Burlingame

Burlingame is situated on land previously owned by San Francisco-based merchant William Davis Merry Howard. Howard planted many eucalyptus trees on his property and retired to live on the land. Howard died in 1856 and the land was sold to William C. Ralston, a prominent banker. In 1868, Ralston named the land after his friend Anson Burlingame, the United States Ambassador to China. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, hundreds of lots in Burlingame were sold to people looking to establish new homes, and the town of Burlingame was incorporated in 1908. In 1910, the neighboring town of Easton was annexed and this area is now known as the Easton Addition neighborhood of Burlingame.

Burlingame refers to itself as the City of Trees due to its over 18,000 public trees within the city. In 1908, the Burlingame board of trustees passed an ordinance “prohibiting cutting, injuring, or destroying trees”. The city also has many parks and eucalyptus groves.

In 2018, upon the 150th anniversary of the 1868 landmark Burlingame Treaty between the U.S. and China, a new bust of diplomat Anson Burlingame, sculpted by Zhou Limin from China, was unveiled at an international ceremony at the Burlingame Public Library.

Highways
Three highways pass through Burlingame. Highway 101 runs from San Jose to San Francisco along San Francisco Bay. Highway 82, also known as El Camino Real, runs parallel to Highway 101 and acts as the main corridor for local traffic going up and down the peninsula. A small section of Highway 35 (Skyline Boulevard) also lies with city limits. It connects with Interstate 280, which runs along the side of Burlingame opposite Highway 101.

Caltrain
Caltrain has served Burlingame station since 1985 when it bought out Southern Pacific. It uses the same depot that was used in the early 20th century.

BART
Bay Area Rapid Transit has its final stop in Millbrae, just north of Burlingame. BART’s tracks are within Burlingame city limits.

Bus
Burlingame is served by SamTrans bus lines 292, 398, 46 and the ECR as well as Commute.org and Caltrain shuttles. The City of Burlingame and local businesses sponsor the Burlingame Trolley, a two-route shuttle.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 6.1 square miles (16 km2). 4.4 square miles (11 km2) of it is land, and 1.7 square miles (4.4 km2) of it (27.25%) is water.

Several creeks drain across Burlingame from the peninsula hills to the San Francisco Bay.

• Ralston Creek
• Burlingame Creek
• Sanchez Creek
• Easton Creek
• Mills Creek

• Burlingame Estates
• Burlingame Gardens
• Burlingame Gate
• Burlingame Hills
• Burlingame Park
• Burlingame Terrace
• Burlingame Village
• Country Club Manor
• Downtown
• Easton Addition
• Lyon Hoag
• Oak Grove Manor
• Ray Park

In the 1920s, Burlingame became a popular location for automobile retailers which became known as “Auto Row”.

In the 1960s, various airline support service businesses opened in Burlingame due to its proximity to San Francisco International Airport. As of 2018, LSG/Sky Chefs, Inc. and China Airlines are all located in Burlingame. The airport location has also attracted the headquarters of medium-sized multi-site companies such as Meri Meri and Proterra, Inc.

Historically, Burlingame has been home to many candy and chocolate companies, including the It’s-It ice cream factory and store, Guittard Chocolate, the See’s Candies lollipop factory, and family-owned candy stores, including Powell’s, Preston’s, Aida Opera Candies, and Nuts for Candy.

Since 2010, Burlingame’s economy has diversified substantially and it has become an attractive location for biotechnology companies given its proximity to South San Francisco. Biotechnology companies with offices in Burlingame include Annai Systems, Breathometer, Cala Health, Cleave Biosciences, Collaborative Drug Discovery, Confidence Clinical Research, Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Igenica Biotherapeutics, Kindred Biosciences, Omnitura, Phoenix Pharmaceuticals, Pulse Biosciences, Respira Therapeutics, and Vector Labs.

Additionally, multiple high-technology firms have established offices in Burlingame due to its location between the booming technology centers of Silicon Valley to the south and San Francisco to the north. Tech companies with Burlingame offices include: Zecco.com, Natsume, Color Genomics, CarWoo, Jobvite, DataStax, Sprint’s M2M Collaboration Center, YouWeb, OpenFeint, CrowdStar, BitGravity, Veebeam, and TellApart.

As of March 2022, the median single home value in Burlingame was $2.8 million.

Public schools

San Mateo Union High School District operates local high schools while the Burlingame School District operates elementary and middle schools.

Burlingame High School is the city’s sole public high school. Burlingame Intermediate School is Burlingame’s sole public middle school. There are six public elementary schools serving Burlingame. They are Franklin Elementary, Lincoln Elementary, McKinley Elementary, Roosevelt Elementary, Washington Elementary, and Hoover Elementary. According to the 2009 Base Academic Performance Index (API) Scores from the California Department of Education, the Burlingame School District ranks among the best in the state, with 4 out of their 6 public elementary schools (Roosevelt Elementary, Washington Elementary, Franklin Elementary, and Lincoln Elementary) scoring well between 880 and 925, and with ratings of 9 or 10. Burlingame school district enrollment has continually been increasing as young families move to the city. The city has passed two bond measures to add new facilities and modernize existing facilities to provide state-of-the-art classrooms. The city recently extensively renovated and modernized the Hoover School, which was built in 1931 and reopened in 2016.

Private schools

Mercy High School is a private Catholic all-girls high school in Burlingame. It was founded in 1931 by the Sisters of Mercy. The school is located in the Kohl Mansion which is a Historic Landmark. Our Lady of Angels School and St. Catherine of Siena School are located in Burlingame.

Public libraries
Burlingame Library is located in Burlingame. It was established by city ordinance October 11, 1909. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the City approved a bond issue to reconstruct the library. The architecture has won awards and earned a cover story in the 1998 American Libraries journal. A second branch, located on Easton Drive, is substantially smaller than the main branch. Both are operated by the Peninsula Library System, the library authority for the county.

• Burlingame Avenue and Broadway, two streets running parallel to each other about one mile apart, are two of the city’s main retail districts.
• Burlingame Station, a Caltrain station in Burlingame, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• Kohl Mansion is a 63-room brick Tudor-style mansion on 40 acres (16 ha) of land. It was originally built by Bessie and Frederick Kohl, with architects Howard and White, and completed in 1914. The estate included tennis courts, greenhouses, a rose garden, a large carriage house, and a 150,000 gallon reservoir. In 1921, the silent version of the film Little Lord Fauntleroy, with Mary Pickford, was filmed in the Kohl Mansion. The mansion, sold to the Sisters of Mercy in 1924, was a convent from 1924 to 1931, and it has been the home of Mercy High School since 1931.
• The Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia was located off of Burlingame game avenue and claimed to have every Pez dispenser ever sold. It was founded in 1995 by Gary and Nancy Doss who had been collecting Pez dispensers for more than a decade. The museum was featured in Time, on the Discovery Channel, and Travel Channel. It closed in July 2019