The community of San Antonio Valley, also called San Antonio or San Antone, is located along the
Diablo Range in eastern
Santa Clara County, California
Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259, as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County together ...
. The locale is bordered by
Alameda County to the north and
Stanislaus County to the east. The sparsely populated area is located at the junction of San Antonio Valley Road, Mines Road, and Del Puerto Canyon Road. The area includes the
San Antonio Valley Ecological Reserve, a 3,282 acre nature preserve created by a
Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is a global environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. it works via affiliates or branches in 79 countries and territories, as well as across every state in the US.
Founded in 1951, The Natu ...
purchase of land from local rancher, Keith Hurner, and known for its herd of
tule elk.
History and variant names
The San Antonio Valley appears to have been a transitional area between the native
Ohlone
The Ohlone, formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the ...
cultures from the San Francisco-Monterey region and the
Yokuts
The Yokuts (previously known as MariposasPowell, 1891:90–91.) are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to central California. Before European contact, the Yokuts consisted of up to 60 tribes speaking several related languages. ''Yokut ...
of the
San Joaquin River
The San Joaquin River (; es, Río San Joaquín) is the longest river of Central California. The long river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through the rich agricultural region of the northern San Joaquin Valley before reaching ...
watershed. The Ohlone are speculated to have arrived in the Bay Area around 500 A.D. when they displaced Hokan speaking populations already in the region.
[
On April 5, 1776, the de Anza Expedition called the area El Cañada de San Vicente.][Frank F. Latta, JOAQUIN MURRIETA AND HIS HORSE GANGS, Bear State Books, Santa Cruz, California. 1980.]
La Vereda del Monte traversed the valley on its way between the Sacramento River Delta and the Central Valley and was used by Joaquin Murrieta
Joaquin Murrieta Carrillo (sometimes spelled Murieta or Murietta) (1829 – July 25, 1853), also called the Robin Hood of the West or the Robin Hood of El Dorado, was a Mexican-American figure of disputed historicity. The novel '' The Life and ...
to transport stolen horses included among legally obtained mustangs taken by mesteñeros in the San Joaquin Valley
The San Joaquin Valley ( ; es, Valle de San Joaquín) is the area of the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California that lies south of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and is drained by the San Joaquin River. It comprises seven ...
. San Antonio Valley was one of the places along the Vereda where these horses were picked up from holding places nearby in Adobe Canyon
Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of ea ...
and Isabel Valley.[
The U.S. Postal Service established a Deforest Post Office in the area during 1892. It was moved within the area in 1897, 1906, and finally closed in 1909. Another 1924 map calls a group of buildings along San Antonio Creek, Deforest. The name comes from Ransford S. Deforest, the first Postmaster in the community.
]
Geography
The community lies in the ''San Antonio Valley'', at elevation .Alameda Creek
, name_etymology = Spanish
, image = Bridgeatnilesrivercalifornia.JPG
, image_caption = Alameda Creek at Niles, Fremont
, map =
, map_size =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = US ...
watershed.
Community
The community includes a CAL FIRE station at 47405 Mines Road. The station is called, Sweetwater - Station 25 and is part of the Santa Clara Ranger Unit, ( Firescope mutual aid identifier SCU).
There is a restaurant at the junction of the three roads (Mines, San Antonio Valley, Del Puerto Canyon), appropriately called The Junction Bar and Grill. This restaurant serves as a community center as well as a stopping-off point for the many motorcycles, bicycles, and tourists that travel the roads.
Telephony
The area was served by manual telephone service until deregulation forced the arrival of dial service in the early 1980s. Prior to this, a non-dial Western Electric 1A1 coin telephone served on San Antonio Road about one mile east of the Observatory. Its telephone number was ''San Antonio California Toll Station Number 3''. Today, wired telephone numbers for the area follow the format (408
__NOTOC__
Year 408 ( CDVIII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Bassus and Philippus (or, less frequently, year 1161 ' ...
) 897-xxxx. The telephone utility serving this area today is Frontier Communications.
References
Sources
*''Santa Clara County Street Atlas'', (1956 Edition), George Thomas.
Books about the area
''Red Mountain: The Rise and Fall of a Magnesite Mining Empire, 1900-1947'' by Robert W. P. Cutler, Morris Publishing, 2001,
''I Made a Lot of Tracks'' by Phil Stadtler, CP Media, Bonanza, OR, 2007,
External links
Map of San Antonio ValleyCAL FIREArea map (Nature Conservancy).
* ttp://www.sonic.net/~jps/bikes/MtHam/SAntJct.html Unofficial photos of The Junction Café and area mapbr>Photographs of San Antonio Valley taken from the Lick Observatory from the Lick Observatory Records Digital Archive, UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections
{{authority control
Unincorporated communities in Santa Clara County, California
Diablo Range
Unincorporated communities in California
Valleys of Santa Clara County, California
La Vereda del Monte