History

Bayhill’s history does not begin in the 1970s. It was part of Rancho Buri Buri and was eventually passed down to Jose Antonio Sanchez’s heir Paula Valencia, who held it for many years, eventually selling to a number of families, who used the area for vegetable farming. Then, in 1944, in response to inadequate facilities at the converted Tanforan Race Track, civil action number 23268 turned 80 acres west of El Camino Real into Camp Terry B. Thompson, a naval base boasting 113 buildings. The base stretched from Sneath Lane to San Bruno Avenue. On what is now Bayhill were 88 quonset huts used to house civilian personnel, plus recreation facilities including a swimming pool and a 16-lane bowling alley.

The government continued to operate facilities on the land well past the end of World War II, until the mid-1960s, when what had become Naval Facility, District Public Works Office, officially shut down. Less than a decade later, the quonset huts came down and modern Bayhill began to take shape.