Menlo Park Historical Association is hosting an event at the Hopkins Mansion on September 13

The Menlo Park Historical Association and the Museum of American Heritage will be hosting a special event on Saturday, September 13 at the Hopkins Mansion on the grounds of Vallombrosa Retreat Center (250 Oak Grove Ave., Menlo Park). The event, which runs from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm, is free and open to the community.

It will be a celebration of the 125th wedding anniversary of Helen Hopkins and Augustus Taylor, who were married in the same mansion in September 1900.

Helen’s father, Edward Whiting (E.W.) Hopkins, was Mark Hopkins’ nephew and took over as treasurer of the Central Pacific Railroad after Mark passed away. E.W. was later president of Union Ice, an ice company that transformed California’s agricultural industry.

E.W. Hopkins and his wife bought the mansion on Oak Grove in the 1880s and raised their five children there during the summer months when not at their San Francisco mansion.