Altamont is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Alameda County Alameda County ( ) is a List of counties in California, county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353, making it the 7th-most populous county in the state and List ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. It is located northeast of Livermore, at an elevation of in the

Altamont Pass Altamont Pass, formerly Livermore Pass, is a low mountain pass in the Diablo Range of Northern California between Livermore in the Livermore Valley and Tracy in the San Joaquin Valley. The name is actually applied to two distinct but nearby c ...

. It was in 1969 the site of the

Altamont Free Concert The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a counterculture rock concert in the United States, held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway outside of Livermore, California. Approximately 300,000 attended the concert, and some ant ...

at the

Altamont Speedway Altamont Raceway Park was a motorsports race track in the western United States, located northern California, west of Tracy. It opened on July 22, 1966, and operated under the names Altamont Speedway, Altamont Raceway, Altamont Motorsports Park ...

. Originally called The Summit, the name was changed to Altamont when the

Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by Pacific Railroad Acts, U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in N ...

arrived in 1869.

History

Altamont is derived from its former name Alta Monte (Spanish for "High Mountain"). The community was also briefly known as The Summit. A post office operated at Altamont from 1872 to 1955.

References

Unincorporated communities in California Unincorporated communities in Alameda County, California {{AlamedaCountyCA-geo-stub