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7.B. - Page 19 of 54 William Kostura, Historic Resource Evaluation of the Redwood City Woman Club Dingee Park was originally part of the vast "Rancho de las Pulgas," which had been granted by the Mexican government to the heirs of Jose Dario Arguello in 1835. In 1853 the Arguello family sold 2,200 acres of the grant to a land commissioner, William Carey Jones, who in turn sold those acres in 1857 to Horace Hawes, a legislator who authored the bill that created San Mateo County. Hawes built a home for himself on the site of the future Sequoia Union High School. In 1880 his widow sold most of the acreage to Moses Hopkins, brother of the late Mark Hopkins, who had been one of the proprietors of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Moses Hopkins lived in both Redwood City and San Francisco, and raised thoroughbred horses on his Redwood City land. He also built Emerald Reservoir in the hills above for a water supply. In 1902 a man named William J. Dingee purchased the Hopkins estate and a large amount of land surrounding them. He moved into the Hopkins house only to see it destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. At about the same time he was experiencing financial problems connected with his cement factories. He was the owner of the Standard Portland Cement Company which had plants in Santa Cruz, Napa, Washington state, and Pennsylvania. He also had a slate quarry and had recently sold his ownership of the city of Oakland's water supply. After selling the water company he splurged on a house in San Francisco, a mansion in New York, and the Hopkins property in Redwood City, only to experience a severe financial downturn. To rescue his cement business he decided to sell most of his Redwood City land (excepting the Hopkins residence site) to Alfred W. Wehe and partners for development as a real estate subdivision to be named Dingee Park. He accepted $25,000 down, with another $75,000 due to be paid by November 1St, 1907. Dingee and Wehe paid engineer Otto von Geldern to survey the tract, dividing it into blocks and lots, and when this was completed in November lots were marketed to the public. Wehe was also overextended and never did make the $75,000 payment, so at the end of February 1908 Dingee sued to take control of the land back from him. For an unknown reason Dingee had the subdivision re -surveyed in July 1908, apparently by civil engineer Frank W. Kerns. The revised subdivision map featured 47 blocks, most of which were divided into 20 to 22 lots each. Most lots were 65, 70, or 75 feet in width, and thus this subdivision was decidedly suburban in character, rather than urban. It stretched from the County Road (today's El Camino Real) to Nevada Street, a distance of fourteen blocks, and from Whipple Avenue to Katherine and Harrison avenues. Exempted from this subdivision was the Hopkins-Dingee residence site, which because of its formal landscaping was considered more valuable left intact. 12 527