Los Altos

Los Altos is a city at the southern end of the San Francisco Peninsula, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is in Santa Clara County, California, United States. The population was 28,976 according to the 2010 census.Most of the city's growth occurred between 1950 and 1980. Originally an agricultural town with many summer cottages and apricot orchards, Los Altos is now an affluent bedroom community. Los Altos has several distinctive features. Commercial zones are strictly limited to the downtown area and small shopping and office parks lining Foothill Expressway and El Camino Real.Homes and other real estate are costly in Los Altos. The median household income of Los Altos for 2009–2013 was $157,907. The median home listing price in 2016 was $3.6 million. In 2016, Forbes put Los Altos (ZIP codes 94022 and 94024) as the 8th and 46th most expensive ZIP codes in the United States.Los Altos means "the heights" in Spanish.HistoryThe area was originally called Banks and Braes. Paul Shoup, an executive of the Southern Pacific Railroad, and his colleagues formed the Altos Land Company in 1906 and started the development of Los Altos. The company acquired 140 acres of land from Sarah Winchester. Shoup wanted to link Palo Alto and Los Gatos by making Los Altos a commuter town. It continued a train a day operation to and from San Francisco.