Locals and members of the university community are known to refer to the school as The Farm, a nod to the fact that the university is located on the former site of a horse farm. Stanford University was founded on his estate in Palo Alto by Leland Stanford, a railroad magnate, former California Governor and future Senator, and his wife, Jane Stanford. They decided to dedicate a university to their only son, who died of typhoid in 1884 just before his 16th birthday, and Leland Stanford told his wife:  “The children of California shall be our children.”