San Antonio Valley, California

San Antonio Valley
408
GNIS feature ID	232374[1]

The community of San Antonio Valley, also called San Antonio or San Antone, is located along the

History and Variant Names

The San Antonio Valley appears to have been a transitional area between the native Ohlone cultures from the San Francisco-Monterey region and the Yokuts of the San Joaquin River 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.^[2]

On April 5, 1776, the de Anza Expedition called the area El Cañada de San Vicente.^[4] The 1956 Thomas Brothers map spells it San Antone. This spelling mimics the way it is pronounced in common, modern usage by locals. It was spelled San Antone on the 1924 "Mount Boardman, California" U.S. Geological Survey 15-minute quadrangle.^{[5][6]: 1–2}

^{: 2–3, 431, 432}

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 2,133 feet (650 m).[1] The valley is traversed by San Antonio Creek, which flows northwesterward to Arroyo Valle, part of the Alameda Creek watershed.

Community

The community includes a

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

) 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,

ISBN 0-9713235-0-X

I Made a Lot of Tracks by Phil Stadtler, CP Media, Bonanza, OR, 2007,

ISBN 0-9759841-2-8

External links

• Map of San Antonio Valley
• CAL FIRE
• Area map (Nature Conservancy).
• This area is part of the Nature Conservancy Mount Hamilton Project.
• Unofficial photos of The Junction Café and area map
• Photographs of San Antonio Valley taken from the Lick Observatory from the Lick Observatory Records Digital Archive, UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections