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San Ramon’s “Hey Day 1850-1915”

San Ramon Valley Historical Society Plaque #10
San Ramon was an important little village in the 19th century. The village was set at the intersection of San Ramon Valley road and the road which went west to Hayward in Crow Canyon. A bridge over San Ramon Road allowed travelers to get over the impressive San Ramon Creek.

One prominent early family was the Lynch family. At one point in the 1870s the village was dubbed Lynchville for pioneer William Lynch. His son Leo Lynch married the talented Minnie Coxhead and brought her to San Ramon where she learned to live in a rural setting. Their impressive house hosted 9 children. Viola Lynch was one of the children, a bright button who loved living in San Ramon and then wrote about the area in later years. Her memories of the village appear in the art piece which is recognized by the Historical Society as plaque #10.

In the 1980s, Sandee Wiedemann (daughter of another pioneer family) gathered together information from Viola and other sources. She saw that the incised steel piece was produced. It provides a graphic history of the San Ramon area from 1850 to 1915 and is printed on steel. Included are the names and locations of historic homes and ranches and shows the San Ramon Branch Line track ending east of San Ramon.