Walnut Creek is a largely
affluent
suburb
several miles east of
Oakland
in
Contra Costa County
,
California
,
USA
, in the
East Bay
region of the
San Francisco Bay Area
. While not as large as the neighboring
Concord
, Walnut Creek serves as the business and entertainment hub for the neighboring cities within central
Contra Costa County
(due in part to its location at the junction of the highways from Sacramento and San Jose (
I-680
) and San Francisco/Oakland (
SR-24
). As of the
2000 census
, the city had a total population of 64,296.
Walnut Creek was first known as The Corners, where two roads leading from
Pacheco
and
Lafayette, California
met. This Corner is now known as the Mt. Diablo Boulevard and North Main Street intersection. The first settler of the area was William Slusher, who built a dwelling on the bank of Walnut Creek, which was then known as Nuts Creek in
1849
. Today, Walnut Creek has been routed underneath downtown through a series of tunnels starting at the southwest end of Macy s and ending just southwest of The Cantina Restaurant. Slusher s dwelling was built in the area of modern-day Liberty Bell Plaza.
Milo Hough of Lafayette built the hotel named Walnut Creek House in the corners in
1855
. A
blacksmith
shop and a store soon joined the hotel, and a year later, Hiram Penniman (who built
Shadelands Ranch
) laid out the town site and realigned the Main Street of today.
In December
1862
a
U.S.
Post Office
was established, and the community was named Walnut Creek. The downtown street patterns laid out by pioneer Homer Shuey on a portion of one of his family s large cattle ranches in
1871
-
1872
are still present today.
On
October 21
,
1914
, the town and the surrounding area of 500 acres (2 km ), were incorporated as the 8th city in
Contra Costa County, California
.
A branch line of the
Southern Pacific
railroad ran through Walnut Creek until the early 1960s. The mainline of the
Sacramento Northern
Railway also passed through Walnut Creek. Both railroads had stations here. Today, the Pittsburg-Baypoint-San Francisco line of the
Bay Area Rapid Transit
(BART) serves Walnut Creek with a station adjacent to Highway 680.
Politically, Walnut Creek used to be a
Republican
stronghold, but is increasingly leaning
Democratic
[citation needed
]
.
Walnut Creek has recently undergone major development in its downtown area, which growing cities throughout the nation have looked to as a model[citation needed
]
. The city government has successfully attracted upscale retailers while maintaining a degree of economic diversity.
Walnut Creek Community Links
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