The Roots of Alameda County: From Rancho to Riches

The first twelve million ounces of California’s gold were relatively easy pickings. The next eleven million would be harder. By the mid-1850s all the “easy” gold hade been plucked from the rivers around Sutter’s Mill, but it would take another twenty years to get the rest with picks and shovels in the hard rock and the blasting away of entire hillsides with dangerous hydraulics. When the toil and strain became too great, most miners left to seek employment elsewhere. Many returned to San Francisco where the city offered employment, but there were also opportunities to be had, and many of them lay south of the City and east, across the Bay.

From the 1797 establishment of Mission San Jose onward, the Spanish government encouraged the settlement of Alta California by conferring the large land grants known as ranchos. The grants were government issued, permanent, unencumbered property-ownership rights to land. After Mexico won its independence in 1821, with the withdrawal of Spanish authority, Mexico sought to solidify its grasp on the area by continuing to grant the concessions.

The owners of the ranchos raised cattle and sheep for hides, tallow, and wool. Rancho boundaries were partially based on geography, such as access to river water. They have become the basis for California's land survey system, and can still be found on modern maps and land titles.

To give an example, one of the largest grants was made to Luis Maria Peralta (1758-1851). In recognition of a distinguished 40-year career, the last Spanish governor of California, Pablo Vicente de Solá granted Peralta Rancho San Antonio, about 44,800 acres. That area today embraces most of northern Alameda county today, including San Leandro, Oakland, Alameda, Emeryville, Berkeley and Albany.

(In 1855, two of the sons Domingo and Vicente Peralta would have to prove their claim to the land in front of a Federal District court. In the wake of California statehood in 1850, title to the land became an important issue and the State needed to be sure that claimants to the original land grants held valid title. All of the families of the land grants had to prove their claims.)

On February 2, 1848, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded Alta California to the United States. The very next month, Sam Brannan strode the streets of San Francisco, crying “Gold! Gold, from the American River!” Up to that time, the excess of local natural resources, though known, had not drawn many settlers. Russian, British, and French visitors had all taken notice, but it would take the Gold Rush to bring numbers to the area. Of course, the primary destination for most new arrivals was the gold fields, but when fatigue and exposure got the upper hand, enterprising men and women made their way to the fertile lands of, among others, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties.

When settlers came to the area, they usually found themselves on land already owned by the ranchos. Some combination of squatting and eventually bargaining for leases, and then sales of land allowed for the establishment of towns and cities. Removing clouds from the titles to land subsequently purchased and subdivided remained a constant enterprise for many years.

Settlers in the lands surrounding Alameda Creek soon proved the commercial potential of the land. Flour, barley, wheat, potatoes, onions, game, cattle, and wine supplied the increasing demand for commodities as the population of the Bay Area exploded. San Francisco went from 1,000 residents in 1848 to 25,000 by 1850 and the story was similar all along the East Bay. A diverse array of businesses soon arose, and the area became an important hub of commercial enterprise. As of 1853, however, Alameda had yet to be a county, but that was about to change.

On January 4, 1850, a committee of California’s first constitutional convention, chaired by General Mariano Vallejo, recommended the creation of eighteen counties. They were Benicia, Butte, Fremont, Los Angeles, Mariposa, Monterey, Mt. Diablo, Oro, Redding, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Jose, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, and Sutter.

Between January 4 and February 18, 1850, the California legislature added nine counties to the list recommended by General Vallejo’s committee, some of the changes based on additional recommendations by the committee. The nine added counties were Branciforte, Calaveras, Coloma, Colusi, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Trinity, and Yuba. This brought the total number of counties to 27. The legislature also approved several name changes. Benicia was renamed El Dorado, Fremont was renamed Yola (later Yolo), Mt. Diablo was renamed Contra Costa, San Jose was renamed Santa Clara, Oro was renamed Tuolumne, and Redding was renamed Shasta.

Given the concentration of commercial activity and a growing population, it was natural that the residents would want a local county seat. Contra Costa’s distant seat lay in Martinez, and Santa Clara’s far to the south in San Jose.

In 1853 Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties were both represented in the State Senate by George B. Tingley (of Santa Clara county). In the Assembly, Horace W. Carpentier represented Contra Costa, while W.S. Letcher and Henry C. Smith were for Santa Clara. In that year, Benicia was the Capitol, and there is where the Legislature convened. On March 10, 1853 Mr. Smith, from his place in the Assembly presented a petition from Santa Clara and Contra Costa’s residents calling for the formation of a new county, to be called Alameda, after the creek. Alameda is derived from alamo the Spanish name for the cottonwood or poplar tree, and means “a grove of poplar trees.” An alameda was a walk or path lined with such trees, and Spanish settlers named Rio de la Alameda for its resemblance to such a path.

The Bill proposed that the southern part of Contra Costa County and the Washington Township area (the northern tip of Santa Clara county) down to Aqua Caliente (Warm Springs today) should become its own county. After some minor corrections to the Bill, governor John Bigler signed it on April 6, 1853.

The act establishing Alameda County designated boundaries, established elections, appointed commissions, and other administrative details, such as how much of the parent counties’ debts should be allocated to Alameda. A Court of Sessions served as a provisional county government until a Board of Supervisors was finally elected in 1855, with Henry C. Smith himself as one.

Alameda County’s first seat was located at New Haven, also known as Alvarado (now union City). In an election of disputable legality, residents voted in 1854 to move the county seat from Alvarado to San Leandro. The move was made, but had to go back to Alvarado until 1856 when a special act of the courts established the election’s legality. The Estudillo family of Rancho San Leandro provided the new building’s site. The 1868 earthquake, however, destroyed the building, so the county seat moved to Brooklyn, now East Oakland, and Oakland has been the county seat since 1873.

The prosperity of Alameda County brings forth, of course, the attendant issues of population growth, transportation, business, and political wrangling, topics to be covered in future installments.