Planning Commission Supplemental Materials 11-12-25 (2)

CULTURAL RESOURCES SURVEY REPORT 4400 Black Ave 9 PLEASANTON The village of Pleasanton was subdivided in 1869, when the transcontinental railroad sited a station on property belonging to John Kottinger and Joshua Neal, both of whom had married into the Bernal family. The town was named for Union cavalry general Alfred Pleasonton, a friend of Kottinger’s. In the 1870s and 1880s Pleasanton became the entrepôt for agricultural goods produced in the Amador- Livermore Valley, which included hay, grain, grapes, and hops in this early period. The town incorporated in 1894 and continued to develop civic and commercial institutions into the 1930s. Prohibition saw an economic shift in the area from wine grapes to dairy farms, while the advent of the Second World War led to the establishment of Camp Parks and other military facilities in the valley, which provided an increasing source of employment (MacLennan 2014; Wainwright 2007). The establishment of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1950 and the construction of Interstates 580 and 680 in the 1960s spurred rapid suburbanization throughout the Amador- Livermore Valley. However, the area north of Pleasanton was mostly planted in hops until the 1960s, when light industrial developments – including a Volkswagen distribution center at the I-580/I-680 interchange and a cluster of publishers’ distribution warehouses south of downtown Pleasanton – changed the character of the area (MacLennan 2014:130). The San Ramon Village development, which in 1960 began constructing 4000 homes in Dublin, prompted Pleasanton to annex most of the land south of I-580 by 1971. Between 1960 and 1971, Pleasanton increased its size by over 700%; most of the new land was developed residentially (MacLennan 2014:124-127). HISTORY OF THE PROJECT AREA The project area was within the part of Rancho Valle de San José that belonged to Juan Pablo Bernal (1810-1878). Bernal was a scion of a prominent and extensive Spanish-Mexican family: his grandfather was a member of the 1775 Anza Expedition, and his father was the recipient of Rancho Santa Teresa (Stuart and Stuart 1966:63-64). Bernal grew up in San Francisco and San José; in 1832 he married Rafaela Feliz (1817-1871), and the couple split their time between their house in San José and his parents’ residence on Rancho Santa Teresa. After being granted Rancho Valle de San José, Bernal remained in Santa Teresa and San José and installed mayordomos to manage his grant lands and oversee the vaqueros, cattle, sheep, and horses (MacLennan 2014:24-26; Wainwright 2007:15). The U.S. conquest of California in 1847, followed by the discovery of gold, brought a vast new wave of settlers to the state, many of whom were eager to seize the sprawling rancho lands. Hoping to protect his assets, Bernal decided to finally move to his rancho lands and establish residency. In 1852, he built an adobe located on the north side of the Arroyo del Valle and moved his family there. This adobe, no longer standing, is said to have been where the Amador Valley High School tennis courts are now, approximately 200 feet south of the project area (Stuart and Stuart 1966:66; Wainwright 2007:20). Analysis of early plat maps places it approximately 350-400 feet southwest of the project area (see Historical-Period Archaeological Sensitivity section; Figure 6) Bernal was unable to recover from losses suffered during the drought of 1862-1864, and in 1866 sold his last 7,000 acres of Rancho Valle de San José, including the project area, to Joseph Black (1833- 1887), a native of New Jersey (Wood 1883:851; Wainwright 2007:20, Allardt 1874). Black and his