Eleanor PARDEE Park

Location:  851 Center Drive, at Channing Avenue

Description:  9.6 acre neighborhood park.  Second largest neighborhood park in Palo Alto (largest is Bol). About half of the park is developed (huge expanse of level and mounding turf, playgrounds, picnic areas); about half undeveloped (community gardens)

Amenities:  Two children’s playgrounds, picnic area with barbecues, multipurpose concrete bowl, jogging/walking path, community vegetable gardens, UC Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Demonstration Garden, Memorial Grove (on the Center Street side of the park)

History note:  Eleanor Pardee died at age 15 of typhoid fever in 1896. Her mother, Emily Eliot Pardee Karns Dixon, deeded her 10-acre property, complete with house, to the city of Palo Alto in 1920.  Emily also gifted the city with real estate in San Francisco, the income of which would go to converting the property into a park which she wanted named Eleanora Parque in memory of her daughter. In 1957 the southern half of the property was developed, in the early 1970s the run-down house was razed, and in the early 1980s most of the remaining five acres were turned into community gardens.