Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve

Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve
Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve
	Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve
Location	San Francisco Bay Area (Contra Costa County)
Nearest city	Richmond, California
Area	277 acres (1.12 km2)
Created	1985
Operated by	East Bay Regional Park District

Last updated February 22, 2019

Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve (SRRP) is a regional park in Contra Costa County, California near Richmond and is part of the East Bay Regional Parks (EBRPD) system.^{[lower-alpha 1]} The park may be best known as habitat for the Alameda manzanita, which is deemed extremely rare, according to EBRPD.^[1]

A regional park is an area of land preserved on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, recreational use or other reason, and under the administration of a form of local government.

Contra Costa County is a county in the state of California in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,049,025. The county seat is Martinez. It occupies the northern portion of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, and is primarily suburban. The county's name is Spanish for "opposite coast", referring to its position on the other side of the bay from San Francisco. Contra Costa County is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Hayward, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special district operating in Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California, within the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area. It maintains and operates a system of regional parks which is the largest urban regional park district in the United States. The administrative office is located in Oakland.

History

The land on which SRRP lies was once part of the Rancho El Sobrante grant that the government of Mexico gave to Juan Jose Castro. Although the cited source gives 1840 as the date of the grant, several other sources say that the grant was made in 1841. ^{[lower-alpha 2]}

The site was owned in more recent times by Cutter Laboratories, a Berkeley-based pharmaceutical company. Cutter raised horses and cattle on the property, using blood from the animals to produce vaccines for diphtheria and tetanus. The German pharmaceutical company bought the entire Cutter company in 1974. Part of the Sobrante Ridge property was dedicated to EBRPD by a local construction company in 1980.^[1]

Cutter Laboratories was a family-owned pharmaceutical company located in Berkeley, California, founded by Edward Ahern Cutter in 1897. Cutter's early products included anthrax vaccine, hog cholera virus, and anti-hog cholera serum—and eventually a hog cholera vaccine. The hog cholera vaccine was the first tissue culture vaccine, human or veterinary, ever produced. The company expanded considerably during World War II as a consequence of government contracts for blood plasma and penicillin. After Edward Cutter's death, his three sons—Dr. Robert K. Cutter (president), Edward "Ted" A. Cutter, Jr. (vice-president), and Frederick A. Cutter—ran the company. In the next generation Robert's son David followed his father as president of the company. The Bayer pharmaceutical company bought Cutter Laboratories in 1974.

Features

The preserve covers 277 acres (1.12 km²). Flora includes oak/bay woodland, coyote brush scrub, Alameda Manzanita and open grassland.^[1]

Activities

Popular activities include: hiking, dog walking, picnicking, bird watching, bicycling (on approved trails) and naturalist programs.^[1]

Picnic tables are available on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot be reserved. There are no reservable campsites.^[1]

The preserve has three entrances: Coach Drive, Conestoga Drive and Heavenly Ridge Lane.^[1]

Trails are either dirt fire roads or single-track, multi-use trails that are not rated as wheel-chair accessible. EBRPD plans to install a wheelchair-accessible gate at the Heavenly Ridge Lane entrance in the future, but the schedule has not been announced.^[1]

Notes

↑ The name is sometimes incorrectly written as Sobrante Ridge Botanic Regional Preserve.
↑ Sobrante translates to "excess" or "left over" in English, according to EBRPD. The name was used because the land was "left over" after most of the available land had previously been granted by the government.^[1]

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References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve." East Bay Regional Park District. Accessed September 5, 2017.

External links

Coordinates: 37°57′54″N122°15′53″W / 37.96500°N 122.26472°W / 37.96500; -122.26472

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[1] The name is sometimes incorrectly written as Sobrante Ridge Botanic Regional Preserve.

[3] Sobrante translates to "excess" or "left over" in English, according to EBRPD. The name was used because the land was "left over" after most of the available land had previously been granted by the government.^[1]

[EBRPD-SRRP-2] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Sobrante Ridge Regional Preserve." East Bay Regional Park District. Accessed September 5, 2017.