Matadero Creek

Matadero Creek is a stream originating in the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The creek flows in a northeasterly direction for 8 miles (13 km) until it enters the Palo Alto Flood Basin, where it joins Adobe Creek in the Palo Alto Baylands at the north end of the Mayfield Slough, just before its culmination in southwest San Francisco Bay. Matadero Creek begins in the city of Los Altos Hills, then traverses the Stanford University lands and Palo Alto.

History

Matadero Creek was originally called Arroyo del Matadero on maps from the 1830s and 1840s, and matadero means slaughtering place in Spanish. On the 1862 Allardt Map of the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad, Matadero Creek is denoted as Crosby's Creek. In 1853, Elisha Crosby bought a 250-acre parcel of Rancho Santa Rita, really Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito, from the Robles family, and founded Mayfield Farm, but she lost it only 3 years later. On the March 5, 1863 map "Plat of the Rancho Rincon de San Francisquito", it is denoted as Matadero Creek. On the Palo Alto Topo Map of 1899, it was referred to as Madera Creek, a name which suggests its prior value as a source of timber (madera in Spanish).