Chapter 1 - The creation of Foster City from marsh baylands

The Natural History of Foster City, California

by James K. Sayre

a draft manuscript

12 May 2005

Foster City is a relatively new suburban city in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was created thirty-five years ago from diked wetlands previously occupied by Mr. Frank Brewer's dairy farm, which was created in the previously marshland area between the Seal Slough and the Belmont Slough along the western margins of the San Francisco Bay in California. Mr. Brewer diked off and drained the wetlands in the year 1900 or 1901 to create a dairy farm. This farm was called .i.Brewer's Island;. Later, .i.Leslie Salt Company; acquired title to 870 acres of the land and established their salt ponds on the land [Van Beckum]. The rest of the acreage (1726 acres) remained as grazing land owned by .i.Schilling Estate Company;. In 1959, Mr. Richard Grant, Mr. Jack Foster and his three sons took an option to purchase both of these tracts for the purpose of building a new city on the land [Hynding]. The unique city construction financing mechanism, the Estero Municipal Improvement District was approved by the California State Legislature in 1960. (See Chapter 2). Jack Foster and his associates obtained title to the 2,600 acre tract and proceeded to design and build a modern suburban city with a series of beautiful lagoons running through the center of it. Foster City now has a population of about 30,000 with all the modern civic amenities, except a local high school. This lack of a Senior High School in Foster City has been the subject of a long and contentious dispute between the citizens of Foster City and the San Mateo Area School District. The tract of land originally reserved for the siting of a high school, located behind the City Hall complex, has remained vacant for thirty years.

Originally, before the wetlands were drained, the existing flora and fauna was most likely quite similar to that in other wetlands along the San Francisco Bay. Some changes in the original flora and fauna had undoubtedly occurred since the arrival of the Spanish several hundred years ago. Many volunteer plants came with the Spanish settlers. Some of these have been characterized as "weeds." However one chooses to characterize these plants, they constitute a significant portion of the present flora, especially in recently disturbed areas.

End.

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