Local questions in Palo Alto

Former child actress and US diplomat Shirley Temple Black was interred in the Adobe Creek Mausoleum at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto. She died on February 10th, 2014 aged 85 years old.

Debbi Fields opened her first cookie store as Mrs Fields’ Chocolate Chippery in Palo Alto on August 18th, 1977 in the Liddicoats Market food mall at 340 University Avenue. Where the Apple stands today. The popularity of the store’s freshly baked cookies grew, and in 1979 a second location was opened at Pier 39 in San Francisco. The business expanded to a chain of over 700 US and international corporate and franchise stores by the late 1990s.

A bronze statue of Nikola Tesla stands on Birch Avenue in Palo Alto at the intersection with Sheridan Avenue. The statue of the Serbian-American engineer and inventor was sculpted by Terry Guyer following a crowdfunding campaign and was unveiled December 7th, 2013. The statue serves as a free public wi-fi hotspot and also contains a contains a time capsule to be opened on January 7th, 2043.

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook lives on Webster Street in Palo Alto, California.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg lives on Edgewood Drive in Palo Alto, California.

During the summer of 2004, Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook co-founders rented 819 La Jennifer Way in Palo Alto as their first base in Silicon Valley. A small team of coders worked here on development of the early site, and while there, Facebook raised its first external investment. This period was a central storyline in the movie The Social Network.

Jeremy Lin’s childhood home was on Louis Road in Palo Alto, California.

McLaren San Francisco is actually located in Palo Alto at El Camino Real and Arastradero Road, some 35 miles south of San Francisco. The dealership offers new and used car sales and service facilities.

Frenchman’s Tower on Old Page Mill Road in Palo Alto is a doorless red brick folly built in 1875 by Frenchman Paulin Caperon, also known as Peter Coutts. Now empty, with windows bricked-up after years of vandalism, the tower reportedly once housed his library on the first floor and a water tank on the second floor for irrigation. The land is now owned by Stanford University, and a nearby plaque reads: Built by Peter Coutts as part of irrigation system begun in 1875. Declared County and State “Point of Interest” – 1969

James Franco’s childhood home is on Ramona Street in Palo Alto, California.

James Franco was born at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California on April 19, 1978.

Facebook’s first office in Palo Alto was at 156 University Avenue in 2004.

The wooden garage where, in 1938, Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett worked on the first electronic products for what would become their Hewlett-Packard business, is located at 367 Addison Avenue in Palo Alto. As it is in a residential neighborhood, the HP Garage is not open for public tours but it is possible to view and photograph the property and plaque from the sidewalk.