Concord is the largest city in Contra Costa County, California. Take a look below for 20 amazing and fascinating facts about Concord, California, United States.
1. According to an estimate completed by the United States Census Bureau, the city had a population of 129,295 in 2019 making it the 8th largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area.
2. Founded in 1869 as Todos Santos by Don Salvio Pacheco II, a noted Californio ranchero, the name was later changed to Concord.
3. The city is a major regional suburban East Bay center within the San Francisco Bay Area, and is 29 miles (47 kilometers) east of San Francisco.
4. The valleys north of Mount Diablo were inhabited by the Miwok people, who hunted elk and fished in the numerous streams flowing from the mountain into the San Francisco Bay.
5. It is important to note Miwok and other indigenous people still live within city limits.
6. In 1772, Spanish explorers began to cross the area but did not settle there. In 1834, the Mexican land grant Rancho Monte del Diablo at the base of Mount Diablo was granted to Salvio Pacheco (for whom the nearby town of Pacheco is named).
7. Concord was founded under the name of Todos Santos (“all saints”; a name still borne by the central city plaza and park between Willow Pass Road and Salvio Street), on the initiative of Pacheco in 1869.
8. It achieved prominence in the 19th century, when most residents of Pacheco relocated to Concord to avoid the devastation of fire and flood which crippled Pacheco’s formerly booming economy.
9. Concord was incorporated on February 5, 1905.
10. The area around Concord in the surrounding Ygnacio and Clayton Valleys was a large agricultural area.
11. Crops that were grown included grapes, walnuts, almonds, wheat, hay, and even tomatoes.
12. The area to the east (now the site of the Concord Naval Weapons Station) was the site of a few enormous wheat ranches over 5,000 acres (20 km2), and was almost a sea of wheat all the way to the marshes bordering Suisun Bay.
13. During Prohibition, many vineyards were removed and replaced with walnut orchards.
14. The town of Cowell, now incorporated into Concord, produced cement.
15. The first Concord post office opened in 1872.
16. The munitions on board a Navy cargo ship exploded while being loaded during World War II, resulting in the largest number of casualties among African Americans in any one incident during that war.
17. On the evening of July 17, 1944, a massive explosion instantly killed 320 sailors, merchant seamen, and civilians working at the pier.
18. The blast was felt 30 miles (48 km) away. A subsequent refusal by 258 black sailors to load any more ammunition was the beginning of the Navy’s largest-ever mutiny trial, in which 50 men were found guilty.
19. Future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall sat in on most of the proceedings and declared that he saw a prejudiced court.
20. The city of Concord is served by the daily newspaper the East Bay Times (formerly the Contra Costa Times) published by Bay Area News Group-East Bay (part of the Media News Group, Denver, Colorado), with offices in Walnut Creek. The paper was originally run and owned by the Lesher family. Since the death of Dean Lesher in 1993, the paper has had several owners. The publisher also issues a weekly paper, the Concord Transcript for Concord and nearby Clayton.
