In the early 1850s, serious lumbering had begun on the eastern side of Skyline Ridge. The roads down from the sawmills all led to the docks at the Redwood City embarcadero, and several of them converged near this spot, where a town grew up.
The first settler in the area in 1852 was Charles Brown, who called his place The Mountain Home, a name that still survives for a nearby road. (See GCK3RB for more about Mr. Brown.) About the same time Horace Templeton bought a large tract of land here from original Spanish grant owner John Coppinger, and platted the layout for a small town to be built along the north sides of Alambique and Dennis Martin Creeks.
In 1853, August Eikerenkrotter built a hotel at what is now the corner of Portola and Sand Hill (see parking waypoint and monument there) at the edge of the new town, to house teamsters and other passers-by. The following year John W. Sears arrived and built a home in the new town, and a second hotel at the intersection of Sand Hill and Whiskey Hill Roads. The fledgling town took on his name, as Searsville.
The town grew through the 1850s and '60s, spreading east to San Francisquito Creek, eventually boasting a church, school, several saloons and a blacksmith shop.
Over time the lumbering activity moved across Skyline. By 1870, the best timber had been logged out and Searsville faded into a small farming community. The 1870s saw a burst of activity as word of gold and silver find in the area spread. But the mines came to nothing, and may have been 'salted' by unscrupulous promoters.
Still the town lived on, until the late 1880s, when the Spring Valley Water Company (which also built the Crystal Springs dam to the north), won a legal battle with the villagers, bought up all of the village properties along the creek, and began to build a dam downstream of the town. Apparently some doubted that the dam would ever be completed, but in 1891 it was closed and the waters started to rise. According to an 1948 history, buildings were being moved out just ahead of the flood. Some of them were relocated into the Redwood City area.
This loss of population along with the decline in logging finished Searsville, and many of the remaining properties were eventually acquired by Leland Stanford as he assembled his 'farm', now Stanford University. Most of the site of Searsville, including the dam and lake, is in the current Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve of Stanford - across the fence from the hide.