Why is Burlingame, CA so desirable? More reasons and more facts.

In my recent blog entry "Why is Burlingame, CA so desirable?" I mentioned the death of Charles Frank Burlingame III, whose plane crashed to the Pentagon on 9/11. He was a descendant of Anson Burlingame, after whom Burlingame was named. On December 5, 2006, the Burlingame family suffered another loss. Wendy Burlingame, 32, a daughter of Charles Frank Burlingame, was found dead in a fire at the Galaxy Towers apartment complex in Guttenberg, N.J. The following article, published on December 6th by New York Post, reports the tragic event. According to the New York Post report "the quick-spreading, four-alarm fire - has been ruled suspicious, - but that no accelerant had been used." The suspicious character of Wendy Burlingame's death spurred speculations about the link to the so called "9/11 conspiracy theory".

I encourage those of you who read my first story about Burlingame to click on the following link to Wikipedia. You will find there a number of interesting facts on Burlingame's history. For example, did you know that the movie Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeifer was filmed on the Burlingame High School Campus in the spring 1994? Or that Charlie Howard, the owner of Seabiscut, owned a home in Burlingame? So click on the link above and endulge yourself in discovering Burlingame. And if you get interested to read more about Burlingame's history, please don't miss the article published by the Burlingame Historical Society. According to their entry "In 1893, 23 years after (Anson) Burlingame's death, a group of wealthy young men from San Francisco set about organizing a country club on the Peninsula. In casting about for a suitable designation they were inspired by the nice sounding name still found on county maps of the area. They decided to call it - The Burlingame Country Club. The village that was developing nearby, around the railroad station, was known as “Burlingame”, reflecting some of the prestige of the glamorous club, but it was not until 1908 that the town was incorporated. So was the name of the town selected because it was "nice sounding" (as it was in the case of the Club) or as a tribute to Anson Burlingame - our nation's famous diplomat and China's first ambassador to the United States?