 In fact, the Port of Redwood City is the only major California port with significant expanses of natural habitat area in its immediate proximity.Robert O. Tripp (founder of the historic Woodside Store) and Mathias A. Parkhurst began the first lumber operation using the waterways of Redwood Creek to float coast redwoods from Woodside to San Francisco in 1850.These two men thus became the founders of Redwood City itself.