Palo Alto is a college town in northwestern Santa Clara County in California's San Francisco Bay Area, incorporated in 1894 by Leland and Jane Stanford when they founded Leland Stanford Junior University in memory of their only child; the city grew around the university in near by Stanford and today anchors the northern edge of Silicon Valley, blending residential neighborhoods, early-20th-century commercial districts, and a long association with academic research, technology startups, and the broader Stanford community. - AsNotedIn