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October 2016 Mount Diablo – Magnet for Early 20th Century Motorists By Jody Morgan
Serving the Lafayette Community
As soon as roads to the summit of Mount Diablo were completed in 1915, intrepid motorists began using the steep grades to test their driving prowess. Eager for proof of superior performance to advertise, automobile manufacturers used the Mount Diablo climb to establish reliability of their products. Challenge trophies brought professional competitors. Amateurs vied to clock the fastest time from Oakland to the top. The era ended and was almost forgotten after 1931 when Mount Diablo State Park acquired the roads.
Knitted Knockers By Fran Miller
High-gear motoring contests on Mount Diablo were headline news in the early 20th century. (Clipping courtesy of the Blackhawk Museums)
Raised in Danville, Robert Noble Burgess enjoyed a view of what was then the Railroad Ranch from his boyhood home. Owners, Seth and Dan Cook willed the ranch to their niece, Mrs. John F. Boyd, who turned it into Oakwood Park Stock Farm. In 1912 the entrepreneurial Burgess bought the property. He continued purchasing parcels, eventually negotiating for land at Mount Diablo’s summit. Burgess founded Mount Diablo Park Club (now Diablo Country Club) with plans for a 13,000-acre development of summer homes on the mountain’s western face. To lure affluent investors visiting the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition to fall in love with the panoramic view from Mount Diablo, he convinced the Oakland, Antioch, & Eastern electric railway to extend service from Oakland to his Diablo community. Building macadamized roads up the mountain from both the Northgate and Southgate sides was a major undertaking. Pathways had to be blasted through the primarily stone and shale surface. In memoirs Burgess writes: “The blasting holes had to be drilled as deep as 30 feet, and that was in the day of hand drills.” “Robert Noble Burgess founded Diablo Country Club in 1914, a time when country clubs were the natural next step from city clubs. For those with the means and the leisure time, there were two fast emerging activities in America, golf and a sport called motoring. The mountain became the perfect backdrop for both,” explains David Mackesey, Diablo Country Club Historian and three-time President. Headlines in the June 2, 1915 Daily Gazette announced: “First Auto Ascends to
Local Postal Customer
It was Barbara Demorest’s physician who directed her to a noninvasive aesthetic solution following her double mastectomy in 2011. He asked Demorest, a Washington state resident, if she was a knitter and showed her a photo of a “knitted knocker” with an online link to the pattern. Too frail to undertake the knitting project herself, she asked a dear friend to make a pair for her. The handmade knockers did the job, and were light and comfortable. It was after her first “wearing” that Demorest resolved to make the item readily available to local mastectomy patients, and thus, KnittedKnockers.org was born. Demorest’s initial goal was to provide free and accessible knitted knockers to anyone who needed them in her county. Over the past five years, her efforts have expanded worldwide to include a network of volunteer knitters and crocheters – such as East Bay resident Kara
See Knockers continued on page 20
Girl Scouts from left to right: Maile Broad, Keri Wendt, Madison Price, Jordan Pratt
Girl Scout Silver Award Project
Four members of the 8th grade Lafayette Girl Scout Troop #32238 recently completed the work required for their Silver Award. Maile Broad, Jordan Pratt, Madison Price, and Keri Wendt hosted an event for Stanley Middle School’s incoming 6th grade girls. The 8th grade girls remembered the feelings of anxiety and confusion that many Volume X - Number 10 3000F Danville Blvd #117 See Motorists continued on page 16 5th grade girls feel when they Alamo, CA 94507 start middle school and wanted Telephone (925) 405-6397 PRSRT STD to make the 5th grade girls feel Fax (925) 406-0547 U.S. Postage editor@yourmonthlypaper.com more comfortable and excited PAID about coming to Stanley. Their Alisa Corstorphine ~ Publisher Permit 21 opinions expressed herein belong to the writers, and Lafayette, CA event, held in early May, was the The do not necessarily reflect that of Lafayette Today. Lafayette Today is not responsible for the content of any of the adfinal part of a year-long journey ECRWSS vertising herein, nor does publication imply endorsement.
See Scouts cont. on page 21