“Got History?”

The Contra Costa History Center has history, and they’ll bring it to us at our quarterly meeting on Friday, Nov. 4, at 6:30 p.m. at the Pinole Sportsmen’s Club, 201 Piñon Avenue. The event is free and open to the public.

The presentation will highlight the center’s vast archives. If you are doing historical research of any kind, this is the place to start.
The center’s living archive is a treasure trove of records, letters, manuscripts, diaries, legal records, photos, maps, newspapers, periodicals, and books that tell the story of our past.

The center has:

• Between 15,000 and 20,000 images that have been scanned and are available as digital files.

• A unique collection of 99 volumes of naturalization books containing 12,646 cases. This information is available nowhere else. These are essential relied upon by thousands of prospective and natural citizens who must either prove their naturalization status or are seeking genealogical information.

• More than 1,100 maps of all sizes and types, dating from 1775 to the 1990s. About two-thirds of them are described on the CCCHS website.

• County records, consisting of tax, treasurer, and school records, dating from the 1850s to the 1990s. Personal property tax assessment rolls can be used to track individual ownership, while Road District books reflect whole communities or neighborhoods. Its collection of school records is quite extensive and covers many aspects of school evolution, including attendance, rules and regulations, textbooks, and funds disbursements. Its yearbook collection covers the years from 1907-1994. The Treasurer’s Ledgers cover all aspects of county funding, from schools to roads to hospitals, and more.

• Detailed and unique special collections with information on the Mt. Diablo Quicksilver Mines, regional parks, county planning commission documents, Concord Naval Weapons Station documents, histories of Martinez and California residents and Mexican and European genealogies, and the Les Sipes photo collection.

The Contra Costa History Center, at 724 Escobar Street, Martinez, is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the first and third Saturdays of the month. www.cocohistory.org

For more information, call (510) 724-9507 or e-mail info@pinolehistoricalsociety.org