Portola Valley is a town in San Mateo County, California. Take a look below for 10 interesting and awesome facts about Portola Valley, California, United States.

1. Located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area, Portola is one of the wealthiest towns in America, per the American Community Survey among U.S. communities with a population larger than 4,000.

2. Portola Valley was named for Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portolá, who led the first party of Europeans to explore the San Francisco Peninsula in 1769.

3. The Native Americans already present were Ohlone and specifically the group (or groups) known as Olpen or Guemelento but these were later moved to Mission Dolores and Mission Santa Clara de Asís which claimed the land and peoples.

4. The area’s written history dates back to 1833, when a square league of land was given to Domingo Peralta and Máximo Martínez by Governor José Figueroa to form the Rancho Cañada del Corte de Madera.

5. In those days it was used for lumbering and cattle grazing.

6. By the 1880s Andrew S. Hallidie, a wire rope manufacturer, had built his country home of Eagle Home Farm in what is now Portola Valley. He built a 7,341 foot long aerial tramway from his house to the top of Skyline in 1894 though it was removed after his death in 1900.

7. In 1886 the name Portola-Crespi Valley was bestowed on the area from the then community of Crystal Springs (now under Crystal Springs Reservoir to the then community of Searsville (in the area of the present day Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve); Crespi is for Juan Crespí, a Franciscan friar with the Portolà expedition.

8. The town was incorporated in 1964. Bill Lane was the first mayor.

9. Our Lady of the Wayside Church was built in 1912 for the local Catholic community and is a California Historic Landmark and on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

10. Portola Valley School is a one-room former school house built in 1909 and is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is now used for town council meetings.