to his office. J. Downey Harvey, president of the investment company, instructed Burnham to design a pleasure resort in the style of Southern California towns like Venice and Newport.

Burnham accepted the challenge. He disliked the grid pattern so often used in America. He felt that streets should follow the contours of the land in the way that cows wander the hills. He never actually visited the site, but he had an associate who rode the hills on horseback, and who did most of the design. This man was Edward Bennett.

There were three problems they had to address. First was the location of the railroad tracks. Burnham wanted them away from the coast, so as not to interfere with views or commerce. The railroad development company was paying for the project, however. The tracks were placed along the shore.

The second problem was how to maximize the beautiful views. The answer to this was to place home sites along an axis that drew the eye to the beach. The streets were laid out in a fan shape, radiating from the shore. As the streets went up into the sloping hills, they would gently follow the contours of the land. There were plazas and terraces from which to enjoy the seascapes, and the streets were to be lined with moderately sized trees.

The third problem involved the resort facilities. Breakwaters would be needed for boating and bathing access. The proposal included a casino, swimming pool and beach amusements. Promenades and piers were to flank the casino. Burnham wanted to camouflage these so the natural scenery would be preserved. As it happened, a plan for these amenities was never worked out.

Burnham's concept was beautiful, although it was designed for another era. The boulevards are wide and the slopes gentle. He envisioned people strolling along them at leisure.

When the company tried to register the tract in 1907, the name Balboa had been used for another Southern California town. A new name of Granada, just Granada like the city in Spain, was selected. The post office was to be initially located in a hotel that the owner mistakenly called Hotel El Granada. The U.S. Post Office, therefore, added the El. Locals continued to call the town Granada, but over the years, the post office seems to have won.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal. For more information on this or related topics, visit the San Mateo County History Museum, 777 Hamilton St., Redwood City.