ABOUT MOUNT DIABLO
THE VIEW.
Mount Diablo occupies a unique geographical position on the boundary of the Bay Area and the Central Valley. On a clear day, views from its 3849 foot summit stretch more than 200 miles. Mount Diablo has one of the largest view sheds in the Western United States.THE ISLAND MOUNTAIN. Mount Diablo is the southern limit of the range for some plants and the northernmost for others. It provides habitat for over 100 species of animals and 650 species of flowering plants. 12 species of endangered plants and animals have been identified. The Mountain has one of the most varied climates and habitats in the San Francisco Bay Area.
THE PARKS. Mount Diablo State Park was one of Californias first state parks. Mount Diablo is a State Historic Site and a registered National Landmark, visited by more than a million people annually. In 1874, two roads were constructed on the mountain that tourists might access it by stage coach. The State Park, six regional parks and several city open spaces protect only part of the mountain.
A PARADISE. It is a paradise for hikers, equestrians, campers, families and friends. The parks have many miles of trails for enjoyment. They are a wilderness of woods and grasslands, streams, ponds and springs, deep canyons and lofty ridges.
SAVE IT FROM WHAT? Urbanization of the region is making a significant impact on the mountains wildlife and beauty, threatening preserved parklands on all sides. Thousands of acres of natural lands remain private and unprotected. Now is the time to protect Mount Diablo, to preserve the scenic beauty and ecological diversity of the Mountain, to provide recreational open space for the rapidly expanding population, and to promote the quality of life in our Bay Area for current and future generations.
What's In A Name? Like
many other isolated peaks, Mount Diablo is steeped in lore -- much of it involving the
mountain's name.
The reference to "diablo" or devil can be traced back to
1805, when Spanish military troops searched for runaway mission Indians. At a willow
thicket near present-day Buchanan Field in Concord, the soldiers encountered a camp of
Chupcan people and surrounded it. During that night, the Indians escaped unseen and
unheard.
Angry and confused, the Spanish called the site, "Monte del
Diablo", or "Thicket of the Devil". Later, English-speaking newcomers
mistakenly assumed the word "monte" meant "mountain" and applied the
title to the prominent nearby peak. A linguistic accident thus gave California its Devil
Mountain.
Mount Diablo and Native Peoples Mount Diablo had profound
significance for many Native California groups within its expansive view. The Julpun of
the area now known as Brentwood and Byron recognized the mountain as the birthplace of the
world. Hundreds of miles away in the Sierra Nevada, some Northern Miwok saw it as the
place from which a supranatural being lit a previously dark landscape. Further south, the
Central Miwok featured this mountain as part of their most sacred ceremonies. Wintun elder
Frances McDaniel said that Wintun spiritual leaders prayed to the creator from the
mountain's heights.
Chochenko speakers from the Mission San Jose area called the mountain
Tuyshtak, meaning "at the day". The Nisenan of the Sacramento Valley called it
Sukkú jaman, or as Nisenan elder Dalbert Castro once explained, "the place where
dogs came from in trade".
Most of Mount Diablo, including its peak, was within the homeland of
the early Volvon, a Bay Miwok-speaking group, and as early as 1811, the mountain was
called Cerro Alto de los Bolbones (High Point of the Volvon).
About 25 independant tribal groups with well-defined territories lived
in the surrounding East Bay countryside. Their members spoke dialects of three distinct
languages: Ohlone, Bay Miwok, and Northern Valley Yokuts. Each tribe's leadership and
culture varied and had three or four village sites, with populations numbering from 40 to
200.
Today, the mountain remains an important and meaningful place for many
Native peoples, including those that live locally. As Pomo elder and doctor Mabel McKay
said in 1985, "I would listen as Jim [Cooper, an herb doctor who was born in the
Diablo area] told my grandmother about how sacred Mount Diablo is. He said that as long as
the mountain stands is will be a sacred mountain."
Mount Diablo is Not a Volcano But it sure looks like one. If not volcanic, how was the mountain formed?
Geologists are still trying to unravel the complicated history of the mountain -- its
rocks are old, but the mountain itself is very young.
The oldest rocks are located in the central and highest peaks. As you
proceed downslope, away from the summit, the rocks are younger. The older core rocks were
formed far at sea at a spreading ocean rift zone, as much as 165 million years ago. As a
part of moving tectonic plates, they were brought to the North American continent and into
a subduction zone. Part of this ocean crust and overlying sediments were scraped off the
subducting plate and forced under some sedimentary material already here. This area was
later uplifted, pushing up the coastal range. Meanwhile, before that happened, much of
California was an inland sea, rising and falling from one ice age to the next, and into
which rivers deposited the sediments. Ultimately these sedimentary layers were compressed
into solid rock, typically sandstone and shale. About four million years ago the Diablo
region was low rolling hills.
About two million years ago, the same pressures that break the earth
along the San Andreas fault began to form a large-scale compressional fold. The raised
sedimentary layers were eroded away and tilted up and now they wrap around the harder,
older mountain core. The tilted sedimentary layers now stand almost vertically is
places such as Rock City, Castle Rock, Fossil Ridge, and Devil's Slide. Erosion has
removed thousands of feet of what was overlying material, exposing the core as we know
Mount Diablo, and carving fascinating features as wind caves and tunnels.
Visit Mount Diablo
There are many organized hikes on and around the mountain, and they meet at many
frequently used parking spots. A list of current events is published twice a
year.
See:
Hike Schedule
or
Self Guided Hikes
Access and Driving
A map of natural lands and access points is
available on this website at
Map of
Open Space.
A History of Mt Diablo
Prepared by Seth Adams, Director of Land Programs, Save Mount Diablo.
Reprinted from Mount Diablo Review - Fall 2000
Geologic Summary: 165 million B.C. Mt Diablo began as volcanic rock beneath the
surface of the Pacific Ocean was scraped into a mass between the Pacific tectonic plate
and the overlying sedimentary layers of the North American plate. As ice ages affected sea
levels, sedimentation continued in shallow coastal seas. About four million years ago, the
older, harder volcanic material from the sea floor forced its way up from between the two
plates heaving the weaker sedimentary layers up an angle. Over time, younger rock above
eroded and by 2 million B.C. the older rock we recognize as Diablos peaks was
exposed as low-lying hills.
Human History: ca. 2000 B.C. According to one tradition, at the Dawn of Time, Mt.
Diablo and Reeds Peak were surrounded by water. From these two islands the creator
Coyote and his assistant Eagle-man made Indian people and the world. In a Plains Miwok
creation account, Mol-luk (Condor man) lived on the north side of Mt Diablo. His wife, the
rock on which he roosted, gave birth to Wek-wek (Prairie Falcon-man). With the help of his
grandfather Coyote-man, Wek-wek created Indian people, providing them with "everything,
everywhere so they can live".
March, 1772 Fages-Crespi expedition. Lt. Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi
explored the Carquinez Straits and the western side of the mountain into the San Ramon
Valley. In 1782 they returned to the mountain, climbing to the summit.
4-1/3, 1776 de Anza-Font expedition. Juan Bautista de Anza and Father Pedro Font
conducted a second expedition circling the northern part of Diablo from Pacheco to
present-day areas of Concord, Antioch and Byron. The de Anza expedition included Juan
Salvio Pacheco whose grandson, Salvio Pacheco, founded Concord.
1800 Spaniards begin using Mt Diablo for winter grazing after the Mission San Jose
was founded in 1797 (in part to more easily missionize East Bay natives). In 1819 from the
mountains slopes Lt. Jose Maria Estudillo wrote "The view from south to
north is beautiful, for its end cannot be seen".
Ca. 1805-1806 The naming of Mt Diablo. General Mariano G Vallejo, in an 1850 report
to the Legislature, gives the derivation of the name of Mt Diablo from its Native American
to Spanish to Anglo form. In 1806 Spanish soldiers were pursuing native Americans as part
of the missionization, the natives took cover in a thicket near Pacheco and the Spaniards
camped with the intention of rounding them up in the morning. During the night the natives
escaped across the Carquinez Strait, an act only possible, according to the Spaniards,
with the help of the Devil ("Diablo"). The thicket became known as "Monte
del Diablo" and Anglo settlers later misunderstood that the word "monte"
can mean "thicket" or "mountain", and fastened the name on the most
obvious local landmark.
1822 & 1824 Spain ceded California to Mexico, the Mexican Revolution took place and
the beginning of land grants, including 18 in what became Contra Costa County. Between
1833 and 1846 three Rancho San Ramon Mexican land grants established to Bartolome Pacheco
(southern San Ramon Valley) and Mariano Castro (northern San Ramon Valley, two square
leagues), and Jose Maria Amador (four leagues).
7-31-1834 Ranch Arroya de las Nueces y Bolbones or Rancho Miguel 17,782
acres were granted to Don Juana Sanchez de Pacheco including Pine Canyon, Little Pine
Canyon and the North Gate Road area, Diablo and Turtle Rock Ranches. Approximately ¼ of
the land grant is within the State Park today.
1837 Dr. John Marsh, "Brentwood". Dr John Marsh, Contra Costas
first American settler, acquired Rancho Los Meganos from Jose Noriega of San Jose,
approximately 13,285 acres for $500. c. 1835, Marshs stone mansion (John Marsh Home)
built at his rancho; the home is named "Brentwood for his ancestral lands in
England. Marsh was killed before the home was completed.
1841 The first travel account of Mt Diablo Eugene Duflot du Mofras French
attaché to California. By . 1846 American immigration to the area had begun.
1848 Coal reported in CCC and on 1-24-1848 Gold was discovered at the American River,
leading to rapid population increase in California.
1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Alta California becomes American territory, and
much of Mt Diablo, sobrante lands bounded by Spanish land grant ranchos, was designated
public domain and for homesteading at a minimum price of $1 per acre. In 1849 Frances E.
Matteson came to California and homesteaded 160 acres which later became part of the
Blackhawk Ranch. He hunted deer, bear, elk and antelope.
Ca. 1850 Morgan Territory. Jeremiah Morgan moved form the Ygnacio Valley to
unsurveyed public land on the east side of Mt Diablo, ca. 1850, because the grizzly bear
hunting was so good. Francis Such and W. E. Whiting discover lime on the northwest
foothills of Mt Diablo on what becomes known as "Lime Ridge".
4-1850 Naming of Mt Diablo. General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, in a Constitutional
Convention report to the State Legislature, discussed the naming of Mt Diablo. "It
was intended to call the county (Mt Diablo), but both branches of the Legislature, after
warm debates on the subject, resolved upon the less-profane one (name) of Contra Costa.
(Including present-day Alameda County).
1851 Mt Diablo meridian and survey. Colonel Leander Ransom, Deputy-Surveyor
General, established the initial point of the Mt Diablo meridian at the mountains
summit, beginning the survey of public lands in California. The hills north of the Clayton
area became known as the meridian Hills (the ridge between Concord and Pittsburg).
1852 The US Coast and Geodetic Survey used Mt Diablo as a base point for its
National Triangulation Survey. Walnut Creeks population is less than 50. On
5-18-1852 Alamo (Spanish for "poplar" or "cottonwood") is designated
and a post office established on the northern Rancho San Ramon.
1857 Joel Clayton, an English immigrant, founded Clayton. In 1859 coal is
discovered north of Clayton. For a time it is the chief source of fuel for manufacturing
on the west coast. The two towns of Somersville and Nortonville ultimately included about
1,000 residents each and became ghost towns around 1885.
1860 "Almost every Californian has seen Monte Diablo. It is the great
central landmark of the state. Whether we are walking in the streets of San Francisco, or
sailing on any of our bays and navigable rivers, or riding on any of the roads in the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, or standing on the elevated ridges of the mining
districts before us in lonely boldness, and almost every turn, we see Monte
Diablo". J.M. Hutchings, from Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California.
Bret Harte and the Legend of Monte del Diablo. Farmer Abner Bryant hired a tutor
for his sons on his Sycamore Valley farm (on the present-day Blackhawk Ranch), the first
job for future-writer Francis Bret Harte (lived 1836-1902). Harte later wrote the most
widely-reported myth regarding the naming of Mt Diablo, "The Legend of Monte del
Diablo".
1861 Whitneys California Geological Survey visits Mt Diablo. William Brewer
wrote "The region north and northwest of Mt Diablo is a beautiful one
pretty valleys scattered over with oaks, many of enormous size, with wide branches, often
dropping like the elm. The rugged mountain rises against the clear sky, and when
illuminated by the setting sun is an object of peculiar beauty. Our camp was in a very
pretty place, with great trees around, and the mountain in full view." The Survey
gathered rocks, fossils and plants (including 25 plants not then known and measured the
mountains elevation at 3,890 ft.
4-30-1862 Description of View, Mt Diablo elevation. Brewer estimated that the view
embraced 80,000 square miles, 40,000 "in tolerably plain view over 300
miles from north to south, and 260 to 280 miles from east to west". The view
includes 60% of California, 35 counties and an area equal to the six New England states.
Brewers party calculated the height of Mt. Diablo at 3,876.4 (actual
3,849).
1863 Major drought throughout California, many county residents survived by working
at the lime quarries. Copper ores with traces of gold were found in Mitchell and Bagley
Canyons, at Eagle Peak, and there was a short-lived copper and gold rush. In 1863-4 L. W.
Hastings discovered quicksilver (mercury) on the northeast side of North Peak and Perkins
Canyon was mined until the 1950s.
1865-66 Legislative attempt to change the name of Mt Diablo. The State Legislature
made an unsuccessful attempt to change the name of Mt Diablo to "Coal Hill.
Clayton resisted the name change.
1870s The Green and Sycamore Valleys are well-populated, most of the southern
area is used for thoroughbred horses (until WW1), as was Perkins Canyon. In 1873 William
Cameron began buying land in Green Valley. Several railroads also began purchasing land,
and in time a single owner of the "Big Four" emerged, Central Pacific Railroad,
which appointed David Colton (died 1878) to manage the 10,000-acre "Railroad
Ranch". He was given Mark Hopkins' share, and in time bought out Crocker, Huntington
and Stanford.
First Wagon Road up Mt Diablo and the Mountain House Hotel constructed. Green
Valley and "Mount Diablo Summit Road Company" incorporated to build the first
toll wagon roads up the mountain, by local investors including Cameron and Joseph Hall,
who also built the 16-room Mountain House Hotel a mile below the summit (operated through
the 1880s, abandoned 1895, burned c. 1901). In 1874 Seeley J. Bennett inaugurated a
stage line from Martinez to the Diablo peak, by 1879 including hundreds of visitors a
year. Kate Nevins, who had worked at the Mountain House wrote "Citizens from all
over the state made pilgrimage with wagon loads, journeying to the Mountain House then
hiking to the observatory at the top. They stayed sometimes for weeks to enjoy Pine
Canyon, one of the finest beauty spots on earth with its magnificent views of the Castle
Rocks."
1876 The US Coast and Geodetic Survey erected a three-story signal station at the
Summit, which was later equipped with a telescope by Joseph hall for the use of
Mountain House guests (it burned 7-4-1891 when fire swept up from Morgan Territory). Hall
also had a floored tent at the summit for guests who wished to sleep there.
1877 Cook Farms, Oakwood Park Stock Farms. Coltons daughter Caroline and her
husband, mining engineer Dan Cook, inherited the Railroad Ranch, which by then extended
from Green Valley School to Sycamore Valley and to Curry Creek, taking in the headwaters
of Marsh Creek, the southern summit road and the Mountain House Hotel. Brothers Dan and
Seth Cook (both rough, obscenity-speaking and hearty fellows according to R.N.
Burgess) and changed the name to Cook Farms. Seth, a bachelor, inherited and passed the
farm to his niece Louise and her husband john F. Boyd. Boyd renamed it the Oakwood Park
Stock Farms and by 1897 it included 6,000 acres. By 1913 it grew to 15,000 acres,
including areas of Dan Cook Canyon, Rock City, Devils Slide and the area along South
Gate Road, and was considered the largest stock farm in the world.
1879 Concord had a population of 300 and in 1880 the village of Walnut Creek included
about 300 people. Over the next decade major fires scarred Mt Diablo, reportedly
started by careless hikers and campers, leading to landowner calls to close the mountain
to the public.
1890 John Muir, one of the founders of the American Conservation Movement, moved to
Martinez, until his death in 1914. By the 1890s grizzly bear and great herds of
elk had disappeared from the area. Sunday picnics were often held at Mitchell or Pine
Canyon. William Cameron died and his daughter Kate McLaughlin Dillon sold off her
fathers holdings, including White Canyon and Deer Flat to Dominic Murchio, an
Italian immigrant with a ranch alongside Mitchell Creek, including part of Mt Zion. "Clear
and cool. Beautiful silvery haze on Mount Diablo this morning, on it and over it
outlines melting, wonderfully luminous." -John Muir, 1895.
1899 Borges Ranch established at Shell Ridge. Frank Borges buys 700 acres (now
preserved within Shell Ridge Open Space). Designated on the National Register of Historic
Places in 1981.
1900s Contra Costa included 18,000 citizens at the turn of the century, 645
in Concord. The County includes 900,000 today. During the countys first decade,
President Theodore Roosevelt ushers in a first wave of American Conservation.
1903 First tunnel through the Oakland Hills (now Old Tunnel Road). The tunnel
inaugurates waves of new residents. In 1904 public electricity is established locally and
in 1907 the first automobile garage.
1907 The Henry Cowell Lime and Cement Company moved to the Diablo Valley at Lime Ridge
and built the town of Cowell, employed 250 men, ran 24 hours a day (part of the area is
now preserved in Lime Ridge Open Space).
1911 First electric train extended into the County, the Oakland, Antioch and
Eastern Railway through a 3,400 ft tunnel in the Oakland Hills to Walnut Creek to carry
lime. Special trains ran for the R.N. Burgess Co., which sold land adjacent to the
mountain at Diablo (June 2, 1914-1924).
1912 The Mount Diablo Development Co. established. Louise Boyd sold Oakwood
Park Stock Farm to R.N. Burgess and his Mount Diablo Development Co., a group of investors
who wanted to create an exclusive residential park. They remodeled Cooks
Clubhouse/Casino as the Mt Diablo Country Club and opened Mt Diablo to the public. Burgess
then acquired the area later known as Blackhawk Ranch and all the land between it and
Diablo, up to the summit, including the right-of-way to Mt Diablo Scenic Boulevard.
1912-15 Mt Diablo Auto Toll Road. Burgess group built new toll roads
accessible to auto traffic all the way to Diablos summit (North Gate and Mt Diablo
Scenic Blvd completed 1915).
1916 Castle Hotel planned for Mt Diablo Summit. Mount Diablo Development Co.
planned a tower-hotel "Torre de Sol" (never built) with promised investment and
national publicity by William Randolph Hearst. World War 1 intervened, Hearsts
interest waned, Burgess company went bankrupt and of the planned development, only
the community of Diablo was ever built.
1917 Blackhawk Ranch founded. Ansel Mills Easton (the uncle of the photographer
Ansel Adams) and his son-in-law William A. Ward purchased 1200 acres from R.N. Burgess and
started the Blackhawk Ranch named for a famous Irish race horse "Black Hawk" he
had owned. Meanwhile, Portuguese immigrant Frank Macedo purchased 825 acres in what is now
a park staging area in Alamo.
1921 Mt Diablo State Park created. Mt Diablo was one of the seven state parks
created before the establishment of the California State Park System in 1927, a
"state park and game refuge" on 630 acres (from Burgess Mount Diablo
Development Co.,) administered by its own appointive Mount Diablo State Park Commission.
1927-28 California Park Survey. Frederick Law Olmstead prepared a statewide survey
(the Olmstead Plan) for the newly-created State Park Commission, recommending acquisition
of 5-6,000 acres at Mt Diablo to "amplify" and "round out" the small
state park at the summit. Major properties were acquired along the historic Scenic
Boulevard (South Gate Road), the North Gate Road and near the summit.
1928 Standard Diablo Tower. Standard Oil of California constructed a 75 ft aviation
beacon jointly with the U.S. Dept of Commerce to encourage and as a guide for commercial
aviation (visible for 100 miles, first lit by Charles Lindberg). The beacon was later
transferred to the Summit Building and is now lit only on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day.
1929 Mary L. Bowerman, founder of Save Mount Diablo. A young student at the
University of California and future co-founder of Save Mount Diablo in 1971, Bowerman
begins research on the botany of Mt Diablo, culminating in a 1936 Ph.D. thesis and the
1944 publication of the recognized work on Mt Diablo "The Flowering Plants and
Ferns of Mount Diablo, California". Dr Bowerman continues as an active member of
the Board of Directors of Save Mount Diablo in 2000.
1930s CCC Era on Mt Diablo. The Great Depression and increasing calls for the
municipalization of basic services ushers in the second wave of U.S. conservation, as
public watersheds and parks are created. The Civilian Conservation Corps constructed Camp
Diablo on the Danville side of Mt Diablo and built facilities at the mountain (among the
best in the States parks), realigning park roads, building hiking and fire trails,
residences, picnic areas and campgrounds, dams and the Summit Building (1939-42).
1930 Proposal for the East Bay Regional Park District. Publication of the
Olmstead-Hall Report "Proposed Park Reservations for East Bay Cities"
supported a Committee of East Bay Citizens' proposal to create the East Bay Regional Park
District from surplus East Bay Municipal Utilities District land, recommending a 10-11,000
acre park system extending 22 miles along the East Bay hills above the nine Bay shoreline
cities below.
4-20-1931 Mt Diablo designated a unit of the new State Park System.
1934 Establishment of the East Bay Regional Park District. In 1936 the S.F. to
Oakland Bay Bridge is completed, and in 1937 the two-bore Caldecott Tunnel, making the
East Bay and Central County much more accessible the Countys first major
subdivision is approved that same year. Nobel Prize Winner Eugene ONeill moves to
Danville "Mt Diablo, a mass of purple in the morning. Nature is always
lovely, invincible, glad whatever is done or suffered by her creatures. All scars she
heals; whether in rocks or waters or sky or heart."
1940s Population growth. The 1940s census reports 1,587 people in
Walnut Creek, 1,373 in Concord. Camp Parks Seabees (Navy construction battalions)
established Camp Diablo, a base at Rock City to train in mountain warfare, road and bridge
construction. At the end of the war development booms.
1960s Population growth in the Sixties. Contra Costa County population:
409,030, up 330,000 since 1930. Concord included 36,208 up from 1,373 in 1940. In 1966
much of Pine Canyon is added to the State Park.
1970s The Seventies Environmental awareness and the first Earth Day usher
in a new wave of conservation. Concord becomes the Countys largest city. Traffic
increases dramatically, General Plan process instituted as state law, the California
Environmental Quality Act and the federal and state Endangered Species Acts. A proposal to
develop Shell Ridge is defeated, and local bond issues are passed to acquire open space in
Walnut Creek and Concord.
12-7-1971 Save Mount Diablo founded. Co-founded by Art Bonwell and Dr Mary
Bowerman. SMD was created because subdivisions were spreading toward the mountain, and no
organization was working primarily on the area. Bowerman provided the organizations
vision, while Bonwell was the nuts and bolts guy. Bowerman wrote "My dream is that
the whole of Mount Diablo, including its foothills, will remain open space
that the
visual and natural integrity will be sustained." In 1971 Contra Loma Regional
Park was created.
1972 BART reaches interior Contra Costa County, adding to growth pressures; working
with the State, Save Mount Diablo helps preserve the mountains northern canyons
(Mitchell, Back, Donner) over the next several years. In 1973 Black Diamond Mines Regional
Preserve and the City of Walnut Creeks Shell Ridge Open Space are created.
1-1974 Mount Diablo Interpretive Association founded to work with the State Park in
producing interpretive programs and publications.
1974 Blackhawk Development proposed. Ken Behring acquired 4,200 acres of the Ranch
and proposed subdivision. Save Mount Diablo negotiated for 2,052 acres to be dedicated to
MDSP as a condition of development, including much of the Blackhills the Wall Point
area, Blackhawk Ridge, parts of Dan Cook and Jackass Canyons, and the area below Oyster
Point, the single largest donation ever to a State Park.
1975 Morgan Territory Regional Preserve is created. Concord population increases to
85,423 residents, up from 74,958 in 1966, 36,208 in 1960 and 1,373 in 1940.
1976 Save Mount Diablos first acquisition with private funds, the Morgan
Territory Investment parcel at the corner of Marsh Creek and Morgan Territory Roads. Lime
Ridge Open Space is acquired and Diablo Foothills Park is created at Pine Canyon. In 1977
a large fire burns from Clayton to Blackhawk In 1978 Mt. Olympia and the Mt Diablo
waterfalls are acquired.
1980s The Eighties, growth booms. 101,844 in Concord, up from 85,423 in 1975.
North Peak and Prospectors Gap are added to the State Park in 1980 along with Long
Ridge and Pine Canyon, Emmons Canyon in 1982, White Canyon and Black Point in 1984. In
1988 Save Mount Diablo hires its first staff. In 1989 Save Mount Diablos Morgan
Ranch acquisition connects the State Park with Morgan Territory Regional Preserve.
1988 Round Valley Regional Preserve is created and in 1989 acquisition of the Los
Vaqueros watershed and the Vasco Caves Regional Preserve begins.
1990 Senator Daniel Boatwright "Someday when Contra Costa is 4
million people maybe someone will say I dont know who did this but thank God
for whoever saved this in the past. You wont be here. I wont be here. But the legacy we
leave should not simply be that we passed everything over."
1996 Acquisition of Brushy Peak Regional Preserve begins.
1999 SMDs 427-acre Silva Ranch acquisition largely completes protection of
Riggs Canyon.
9-25-1999 Mitchell Canyon Interpretive Center opened by Mt Diablo Interpretive
Association working with MDSP.
Informational sources: DPR, Edna May Andrews "History of Concord", Mary L.
Bowerman "The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Mount Diablo, California", William
H. Brewer "Up and Down California in 1860-1864", George Emanuel "Walnut
Creek Arroya De Las Nueces", Virgie V. Jones "Historical Persons and
Places
in San Ramon Valley", Bev Ortiz "Mount Diablo as Myth and reality;
an Indian History Convoluted", George A. Pettit "Clayton; Not Quite
Shangri-La", Nilda Rego "Days Gone by in Contra Costa County, California, Volume
1 & 2", W.A. Slocum & Co. "History of Contra Costa County,
California", James C Stone "Diablo Legacy; Recollections & Reflections
1912-Present".
|
Mt. Diablo - Photo of Stephen Joseph |
2a