city, San Mateo county, western California, U.S. It lies on the western shore of San Francisco Bay. The area, originally inhabited by Ohlone Indians, was called El Palo Alto by Spanish explorers in the mid-18th century. It became part of the Rancho de las Pulgas, a Mexican land grant established in 1800. The city was founded in 1854 by Dennis J. Oliver and D.C. McGlynn, two Irishmen who named the city for Menlough, County Galway, Ireland. Menlo Park began as a village for railroad and estate workers. Brief incorporation (1874–76) included Fair Oaks (later Atherton) and Ravenswood (later East Palo Alto). During World War I, the population of the city increased, as Camp Fremont (for U.S. Army engineers) occupied most of the downtown area and trained some 40,000 soldiers. During World War II, Dibble General Hospital (1943–46) was built to provide services for injured soldiers from the Pacific theatre. After World War II, Menlo Park developed as a residential community with an office-building boom, highlighted by the Stanford Research Institute (1946; now SRI International). Menlo College (1927) lies in the nearby town of Atherton. It is also a publishing centre. Inc. 1927. Pop. (1990) 28,040; (2000) 30,785.

unincorporated community, Middlesex county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It lies 16 miles (25 km) southwest of Newark. Menlo Park is the site of the Edison Memorial Tower and State Park (and museum) on the grounds where Thomas A. Edison (Edison, Thomas Alva) maintained his experimental laboratories from 1876 to 1886 and where he perfected many of his inventions. The 131-foot (40-metre) Edison Memorial Tower, on the spot where the first commercially practical incandescent lamp was made, is capped by a lightbulb 13 feet (4 metres) high and 8 feet (2.5 metres) across; a perpetual light was placed at the base of the tower in 1929. The laboratory buildings were removed in 1929 by industrialist Henry Ford (Ford, Henry) to his Greenfield Village Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.

Menlo Park was established as a rural crossroad in the 17th century after the founding of the East Jersey colony in 1676. It was a part of Raritan township, which in 1954 was renamed Edison township in honour of the inventor. Lying approximately midway between Rahway and New Brunswick, Menlo Park has developed as a suburban community since World War II.