Assignment #9 Top of the Devil Mountain

What began as a simple look into why the Devil Mountain is so evil evolved on me into an untold story of American hard work and ingenuity. I have been hiking, mountain biking, and fishing on Mount Diablo for years without ever knowing who put the park there. I never thought to stop and ask myself “who built this trail? Why is it here? Why was this mountain chosen as state park”? I had no idea that it was the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps that I can thank for having a wilderness sanctuary so close to my home.

Professor Ivey lent me a book early on in the quarter when I was just beginning this research project. I had a vague idea of what I would have liked to do, but no idea what the future held for me. The book was Wilderness and the American Mind by Roderick Nash. In it Nash describes what a wilderness is and what it means to us as human beings. Wilderness is an idea invented by human beings to describe what is not a part of our civilized world. As early humans we clung together out of a sense of survival and fear. The wilderness represented what was dark, dangerous, unknown, and a threat to our existence. The only way we as humans can rise up and out of wilderness is for us to control the natural processes around us. We develop agriculture as a means of controlling nature for our benefit. We construct dwellings to keep us from the elements. We domesticate plants and animals to prove our domination over nature. We see ourselves as separate from nature and therefore must make a distinction between what we create, civilization, and what is already there, wilderness. Nash argues that “civilization created wilderness” (Nash, xiii), and sentiment that many Native Americans share as well. In their views, there was no wilderness until Westerners arrived. The Native Americans lived in harmony with the natural world around them and had no need to distinguish between civilization and wilderness. It was the white Europeans who came to the New World and felt the need to conquer all they saw in front of them. This is where our notion of a “wilderness idea” comes from.

Nash details more than just our fear and withdrawal from our perception of wilderness. Nash also explains where our appreciation of wilderness comes from. It comes from the cities, those who are so far removed from the wild that all they know is civilization. Nash points out that our love affair with the natural world began, aptly enough, during the period of Romanticism. The aesthetic beauty that nature had to offer was seen rather than just the resources it had to offer up. Individuals grew tired of city life and wanted to preserver what few wilderness areas were left so that they could escape to them. We leave our normal civilized lives behind to step back in time and live in wilderness only for a brief time. This is what I love to do, and why I chose this topic. Being able to leave a paved world of constant noise, overcrowding, and frustration for a wilderness that is miles away from civilization is one of my ultimate joys in life. The opportunity to pick up, essentially drop out of existence, and live in nature rather than against it is one every American needs to take advantage more of. We can learn something from wilderness that we can not get in the concrete jungles. And we learn a great deal about ourselves, what our limits our, and who we are as organisms on this planet when we travel out into the wilderness. John Muir left his life as an inventor and factory machinist behind to traverse the Sierra Nevada Mountains and found his paradise on earth.


The turn of the 20th Century brought about the change in American public opinion on wilderness. Now it was finally becoming understood how import wild open places are to us. The war shifted from conquering wilderness to preserving it. Under the New Deal projects created during the Great Depression the Civilian Conservation Corps was tasked with constructing our state parks. But they did not build them from the ground up. They built ways for people to access the wilderness around them. The CCC was in fact run as if it were a military unit by actual military officers. This was the first campaign to save our wilderness.


I learned a great deal about the CCC and the work they did not only in Mount Diablo State Park, but in all of the state and national parks in America. These men worked for a paycheck during a time when most Americans were desperate for work. But what they really accomplished was not finding employment but rather instilling a sense of preservation and service to our wilderness. They were the ones who made it possible for anyone in downtown San Francisco to be able to drive 30 minutes and ascend a wild mountain.






What I did find unfortunate about this story is what little our state parks keep on record of it. Mount Diablo State Park records only go back to the early 1970’s, and these are just short newspaper articles about park acquisition of land and donors to park causes. Nothing of who worked on the mountain or when is kept in any park records and is a story that has not yet been fully told. The story of the average CCC worker has not been brought out and little credit is paid to these wilderness warriors for making our open spaces accessible.


I would like to thank all of my fellow hikers who followed me on my journey up the mountain and into history. I hope by following my research you were able to take away even just a fraction of what I got from this story. I hope you find a new found appreciation of the not just Mount Diablo, but all of the great parks, open spaces, and wildernesses in California. I hope you can also realize the hard work companies of men put into the state parks on behalf of the CCC.


I would also like to thank California State Park Ranger Carl Nelson. He took the time to sit with me and talk not just about the park and the CCC but also what wilderness means to Americans today, the legacy of the CCC and what it means to be a state park ranger in 2010. Ranger Nelson is not only in charge of preserving Mount Diablo, but also educating future generations in the needs of preservation. I would also like to thank him for taking me through the behind the scenes action of running a state park and the natural history museum at the summit. He also showed me the few records kept on site in the park. He too agreed that this is an important story that needs more light shed on it, especially in our modern green initiative movements.


Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank my instructor Professor Ivey. This was the first opportunity I have had to research something that is close to my heart rather than a topic assigned to me. Professor Ivey was the one who encouraged me to look inward, as to why I enjoy wilderness, as well as outward, why others enjoy wilderness. Without her I would have never thought to examine who built our state parks and why. I had always taken for granted my escape into the woods, not knowing who allowed me to do this and why. If anything Professor Ivey has only strengthened my love affair with the wilderness and increased my vast appreciation for it. This was a research project like no other I have ever undertaken before, and it has taught me a lot about being a historian and looking more critically at the world around me.


I hope you have enjoyed your time on the Devil Mountain with me and I hope you all get the chance some day to make your pilgrimage to the top. I hope you can see first hand the work of the CCC and its legacy. And I hope you too have an increased appreciation of our national and sate parks. Mount Diablo truly is a mysterious mountain that has captured the curiosity of Bay Area residence since the time of the Native Americans all the way up to our modern day.




The above video is a panoramic view from the summit of Mount Diablo

Assingment #8 Soarin' Over the Devil

Designing an exhibit on the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps on Mount Diablo would be difficult to do. Bringing the exhibit to life and grabbing the attention of my audience would be tricky to do. I could simply gather tools used by the workers, old maps of their progress, and discuss the various facilities they built. But that would be your average, run of the mill, boring exhibit that those outside of the history community often find so dry and unattractive. Designing something worthwhile would be tricky.

The first thing I would do is redesign the summit museum that is already in place on the South Peak of Mount Diablo. The building currently holds many roles for the park. It serves as a lighthouse/beacon, a fire lookout position, and headquarters for the state park rangers. It also has a museum inside the lower part of the building. It is a small museum that is primarily focused on the geological history of the mountain and the wildlife found on the mountain. Currently there is only one small 3’x3’ display that shows the work of the CCC on Mount Diablo. It has only a few photos and little to no information. I would expand on the museum, which was not even opened until 1994, keeping the natural history section that is already in place. I would add on to the museum about my research topic. There is plenty of space at the summit to add onto the size of the building. I would have the usual collection of tools used by the workers on display in an attempt to relate to the CCC workers and understand how they used their hands to build the facilities and trails. Also I would have sections set up to recreate the quarters the workers stayed in. I would have to have the cabins reconstructed since they were all torn down in the early 1940’s when work on the state park was completed. These workers were mostly young average men of the time and having their living spaces on display will give people a sense of what life was like for them. How they worked and lived in the wilderness. We as historians learn a lot from the spaces people lived in.

My main addition to the museum would come in the form of an amusement ride. I would design a ride similar to the “Soarin’ California” ride at Disneyland Resort. The ride would take small groups of people on a simulated hang gliding tour of Mount Diablo. Computer generated images and footage would be shown while the riders are in seats that are lifted from the ground to allow their feet to dangle. Above them would be a massive hang glider to further increase the simulation. The images would be projected onto a concave screen to give the riders a panoramic view of Mount Diablo and the surrounding area. Special attention would be paid to ensure that the images depict the area around Mount Diablo as it was in the later 1930’s and early 1940’s. The images shown would take the riders on a tour of the Mountain as the CCC was working. They would have an areal view of different crews working in different areas on the mountain.

Soarin' California Ride in Disneyland Resort

It would start low, focusing on the first few trails and roads being built. Then it would simulate hang gliding further up the mountainside to see the construction of other park facilities and the ranger stations on the summit road. Finally the ride would culminate at the summit with the completed construction of the summit building. The simulation will have the riders circle several times in the air above Mount Diablo at dusk while right at the end two malevolent glowing red eyes appear over the top of both peaks. Finally, before coming in to land the massive hang glider on the North Peak, the riders watch the last few glints of sun disappear west over the Pacific. This allows the visitors to simulate flying over the progress of the state park’s construction and see how the workers made the trails and facilities without having to take them on an all day hike throughout the park. It would be a much faster, areal, and rollercoaster-esque guided tour of the park as the CCC worked. The ride would be title “Soarin’ Over the Devil” and feature a large demonic statue at the ride entrance beckoning and seducing potential riders to enter.

Assignmnet #7 Legacy of the CCC

The Civilian Conservation Cops (CCC) was one of the many organizations created during the New Deal Program. At that time, the early part of the 1930’s, the CCC was created as a way to find employment for hundreds of young men in America. The CCC was an opportunity for young men in the not only make money at a difficult time in American history but also a way for them to give back to the community. They helped create and build our state parks into what they are today so that everyone can enjoy. Yet there is no way any of these young men could understand the lasting impact their work has had.



We our living in what some is beginning to call our “Green Revolution”. The global community, not just the United States, is starting to look for ways of creating renewable resources and the preservation of our environment. Here in America we have set aside our state and national parks as preservations of natural land. Roderick Nash, in his book “Wilderness and the American Mind”, he discusses what nature means to us as Americans and how we perceive wilderness. Wilderness used to be something we feared as a dangerous and forbidden place. This idea goes as far back as the creation story in the Bible. Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden and into the wilderness. Out migration westward across the continent was a conquest and taming of the wilderness. By 1890 the American frontier was closed and wilderness had been conquered. It was at this point that Americans began to preserve what few wild opens spaces that were left.


The work the CCC did in preserving Mount Diablo as a state park has a lasting legacy to this day. I finally was able to make my pilgrimage up the mountain and meet with an expert of the Devil Mountain. California State Park Ranger Carl Nelson is a full time ranger who has been working at Mount Diablo State Park since 1991. Ranger Nelson points to the CCC as the ones “responsible for his work now”. He sees the legacy of the CCC in both a physical and non-physical way. Many of the same facilities and buildings, such as the Summit Building, that the CCC originally built in the 1930’s and early 1940’s are still in use to this day. Ranger Nelson explained to me that very few updates and refurbishing have been done to the picnic areas and the trails have only been kept clear, never altered from their original paths. These are the physical ways in which we can see the legacy of the CCC on Mount Diablo. But the non-physical legacy is just as important and lasting. Without the initial work of the CCC there would be no way visitors could have entered the park. The park originally only consisted of the summit area and was surrounded by privately owned land. This made it impossible for anyone to travel up to the park. The CCC expanded the parklands and created all of the roads and trails that are still there. Ranger Nelson also credits the work of the CCC as the ones who created his job in the park. If the CCC had not worked to preserve our open spaces then our state parks rangers would not exist.







The CCC could not have foreseen the environmental impact their work has had on our world today. We carry the same sense of a need to preserve and maintain our few wild spaces left in our local area. The Bay Area continues to have a growing population, yet in the face of this we still keep our open spaces from turning into developed areas and tract housing. Were it not for the work of the CCC I would not be able to escape on a Sunday afternoon to find inner peace on the Devil Mountain. We can not put a price on the aesthetic beauty, the environmental impact, and the need we have to keep our own “wilderness” accessible. The CCC gave us a priceless gift whether the young men working on the trails knew it or not. The CCC was ended in 1942 as more young men were needed in the effort to fight during World War II. Other conservation groups have picked up where the CCC left off, the Youth Conservation Corps, Eastbay Regional Parks, and our state park rangers just to name a few local groups. It was the CCC that brought Mount Diablo to the people of the Bay Area.

Assignmnet #6 The Civilian Conservation Corps Tames the Evil Mountain

During the Great Depression the menacing peaks of Mount Diablo continued to loom over the East Bay. Thousands of migrants came to California having been promised jobs, only to find no employment and their condition worse off than before. Large scale public works programs were being formed under the "New Deal" projects. One of the first main works programs to gain popularity was the Civilian Conservation Corps, or simply abbreviated as the CCC. The CCC was created on March 31, 1933 with the signing of the Emergency Conservation Work Act by President Roosevelt (Engbeck). The CCC put over two million young men to work during it nine year existence. They were put to work by the government to fight forest fires, build fire roads and lookouts, and begin the conservation of America's natural spaces. By 1935 there were 30,000 CCC enrollees, mostly young men from all over the nation who could not find employment, working in California. Of that, about 7,400 enrollees were put to work in California's state and national parks. They built roads and trails though out the parks. They built the first utility systems, campgrounds and restrooms in the parks. The CCC also constructed the visitor centers and facilities needed to open California's state and national parks to the public.

It was in October of 1933 when the first CCC company came to Mount Diablo. I can only imagine what it could have been like for a young man arriving at Monte Diablo for the first time. The area in Clayton was still mostly small farms and only a few homes dotted the area. In October sunsets tend to give the sky to the southeast of Mount Diablo a sinister red color. Large harvest moons are also much more common in the autumn, and seeing a full moon creeping either up or down the peaks of the mountain will send shivers down just about any ones spine. Alone and most likely away from home for the first time the CCC enrollees had every reason to be slightly concerned about building on such a forbidding landmark.

The first CCC company to arrive at Mount Diablo was Company 590. Company 590 was from Kentucky and had received a two week training and conditioning course at the Fort Knox Army base. The Company had spent all summer working at the Calaveras Bit Trees State Park before being transferred to Mount Diablo. Company 590 would only remain to work at Mount Diablo for one year before being transferred to Elk River, Idaho. They would be replaced by two other groups of World War I veterans who were working for the CCC. The CCC completed its work on Mount Diablo in 1942. The Park would continue to expand in the subsequent decades, but it was the CCC who first opened up the Devil Mountain to the public. All of the traisl and roads constructed by the CCC are still in use today, only expanded on and maintained by the parks services.

There is no way of knowing whether or not President Roosevelt, or anyone working for the CCC, could have understood the impacts they made on todays enviromentalism. These were the first steps taken in the preservation of open and natural spaces that have become so important to our local community. The work of the CCC in California's state and national parks gave us a leg up in our modern "green movement" without even knowing it was doing it.

Here CCC workers take a break from constructing the summit trail circa 1935

The CCC began construction on the summit building in 1939. This view is overlooking the southeast toward Brentwood and Tracy.

Assignment #5

For this weeks assignment I wanted to gather some excellent photos of "The Devil Mountain" both from my own personal collection as well as from other sources. The picture above is the western side of the mountain, with Highway 24 in the foreground.

This is an awesome panoramic shot of Mount Diablo from Wikipedia (I know we are to avoid that dreaded website at all costs, but it was the only place I could find this picture. And since I am studying a Satanic mountain, it was temptation that led me to Wiki). The link here provides a much sharper and better picture than the on on the blog. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Diablo_Panoramic_From_Newhall.jpg

This is a photo of the south side of the Summit-Building, which serves as a visitor center, natural history museum, airline beacon, and fire lookout. As one of the tallest land marks in the visible vicinity, at 3,864 feet in elevation, it made a perfect choice as an observation deck. It was the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that began construction on the Summit-Building in 1939 and completed it in 1942. I will detail more about the specific CCC company that built the trails and buildings in the park in my next blog.

This is a very rare photograph to capture. This is Mount Diablo when hell freezes over. This is from last December of 2009 when a strong arctic storm from the Gulf of Alaska blew in dumping a few inches of snow throughout the Bay Area. Since Mount Diablo is at a high elevation it received a few feet of snow. Usually each winter brings only a few inches and a dusting of snow to only the peaks of Mount Diablo, such as in this photo:, but never anything as spectacular as the top picture.

These are two photos I took from last December right after the snow fell. I finished my last final for the quarter and rushed up to the Mountain so as not to miss an opportunity such as this. In the photo below you can see exactly where the snow line had melted to.




Below you can see Mount Diablo looming over downtown Walnut Creek in a foreboding manner.









This last picture is an awesome 3-D image of one hiker's trip up the Mountain. You can see the towns of Walnut Creek and Clayton in the foreground at the foot of the mountain. The image also gives incredibly detailed topography of the northwestern face of the mountain, the side I grew up looking at.
Here is the link to see the above 3-D Image from its original homepage. It is much larger than the blog would allow me to put on here http://www.rebeccabond.com/blogpics/2009_01_24/MountDiabloEmilieHike.jpg

Assignment #4 "The Devil Mountain"

This week I am focusing on my favorite park in the local area and probably the most evil and satanic place in Northern California (other than Stockton) - Mount Diablo.

The origin of Mount Diablo's name comes from a poor translation from Spanish to English. Sometime between 1803 and 1806, when Spain still maintained control over Alta California, a small contingent of Spanish soldiers came into the Diablo Valley in search of escaped mission indians. The Spanish soldiers came to a large swampy willow thicket where present day Buchanan Air Field is in Concord. The members of the Chupcan tribe who were living there managed to hide out in the willow thicket safely because the Spanish were unable to enter with out their beloved horses. Spanish military doctrine was very focused on the use of cavalry so they refused to enter and face the Chupcans in hand to hand combat. With the area surrounded by the Spanish soldiers the Chupcans made an escape late at night, safely crossing the Carquinez Straights. The Spanish soldiers, greatly embarrassed by the Chupcan's bold escape, blamed the entire affair on the Devil, which would have been a typical superstition of the Spanish Catholics of this time period. They named this place "Monte del Diablo" which translates to "Thicket of the Devil", in reference to the willow thickets that the indians had hid in. Later on when Anglo settlers began to arrive in California they mistook "monte" as the Spanish word "montana"(mountain) and fixed the name to the most obvious landmark in the area. And thus the sinister mountain received its name, Mount Diablo.

Now that we know why this place is called what it is (which is always important in any history) I want to skip ahead a few hundred years to the formation of Mount Diablo as a state park. According to the Mount Diablo Interpretive Association, in 1921 state senator William Sharkey of Martinez sponsored a bill that declared 630 acres at the summit of Mount Diablo as a State Park and game refuge. There was no money attached to the bill and only a small area at the summit of the mountain was protected while the rest of the area was still open to mining and quarry work. Six years later in 1927 Frederick Law Olmsted, a landscape designer who had developed and designed New York City's Central Park, prepared a California Park Survey for the State Park Commission. He recommended that the park be expanded and acquire 5,000 to 6,000 acres to build on the small park located only at the summit. Between 1931 and 1937 more properties were acquired to add onto the state park at the summit and along the North Gate Road.

It was in 1930, when Californians passed a $6 million bond measure, that money was finally set aside for the formation of the state park. On April 26, 1931 the park was officially dedicated and opened to the public (I just missed its 79th birthday). It was during the 1930's that the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built most to the roads, trails, buildings, campgrounds, and picnic facilities. I had absolutely no idea that it was the CCC who initially built all of these! But it makes perfect sense now that I think about it. And this sparked a whole new question and trail of thought for me to follow. What role did the CCC play in all of the local parks here and what can I find out to attribute to them? Can I find records of there work on the Mountain or any other park? Who was in charge and who worked building these trails and facilities? Back to the library with more questions.

The park continued to grow over the years, adding more acres here and there. In 1971 the non profit organization Save Mount Diablo was founded. They played a crucial role in the acquisition of all new land added to the park since they 1970's. In 1988 California passed another bond measure which provided the state park on Mount Diablo with $4 million to buy new land. During the 1980's Contra Costa County was in the middle of a population boom and as more residence came in more and more open space decreased. Today the park consists of over 90,000 acres of protected land with over 520 miles of trails.

I need to get in touch with the Save Mount Diablo foundation as well as find out more of how the New Deal affected the formation of Mount Diablo and other parks and open spaces here in the East Bay.

Assignment #3 Secondary Sources

This week my task at hand was to venture back to my favorite place in the entire city of Concord, the public library. I am looking into the history of preserved open spaces in the East Bay and since this is all local history where better to start than our local library? But alas, I encounter my first shortcoming, and I anticipated this one well in advance. The Concord Branch of the Contra Costa County Library system is not exactly on par with the others in the area. In fact it may be one of the poorest kept libraries I have ever come across. But it is the one I grew up with and know best so it is what I turn to first for any sort of research. Do not get me wrong, the place has books and plenty of information, but it is quite apparent that the budget is lacking.

I managed to find just a few good books at the Concord Library after a great deal of time searching. I picked up a few books from the "Images of America" series, one on the town of Clayton, one on the town of Pleasant Hill, and one on the California Delta (even if the last two don't yield much on my topic I still want to read them, as they are the history of the towns and places I grew up in). I also found a great guide on Mount Diablo that contains a rather extensive history of the mountain, its uses in the past, and as a park. In fact having read most of it by now, is proving to be the most compiled history I have found on Mt. Diablo. This book rocks!

The main issue I faced at the Concord Library was that most of the books I found through the computer catalogue's search engine were not at the Concord Branch, they were either at the Clayton Library or the Pleasant Hill Library. So I headed out to Clayton first. Primarily due to the budget cutbacks the Pleasant Hill Library has very limited hours on weekends and is closed on Mondays (the day I primarily reserve for all my research and school work to be done). I will have a chance to get over to the Pleasant Hill Library sometime this week to finish acquiring my secondary sources (I have about a dozen books on reserve for me there so I need to over there quick). The Clayton Library did have a few more books I was looking for. Primarily books on the history of Concord, Clayton, and Contra Costa County. I also found a guide book on all the East Bay trails, which provides me with a list of all the parks and open spaces in the area.

Most of the books I located on California's national and state parks were only at the Pleasant Hill Library, so I have yet to get my paws on those. I have plenty of reading to keep me busy of the next few weeks as I immerse myself in the history and geography of the lands I see and drive through every day. As I finish reading through each book I will go and add it to my ongoing bibliography. Some of the books I did check out don't appear to have too much information about my topic in them, and if they do not provide me with enough then I will just leave them off of the list.

One main tip off I did get from my selection of books was to investigate the Clayton Historical Society and Museum. I figured that at some point I would wind up there for this project and I know one of the future assignments will be to go to a local history museum. But as I flipped through some of the books I picked up I began to notice that nearly all of the photos were from the Clayton Historical Society, in addition to all the good primary sources used in these books. Since I was up in Clayton already I decided to take a trip downtown and find the Museum building. They are facing a budget crises as well and have limited hours only on weekends by appointment only. However I now have all of their contact information. If that place turns out to be the wealth of information it is shaping up to be, then they will never be able to get rid of me once I get my foot in the door.

Once this rain storm blows through and the weather clears up I plan on going out and doing some hiking so I should have some pictures up here soon. Just waiting on mother nature to make up her mind.

Complete Bibliography

Here is the list of websites I began my research with for Assignment #2. I will continue to add more and more to this post as time goes on and I acquire more sources.

Internet Sites:

• http://www.ebparks.org/
• http://www.facebook./EastBayParks
• http://www.nps.gov/index.htm
• http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/08/15/MNGA988H5O1.DTL
• http://www.mdia.org/
• http://www.fs.fed.us/openspace/faq.html#n1
• http://www.stateparks.com/ca.html
• http://www.parks.ca.gov/

Here is the list of books I have read through so far. About half listed are from the Clayton Library and the other half I found at the Pleasant Hill Library

• Andrews, Edna May. History of Concord its Progress and Promise. Concord Historical Society. 1986
• Bohakel, Charles A. A Pictorial Guidebook to the Mount Diablo: The "Devil" Mountain of California. 2nd rev ed. Antioch, CA. 1975
• Clayton Historical Society. Images of America: Clayton. Arcadia Publishing. San Francisco CA. 2006.
• Emanuels, George. Ygnacio Valley 1834-1970. Panorama West Books. Fresno, CA. 1985.
• Engbeck, Joseph H. By the People, For the People: The Work of the Civilian Conservation Corps in California State Parks, 1933-1941. Office of State Publishing, California. Sacramento. 2002.
• The Mount Diablo Interpretive Association. The Mount Diablo Guide. 2nd ed. Berkeley Hills Books. Berkeley, CA. 2002.
• Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 3rd ed. Vail Ballou Press. Binghamton, N.Y. 1982.
• Pettitt, George A. Clayton: Not Quite Shangri-La The Story of a California Town. The Parthenon Press. Nashville, TN. 1969.
• Salmond, John A. The Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942. Duke University Press. Durham, North Carolina. 1967.
• Weintrabu, David. East Bay Trails: Hiking Trails in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. 2nd ed. Wilderness Press. Berkeley, CA. June 2005.

Assignment #2, Internet Research

I have begun my research into the local parks and open spaces located in the East Bay Area, and luckily I have been blessed with living in an area that has so many. But first I must define the three different types of spaces I am researching because each is very similar yet very different.

A National Park is a natural or semi-natural land that has been set aside for human recreation and enjoyment as well as the protection of the environment according to the National Parks Service website. These areas are to remain protected for the sake of the environment and development on the land, either for urban needs or for industrial needs, is restricted. The National Parks Service has loads of websites about themselves and about each of the 392 areas that they oversee and protect. National Parks are considered federal territories and receive their annual budgets from the federal government. The very first National Park, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, was established in 1872 and is considered the world's first National Park. California posses 32 National Parks throughout the state.

Next are State Parks, which are similar to our National Parks but differ in one distinct way. State Parks are NOT run by the federal government but rather are under the control of state and local governments. California State Parks are protected and maintained by the California Department of Parks and Recreation and oversee 278 park areas. I see State Parks as areas that are just as important to protect and preserve but for some reason the federal government does not see it that way as well. Luckily we have the largest state park system and the California Department of Parks and Recreation protects the most diverse natural and cultural holdings of any state. Each state park has its own linked websites and information about each park. As I pry further into the depths of the online world I am coming up short on actual histories for our individual state parks, especially those in my area of the Bay. I am aware, however, that each park usually contains a small museum on the grounds that is maintained by park volunteers. It is begining to look that if I want the history on an individual park I am going to have to go visit it myself, which was half of the reason I picked this topic.

A regional park is an area that is preserved and protected for its natural beauty, historical interest, or its recreational uses. These areas are administered by a regional park board, instead of the National Park Service or other local government agency. Here in the East Bay we have the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) which oversees 65 parks and 1,100 miles of trails. The EBRPD is supported and funded through the Regional Parks Foundation which raises money to keep the parks open and for park improvements.

I have plenty of parks and areas to choose from, so now I must begin narrowing down my research to just the few parks and open spaces I want to find more about. The creation of the National Parks Service in the United States in 1916 is well documented and contains an extensive history. I am going to be putting my findings in the context of the rising sense of a need to protect the beauty of America's natural spaces. I intend on conveying the importance of our National, State, and regional parks and what roles they played in the formation of our Park Services.

Biography

Hello, my name is Kevan Santos. I am a junior at California State University East Bay in Hayward, California and I am a History Major with my area of focus being in U.S. History. The purpose of my blog is to investigate the preservation of open spaces in the East Bay Area and to present the research I find. It was not until only within the past few years that I have discovered the importance of the many parks, preservation, and protected open spaces found in the Bay Area. No where else on earth resembles the beautiful golden hills of California, the vast and bountiful Central Valley, or the impressive Sierra Nevada Mountains. The Bay Area has always been one of the most populated and fastest growing areas in the United States which has led to an immense amount of development for housing, businesses, and other human needs. Yet protected areas remain not only for our enjoyment but also for the good of the environment. I am interested in learning more about our State's national parks and the protected open spaces in the Bay Area. I am especially interested in the parks and open spaces near my home in Concord, California such as Mount Diablo, Lime Ridge, and the Black Diamond Mines. Each of these places has a reason for being where it is and has a history behind it. I can only hope my research leads me to not only answers but more questions in which I can follow.