Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Take a look below for 15 obscure and weird facts about Pleasanton, California, United States.
1. Located in the Amador Valley, it is a suburb in the East Bay region of the Bay Area.
2. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 census.
3. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton was ranked the wealthiest middle-sized city in the United States by the Census Bureau.
4. Pleasanton is home to the headquarters of Safeway, Workday, Ellie Mae, Roche Molecular Diagnostics, Blackhawk Network Holdings, and Veeva Systems. Other major employers include Kaiser Permanente, Oracle and Macy’s.
5. Although Oakland is the Alameda County seat, a few county offices are located in Pleasanton. The Alameda County Fairgrounds are located in Pleasanton, where the county fair is held during the last week of June and the first week of July. Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park is located on the west side of town.
6. Before the establishment of Pleasanton in the 1850s, an earlier settlement in the location was called Alisal. It was located on the lands of the Rancho Santa Rita near the site of an Indian ranchera, around the Francisco Solano Alviso Adobe, called El Alisal (The Sycamores), one of the earliest houses built in the valley in 1844.
7. It is still standing and serves as the centerpiece of the Alviso Adobe Community Park. Alisal, nicknamed “The Most Desperate Town in the West”, was one of the settlements located along La Vereda del Monte that was a haunt and refuge of bandits and desperados in the era following the beginning of the California Gold Rush. Main Street shootouts were not uncommon.
8. Banditos such as Claudio Feliz and Joaquin Murrieta would ambush prospectors on their way back from the gold rush fields and then seek refuge in Alisal. In the 1860s Procopio, Narciso Bojorques and others took refuge there.
9. Pleasanton is located on the lands of the Rancho Valle de San José and Rancho Santa Rita Mexican land grants. Its name came from John W. Kottinger, an Alameda County justice of the peace, who named it after his friend, Union army cavalry Major General Alfred Pleasonton. A typographical error by a recording clerk in Washington, D.C., apparently led to the current spelling.
10. In 1917, Pleasanton became the backdrop for the film Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, starring Mary Pickford.
11. The town was once home to Phoebe Apperson Hearst, who lived in a 50-room mansion on a 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) estate, now the site of Castlewood Country Club.
12. Radum Plant was a sand and gravel plant opened in 1931 by Henry J. Kaiser Co., at Radum train station, one mile east of Pleasanton.
13. Pleasanton maintains regular events for the community. Every Saturday morning a farmers’ market sets up on Angela, off Main Street. There are several parades during the year, commemorating Christmas, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, as well as kicking off the beginning of the Alameda County Fair and soccer season.
14. Beginning in the late 1990s, the Pleasanton Downtown Association organized the popular First Wednesday celebrations from May through September of each year. On the first Wednesday of summer months, Main Street was blocked to traffic and adopted a street fair atmosphere. Each First Wednesday celebration was given a theme and planned with related activities.
15. At this local event, businesses and organizations from downtown and around the Tri-Valley set up booths in the center of the street. A local band performed in the Inklings coffee house parking lot, which was closed off for dancing. The parking lot was also set up as a beergarden, with beer and wine available for consumption.
