San Francisco building contractors Thomas (1826–1907) and Henry W. Seale (d.1888) received 1,400 acres of the Soto Family's Mexican land grant Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito in 1855. The Sotos paid the brothers to advocate for them with the new American Public Land Commission to grant them their existing claim. Following their acquisition of 62% of the Soto's land, they proceeded to sub-divide parts of it. They sold 60 acres to Dr. William Newell in 1864, and 697 acres to Timothy Hopkins (1859–1936), adopted son of Mark Hopkins (1813–1878), and a close associate of neighbor, Leland Stanford (1824-1893), two of the "Big Four" founders of the Central Pacific Railroad. On this 697 acres, Hopkins platted the original confines of the City of Palo Alto, CA, a town site designed to serve Stanford's new university. The Seales farmed their rest of their property until 1888, when, it, too, was sub-divided.

PCAD id: 16669