Walnut Creek (Contra Costa County)

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Coordinates: 38°1′27″N 122°4′13″W / 38.02417°N 122.07028°W / 38.02417; -122.07028
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the stream. For the city, see Walnut Creek, California.
Walnut Creek
Arroyo de Las Nueces,
Mococo, Martinez
Physical characteristics
SourceConfluence of Las Trampas Creek and Tice Creek
 • locationWalnut Creek, California 375338N 1220335W
 • coordinates37°53′38″N 122°3′35″W / 37.89389°N 122.05972°W / 37.89389; -122.05972[2]
 • elevation144 ft (44 m)
MouthSuisun Bay
 • location
Martinez, California
 • coordinates
38°1′27″N 122°4′13″W / 38.02417°N 122.07028°W / 38.02417; -122.07028[2]
 • elevation
2 ft (0.61 m)
Basin size146 sq mi (380 km2)

The Walnut Creek mainstem is a 12.3-mile-long (19.8-kilometer)

Northern California walnut trees (Juglans hindsii) which lined its banks historically. The city of Walnut Creek, California was named for the creek when its post office was established in the 1860s.[1]

History

There are three bands of

Mt. Diablo; and the Tactan located on the San Ramon Creek in Danville
and Walnut Creek.

Today's Walnut Creek is located within the earlier site of four Mexican land grants. One of these land grants – measuring 18,000 acres (73 square kilometers) – belonged to Juana Sanchez de Pacheco, who eventually passed the land down to her two grandsons. Ygnacio Sibrian, one of the grandsons, created the first roofed home in the valley in about 1850. The grant was called Rancho Arroyo de Las Nueces y Bolbones, named after the principal waterway, Arroyo de Las Nueces (Walnut Creek), as well as for the local group of indigenous Americans (Bolbones). The Arroyo de Las Nueces or Arroyo de Los Nogales referred to the plentiful Northern California walnut trees on its banks.

The first town settler was William Slusher, who built a dwelling on the bank of Walnut Creek, which was called "Nuts Creek" by the Americans in 1849.[8]

Watershed and course

The Walnut Creek watershed basin is 146 square miles (380 square kilometers) and consists of five sub-watersheds: the Clayton Valley Drain, Pine Creek Watershed, San Ramon Creek Watershed,

Mount Diablo State Park, Diablo Foothills Regional Park, and Castle Rock Regional Recreational Area. It is joined by Galindo Creek downstream of Monument Boulevard in Concord, before it joins Walnut Creek. The 9 square miles (23 km2) Clayton Drain drains urbanized Concord through the Clayton Valley. It used to receive flows from Mount Diablo Creek before the latter was diverted into Seal Creek along the east side of the valley The drain enters the Walnut Creek channel just upstream of Highway 4. Lastly, Grayson Creek drains the eastern flank of the Briones Hills and its 23 square miles (60 km2) subwatershed includes Murderer's Creek and Hidden Valley Creek. It joins Walnut Creek from the left just downstream of Highway 4. Shortly thereafter, Walnut Creek ends as it joins Pacheco Creek[5] from the right (heading downstream). From that confluence, Pacheco Creek flows north 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) through the Concord Marsh into Suisun Bay.[9]

Ecology

Walnut Creek is one of the few San Francisco Bay Area coastal watersheds that has extant Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) spawning and rearing, in its lower watershed.[10] This is consistent with archeological records of both Chinook and coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) at CCO-309, a site dating to 1400-1500 C.E. about 12 miles (19 km) upstream from Suisun Bay in the Tice Creek Valley in the Walnut Creek watershed.[11][12]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Gudde, Erwin G. (1949). California Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
  2. ^ a b U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Walnut Creek
  3. ^ U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed October 20, 2020
  4. ^ Contra Costa County Watershed Atlas (PDF) (Report). Martinez, California: Contra Costa County Community Development Department. November 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-10-29. Retrieved October 29, 2020.
  5. ^ a b U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Pacheco Creek
  6. ^ Forester, Maria (2006). The Bay Miwok of Contra Costa County (Report). Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  7. ^ Randall Milliken; Laurence H. Shoup; Beverly R. Ortiz (June 1, 2009). Ohlone/Costanoan Indians of the San Francisco Peninsula and their Neighbors, Yesterday and Today (PDF) (Report). Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, California: National Park Service. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  8. ^ History of Contra Costa County, California. Contra Costa County, California: Brooks-Sterling Company. 1882. p. 444.
  9. ^ a b Rich Walkling; et al. (Restoration Design Group) (February 2013). Walnut Creek Watershed Inventory (PDF) (Report). Walnut Creek Watershed Council. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-10-26. Retrieved October 20, 2020.
  10. ^ Leidy, Robert A. (2007). Ecology, Assemblage Structure, Distribution, and Status of Fishes in Streams Tributary to the San Francisco Estuary, California, SFEI Contribution No. 530 (Report). San Francisco Estuary Institute. p. 194.
  11. JSTOR 27825478
    .
  12. doi:10.1577/T02-084.1
    .

External links
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