Welcome to San Ramon, CA

Posted on 23. Dec, 2009 in Fine Living in the San Ramon Valley

The city of San Ramon organizes various community events each year. The annual San Ramon Art &Wind Festival, the Black & White Ball and the 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular are just some of the events residents look forward to each year.

This festival is held in mid to late May of each year. The event generally includes over 200 arts & crafts booths, kite flying demos by professionals from all over the country and Canada, free kite making workshops for youth, entertainment on 3 stages and a kids activity area. Food booths are operated by local non-profits that raise much-needed funds for their organizations.

This dance is a popular event among adults in the San Ramon Valley. Held annually in the Fall, residents attend this elegant affair in black and/or white evening wear. Local area businesses generally host the festivities or cater the event that lasts late into the evening.

Always one of the largest fireworks displays in the area, East Bay residents travel from near and far to watch the celebration. The event takes place each year at San Ramon’s Central Park, where many people spend the afternoon listening to live music and picnicking. The nighttime spectacular is always choreographed to music played on a local area radio station.

San Ramon Creek was named after a vaquero, Ramon, who tended Mission sheep here and who was later the administrator at Mission San Jose. Don Amador, in a land title case in 1855, explained that “San” was added to the creek’s name to conform with Spanish custom.

American settlers came to San Ramon in 1850, when Leo Norris purchased 4,450 acres from Don Amador. He and his partner William Lynch built the first frame house (made of redwoods from Oakland) and planted the first barley crop. In 1852 Joel and Minerva Fowler Harlan built their first home on today’s county line; James Dougherty bought 10,000 acres from Amador; and Major Samuel Russel settled on 600 acres near Norris Canyon.

Many of the people who founded San Ramon are remembered today because their names grace various canyons, hills and streets. Some of these pioneers were Norris, Lynch, Harlan, Mccamley, Crow, Cox, Bollinger, Fereira, Boone, Meese, Glass and Wiedemann. Initially the Americans called the area Brevensville, Lynchville and Limerick, after early settlers Eli Breven, William Lynch and the large Irish population. The first village developed adjacent to San Ramon Creek at the intersection of Old Crow Canyon Road and San Ramon Valley Boulevard. When a permanent post office was established in 1873, it was called San Ramon.

With the arrival of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s San Ramon branch line in 1891, other changes took place. The name “San Ramon” permanently replaced Limerick. Crops and passengers were now able to travel to and from the area, no matter what the weather did to the roads. Until 1909 it was the terminus for the line and the most prosperous village in the Valley.

In 1895 attorney Thomas Bishop bought 3,000.acres of Norris land on which he raised cattle and sheep and planted hay and grain. Bishop Ranch Shropshire pure-bred sheep earned numerous awards in the early 20th century. Later huge pear and walnut orchards covered the land, helping to make the valley the “pear capital of the world”. As with the entire Valley, agriculture was the basis for San Ramon’s economy until the 1960’s when the new state highway, 1-680, was completed. Developers Ken Volk and Bob McClain built the first suburban homes at the County line: “Country quiet, City close” was their radio theme song. A special district, the Valley Community Services District (VCSD) provided urban services for these new homes, including parks, sewer, water, fire protection and garbage collection. In 1983, San Ramon voters decided by an overwhelming vote to incorporate as a separate city and took control over development, police, parks and other services. A new library, community center, city hall, park and hospital testify to the energy which the new city released. No longer a quiet outskirts of the Bay Area, San Ramon looks to the future and values its past.

A developer’s decision more than a decade ago to build a business park rather than another anonymous housing tract put this city on the map. Alex Mehran foresaw the need of many San Francisco companies to shift their back-office operations from expensive quarters downtown to more competitive space in the suburbs. Mehran transformed 585 acres of orchards into Bishop Ranch Business Park. More than 16,500 people now work there, many at regional headquarters for Pacific Bell and Chevron. Bishop Ranch changed the character of the city from a bedroom community to a major employment center.

Since the mid-’80s, the community’s population has grown by more than 50 percent, from 23,000 to 42,000. Longtime residents are amazed by the pace of development. A decade ago, Twin Creeks homeowners had to go to Danville to find a supermarket, and San Ramon boasted only two overworked parks. The city now has more than seven shopping centers, 12 parks, a hospital, a library, a community center and a senior center.