Ranching and the pioneer spirit are foundational to East
Bay’s history. On Saturday, November 5th, come out to historic Sunol and
celebrate the region’s cowboy culture, have fun learning old-time crafts, watch
exciting demonstrations of ranch-hand skills and lots more.
Pony rides, a petting zoo, and good old-time music bring
ranch living to life while stilt walkers and corn husk artists amaze the crowds
and instruct interested participants in old-time crafts.
Cattle came to California with the Spanish in the sixteenth
century and by the mid-1700’s had become crucial to the economy of the
twenty-one missions established up and down the coast. The cattle provided
beef, of course, but equally important were the hides, which were sold, traded,
or used on site to make clothing and saddles. The rendered fat, or tallow, was
turned into soap and candles, the latter being especially important before the
days of electric lights.
Spanish grants provided the grazing land for the large
ranchos of California, including those of the East Bay. We are used to thinking
of cattle ranches surrounded by barbed wire, but on the ranchos of Alta California,
cattle were allowed to roam free. Since they were branded, they could be
identified, and once a year a "rodeo" was held where all the cattle
were brought and separated according to their brands. Calves that followed
their mothers became the new property of the cattle owners. Any cattle that
couldn’t be identified became the property of the hosting rancho.
Records indicate that by 1834, the twenty-one missions of
California owned in total about four hundred thousand head of cattle. The
Mexican government, having won independence from Spain in 1821, secularized the
missions in 1834, and the herds of cattle were sold off, mostly to the
landholding families of California. The cattle of Mission San Jose were
believed to have gone to Jesus Vallejo, holder of Rancho Arroyo de Alameda and
elder brother of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the influential Presidio
commander and California statesman. (It was the latter Vallejo that John C.
Fremont held prisoner during the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846.) Eventually, in the
latter half of the nineteenth century, enterprising settlers in the East Bay
bought out (some say swindled) the families of the ranchos, establishing their
own operations.
Many of the early vaqueros were local Ohlone who had
learned their skills tending the mission cattle. Following the gold rush,
demand for beef rose, and so did demand for cowboys. Disillusioned miners
returning from gold fields found they could earn several dollars a day, good
money for the time, and many became cowboys. They brought with them the
cultures, pastimes, and music of their homes, scattered as they were across the
United States.
The Sunol Hootenanny promises to reconnect visitors with a
glimpse into the cowboy culture that first appeared here more than a century
ago. Sunol Regional Wilderness is located at the end
of Geary Road off Calaveras Road about 5 miles south of Interstate 680 near the
town of Sunol.
Sunol’s Old Timey Hootenanny
Saturday, Nov. 5, 2016
11 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Sunol Regional Wilderness
1895 Geary Rd, Sunol
Free. Parking $5 cash
http://www.ebparks.org/parks/sunol
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