Talk:El Palo Alto

Height
Why has it decreased in height by 25 feet since the 1950s? --Mugsywwiii (talk) 22:25, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

The tree did not have enough water to support its full height so the top died and was cut off. Now it is being watered and no coal-fired steam engines run next to it. It is healthier, they say. The article seems to be a bit fuller since 2008. - - Prairieplant (talk) 04:34, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

External links modified
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Three trunks
For a while the article said that the tree originally had three trunks. None of the reliable sources agree. The cited source is this picture, which shows only two trunks. This bit of spurious information was added in Special:Diff/746242738. Just thought I should note this here. Ovinus (talk) 02:54, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Noting that after some more research, a few sources (much older than this article ofc) do actually claim there once existed three trunks, some of them citing this picture. So it was probably not a bad-faith edit after all. Ovinus (talk) 07:26, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Big tree station?
The entry states "The section from San Francisco to "Big Tree Station" (now Palo Alto Station), about a half-mile (0.8 km) south of El Palo Alto, was inaugurated on October 7 that year [1863]." Is Big Tree Station actually located where the Palo Alto Station is now? The reference "A bit of History" (1900) has "To Big Tree Station on the San Francisquito Creek"  However the Palo Alto Centennial history (page 63) talks about a proposed new station for University Park (now downtown Palo Alto) that Leland Stanford and Hopkins are discussing https://paloaltocitylibrary.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16815coll3/id/135/rec/1  (page 20 of the same work which is cited as supporting that part of this entry mentions Mayfield station not Big Tree Station). The stations at least then were Menlo Park then Mayfield (the current California Avenue station in Palo Alto). This is also the sequence in the Daily Alta California, Volume 15, Number 4981, 18 October 1863 (https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DAC18631018.2.3&e=---en--20--1--txt-txIN) Erp (talk) 00:56, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Gullard and Lund states (page 22) that the Vischer picture is "of a train at Big Tree Station", indicating that the station was indeed at the tree itself, as the newspaper states. I've updated the article accordingly; thank you. Ovinus (talk) 01:35, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Maps
BTW the 1890 map shows Rancho Rinconada del Arroyo de San Francisquito and Rancho San Francisquito and the corner where El Palo Alto is (though the tree is not shown explicitly). I annotated with a red arrow though that isn't ideal. Erp (talk) 01:33, 6 January 2023 (UTC)