El Cerrito Historical Timeline
As El Cerrito celebrated the 100th anniversary of its incorporation in 1917, the El Cerrito Historical Society compiled this look back at some important dates in our history.
Circa 3,000 B.C. Native American settlements tracing back perhaps 12,000 years can be found in El Cerrito and nearby areas.
1772 Captain Pedro Fages, the military governor of Alta California, and Father Juan Crespi explore the area.
1776 Lt. Col. Juan Bautista de Anza and Father Pedro Font bring settlers to Monterey and explore the land on the east side of the bay.
1839 The first non-native settlers, Victor Ramon Castro and his wife Luisa Martinez, settle on “Rancho el Cerrito” at the south end of Rancho San Pablo. They built an adobe at what is today the site of El Cerrito Plaza. The family raises cattle, establishes a wharf at Point Isabel and leases land to tenant farmers and other businesses.
Circa 1868 El Cerrito area gets its first school, Castro School. Victor Castro approved construction on his land near the Adobe.
1876 The California & Nevada Railway is built through what will become El Cerrito. In 1902 the route is purchased by the Santa Fe Railway and decades later by BART.
1879 El Cerrito gets its first tavern and dance hall, the Seven Mile House, at the southern end of town on what is today the site of Mechanics Bank. Owner John H. Davis leases the site on San Pablo Avenue from Victor Castro.
1880s The first of several gunpowder works operates in the area. The Vigorite Powder Works plant is built on Point Isabel, with the Chinese workers living along Albany Hill.
1888 William Rust, a German immigrant, leases land from Victor Castro and opens a blacksmith shop close to the Seven Mile House, at today’s site of Pastime Hardware. In 1909 Mr. Rust opens the “Rust” post office on the site and the hamlet takes on that name.
1894 The court case Emeric v. Alvarado resolves land titles in west Contra Costa County. This makes it possible for people to buy land, which fosters development.
1894 The residential subdivisions that would fill El Cerrito with homes into the 1960s get underway when Berkeley real estate man George Schmidt creates lots for “Schmidt Village,” around today’s Schmidt Lane. Other subdivisions follow.
1904 The first streetcar line arrives in the area. The East Shore and Suburban’s electric line connects Oakland and Richmond via San Pablo Avenue. The stops include “County Line,” San Pablo Avenue near Fairmount and Stege Junction (at San Pablo and Potrero Avenues.)
1906 The San Francisco earthquake sends residents moving to the East Bay – including the Rust, Schmidtville and Stege Junction areas.
1907 A volunteer fire department is created, first with a hand-drawn hose cart, then in the 1920s with two Ford Model-T trucks.
1908 Sunset View Cemetery opens just up the hill from the Seven Mile House in what is today Kensington. A horse-drawn carriage greets visitors at the streetcar stop and conveys them to the cemetery.
1913 Community leaders create Stege Sanitary District to install sewers that will provide for residential growth. This requires support from the 285 voters who lived in Rust, Stege Junction, Schmidtville and the surrounding area. The first sewers are installed in 1914.
1913 The El Cerrito area gets a public library and Fairmont School teacher Fay Breneman becomes the first librarian. Fay was the daughter of Dr. Joseph Breneman, the community’s first doctor. About Fairmont School, which opened about 1900, she said it had “four teachers, two good rooms and two shacks.”
1917 El Cerrito incorporates, following a close vote of 158 to 131. In order to win, backers of the new city had carefully counted noses and decided to leave out areas dominated by “dairymen” and “saloon keepers,” who likely would have voted no – Kensington plus the area west of San Pablo Avenue and south of San Jose Avenue.
1920. El Cerrito gains a reputation as a “wide-open town” as speakeasies flourish after the Volstead Act bans the sale of liquor. Gambling and nightclubs had been popular in town at least since the mid-1910s. Along with speakeasies come prostitution and other vice.
1927 Our city gets a real police department, replacing a “marshal.” Chief Forrest Wright has three officers. El Cerrito got its first jail, on Fairmount Avenue, in 1924.
1932 El Cerrito gambling goes big time with the opening of mobster “Black Jack” Jerome’s El Cerrito Kennel Club. It was a greyhound racetrack near the Castro Adobe, which at the time was the used as the el Rancho San Pablo club.
1935 The Chung Mei Home, a safe place for Chinese boys whose parents were unable to care for them, outgrows its home in Berkeley and moves to El Cerrito. It didn’t close until 1954. In 2013 it was determined eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places with support from the historical society.
1938 Residents rise up against the dog track, seeking to close it as public nuisance, citing noise, rats and fleas, and attracting a “bad element” to town. A year later California Attorney General Earl Warren orders the place shut.
1942 Fear grips El Cerrito as World War II starts. “Sand is the best method of combating incendiary bombs,” Richmond’s fire chief advised, and high school seniors on the school roof keep watch for enemy aircraft. The Japanese flower growers and their families who occupied parts of El Cerrito and Richmond are forcibly moved inland to internment camps. Many young men from El Cerrito join the battle overseas and a number are killed.
1944 Boom times during World War II. The city gains 10,000 people during the war. Some left afterwards, but a number stayed and many more followed.
1946 A recall vote led by the Good Government League sweeps out corrupt city leaders by a margin of two-and-a-half to one. It removes three councilmen and weeks later voters replace them with members of the League.
1949 Sundar Shadi begins El Cerrito’s beloved holiday tradition when he inaugurates his holiday display on Arlington Boulevard with a single star. It evolved over the years into an elaborate display featuring handmade sheep, camels shepherds, other figures relating to the Nativity, as well as dozens of small structures representing the town of Bethlehem. People come from a wide area to view the display, which continues today thanks to volunteers.
1955 The unincorporated “Bayview” area (south of San Jose Avenue and west of Carlson Boulevard) is annexed by El Cerrito after a vote by its residents. This action brings the city to its present borders. The last gambling saloon, the Wagon Wheel, is soon shuttered.
1956 The city’s oldest building, the Castro Adobe (California Landmark #356), is destroyed by an arson fire.
1958. El Cerrito Plaza, one of the Bay Area’s first modern shopping malls, opens for business on the former site of the Castro Adobe and of the Kennel Club.
1959. Contra Costa Civic Theatre, a community theater company, is founded by Louis and Bettianne Flynn.
1964 The “Pennies for Parks” bond issue to create more parks in the city wins at the ballot box. Over the next few years many of today’s most popular parks are created.
1965 Maria Remenyi, who lived in El Cerrito and graduated from El Cerrito High in 1963, is crowned Miss Oakland and Miss California. She goes on to win the Miss USA title in 1966 and is a finalist at the Miss Universe pageant in Miami.
1967 The El Cerrito Branch of the NAACP is formed, thanks to A.J. Radford. He serves as its first president.
1968 Creedence Clearwater Revival emerges from El Cerrito and becomes one of the most popular rock bands in the nation and selling more than 50 million LPs worldwide.
1972 Concern about over-development crystallizes around plans to build housing on the former site of the Chung Mei Home. This led to a voter revolt against what many saw as uncontrolled growth. The city’s population topped out in the late 1960s at about 25,500.
1972 Two BART stations are built in town, displacing a number of homes and businesses but enabling a mass transit system that is central to El Cerrito today.
1972 Volunteers create a recycling center that remains one of the city’s most loved institutions. The El Cerrito Recycling Center is one of the first and longest-lasting municipal recycling centers in the nation.
1984 The It Club, the last nightclub from the city’s heyday, closes. The building is remodeled into a dental office.
1996 Friends of Five Creeks takes on the task of caring for Cerrito Creek, one of its namesake five waterways. Volunteers with Five Creeks have daylighted parts of the creek, helped install paths and interpretive signs and worked to preserve habitat.
1999 The first WorldOne Festival takes place on July 4. Founded by El Cerrito High teacher Corey Mason, the festival built on the July 4 event hosted for years by the El Cerrito Rotary Club. It features world music performers, events for kids, community groups and more. Over the years it has become the city’s largest social gathering.
2006. After going dark in the 1960s, the Cerrito Theater cinema reopens thanks to a groundswell of support from the community, as well as from the city - which purchases the building and leases it to an operator.
2009 El Cerrito finally gets a real city hall, with completion of a “green building” that has large windows for natural light, recycled and sustainably harvested wood, and rain gardens. For years city offices were in trailers, and before that city offices were in a converted garage.
2017 El Cerrito projects major population growth, perhaps the greatest since World War II, as multi-unit projects are planned or being built. The city projects 780 dwelling units between current and proposed projects.
2017 El Cerrito marks its centennial with dozens of tours, talks, parties, a gala, a parade, a time capsule and more.