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Stanford University, Palo Alto
Leland Stanford began his career as a Sacramento grocer. When one of his customers went bankrupt Stanford accepted quartz mine stock in lieu of payment. That stock made several hundred thousand dollars profit and Stanford parlayed that money into one of the largest estates in the West, first as president of Western Union Telegraph and then as one of the 'Big Four' railroad monopoly. In 1884, while traveling with his family in Florence, Stanford's only child Leland, Jr. died of typhoid. Grief-stricken Stanford and his wife, Jane returned to California and began to plan a University to honor their son's memory. The couple purchased a 7,200-acre horse farm in Palo Alto as its home.

In 1893 Leland Stanford, then a United States Senator, died in his sleep. His iron-willed wife, Jane made the new university the focus of her life. Today the Leland Stanford Junior University is considered one of the finest schools in the world. Stanford has produced presidents, prime ministers, supreme court justices, 16 Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners, 23 MacArthur Fellows, 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science, and three Presidential Medal of Freedom winners. Pictured above is the university's Herbert Hoover Tower and the Stanford Arch.
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