El Cerrito (

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

for "The Little Hill") is a city in

Contra Costa County, California Contra Costa County (; ''Contra Costa'', Spanish for 'Opposite Coast') is a county located in the U.S. state of California, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,165,927. Th ...

, United States, and forms part of the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

. It has a population of 25,962 according to the 2020 census. El Cerrito was founded by refugees from the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 AM Pacific Time Zone, Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated Moment magnitude scale, moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli inte ...

. It was incorporated in 1917 as a village with 1,500 residents. As of the census in 2022, there were 25,583 people and 10,637 households in the city.

History

El Cerrito was founded by

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s from the

. They settled in what was then Don Víctor Castro's

Rancho San Pablo Rancho San Pablo was a land grant in present-day Contra Costa County, California given in 1823 by Governor Luís Antonio Argüello to Francisco María Castro (1775–1831), a former soldier at the San Francisco Presidio and one-time ''alcalde' ...

, adjacent to the ranch owned by the family of Luís María Peralta, the Rancho San Antonio., Mervin Belfils/El Cerrito Historical Society, October 1975/June 2006, retrieved August 1, 2007 A post office opened at the settlement in 1909 and the refugee camp became known as Rust, after Wilhelm F. Rust, its first postmaster. The village's residents did not care for the name and changed it to El Cerrito (meaning "little hill" or " knoll") in 1916, in reference to nearby Albany Hill. A year later, El Cerrito was incorporated as a village with 1,500 residents. El Cerrito was incorporated in August 1917. The communities of Stege Junction, Rust, Schmidtville, and Schindler were all included in the new city.Town Memo
(February 2, 2016)(December 7, 1910)
Campaign for Incorporation
''Newcastle News''Radin, Rick and William Love (February 3, 2016)
"El Cerrito begins planning for its centennial
, ''

East Bay Times The ''East Bay Times'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Walnut Creek, California, United States, owned by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of Media News Group, that serves Contra Costa County, California, Contra Costa and Al ...

''(December 14, 1904)
Tramp Frightens School Girl
''Evening Statesman'' The 1920 census shows that the Schmidtville community had many Italian immigrants.Historic Resource Evaluation: 1715 Elm Street, El Cerrito, California
Ver Planck Historic Preservation Consulting (December 2013) A post office operated at Schmidtville from 1900 to 1901.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the city has a total area of , all of it land. The city ranges in elevation from 20 to 934 feet, with an average elevation of . El Cerrito is located on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in the extreme southwest corner of Contra Costa County. The hilly areas of El Cerrito provide views of

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

and of the

Golden Gate Bridge The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean in California, United States. The structure links San Francisco—the northern tip of the San Francisco Peni ...

. El Cerrito is located along Interstate 80 and is near Interstate 580. It is bordered by Albany and

Kensington Kensington is an area of London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, around west of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensingt ...

to the south, the Richmond annex to the west, East Richmond Heights to the north, and Wildcat Canyon Regional Park to the east. The namesake of El Cerrito ("the little hill" in Spanish), local landmark Albany Hill, is not located in El Cerrito itself but just across the border in the municipality of Albany. The Hayward Fault runs through El Cerrito. El Cerrito is within of Berkeley to the southeast, and is approximately from the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

Berkeley

campus A campus traditionally refers to the land and buildings of a college or university. This will often include libraries, lecture halls, student centers and, for residential universities, residence halls and dining halls. By extension, a corp ...

Demographics

The 2020 United States census reported that El Cerrito had a population of 25,962. The population density was . The racial makeup of El Cerrito was 46.2%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 5.5%

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.5% Native American, 29.8% Asian, 0.2%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe th ...

, 5.5% from other races, and 12.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race were 11.8% of the population. The census reported that 99.5% of the population lived in households, 0.4% lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 0.1% were institutionalized. There were 10,483 households, out of which 29.0% included children under the age of 18, 50.1% were married-couple households, 6.9% were

cohabiting Cohabitation is an arrangement where people who are not legally married live together as a couple. They are often involved in a romantic or sexually intimate relationship on a long-term or permanent basis. Such arrangements have become incr ...

couple households, 26.3% had a female householder with no partner present, and 16.8% had a male householder with no partner present. 25.3% of households were one person, and 13.2% were one person aged 65 or older. The average household size was 2.47. There were 6,798

families Family (from ) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as ...

(64.8% of all households). The age distribution was 17.9% under the age of 18, 5.8% aged 18 to 24, 29.7% aged 25 to 44, 26.3% aged 45 to 64, and 20.4% who were 65years of age or older. The median age was 42.6years. For every 100 females, there were 94.5 males. There were 10,996 housing units at an average density of , of which 10,483 (95.3%) were occupied. Of these, 58.4% were owner-occupied, and 41.6% were occupied by renters. English was the sole home language of 70.47% of the population; other languages spoken by residents were Spanish (6.26%), Chinese (not specified, 5.96%), Japanese (2.70%), Mandarin (1.80%), Cantonese (1.57%), Persian (1.43%), Tagalog (1.30%), Korean (1.08%), French (0.90%), German (0.83%), Formosan (0.73%), Italian (0.66%), Vietnamese (0.57%), Urdu (0.50%), and 3.23% of people spoke other home languages.El Cerrito entry
MLA Data Center, retrieved October 21, 2007

Economy

San Pablo Avenue stretches the length of El Cerrito and is the primary commercial and retail corridor of the city, though there is a segment in which the businesses on the west side of the avenue are actually in Richmond Annex but have an El Cerrito postal address. El Cerrito is home to El Cerrito Plaza, a large, regional mall, served by public transit at the adjacent El Cerrito Plaza station. The shopping center is surrounded by other commercial and retail businesses along San Pablo Avenue and Fairmount Avenue, including the Cerrito Theater, a restored two-screen movie theater. The city is nominally home to

Arhoolie Records Arhoolie Records is an American small independent record label that was run by Chris Strachwitz and is based in El Cerrito, California, United States (it is actually located in Richmond Annex but has an El Cerrito postal address.) The label was ...

(actually located in Richmond Annex), part of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...

. Also located in the city was Playland-Not-At-The-Beach, a now-closed popular amusement park museum. As of the last quarter of 2023, the top 25 sales tax producers in El Cerrito are: Barnes & Noble, Chevron, CVS Pharmacy, El Cerrito Honda, Exxon, Harbor Freight Tools, Ifshin Violins, Jack in the Box, JoAnn Fabrics & Crafts, Lucky Supermarket, Marshalls, McDonald’s, Nug, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Pastime Hardware, Pet Food Express, Petco, Petvet Petfood, Ross, Safeway, STIIIZY El Cerrito, T Mobile, Trader Joe’s, Verizon Wireless, and Walgreens.

Parks and recreation

El Cerrito city parks include both recreation/sports parks as well as undeveloped nature areas. Most notable are the Hillside Natural Area open space, Huber Park (Terrace Drive), Cerrito Vista Park (Moeser Lane and Pomona Avenue), Arlington Park (Arlington Boulevard), Tassajara Park (Tassajara Avenue and Barrett Avenue), Poinsett Park (Poinsett Avenue), and the Canyon Trail Park and Art Center (Gatto Avenue). The city is home to a segment of the Ohlone Greenway (named after the Native American

Ohlone people The Ohlone ( ), formerly known as Costanoans (from Spanish meaning 'coast dweller'), are a Native American people of the Northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited ...

), a trail that runs the length of the City along a former railroad grade underneath the BART right-of-way that is popular with walkers, runners, and bicyclists, as well as the blind, deaf, and mute population.

Government

The City of El Cerrito is a Charter City that incorporated as a General Law City on August 23, 1917, and just over one hundred years later became a Charter City. The city is organized as a Council-Manager form of local municipal government, and its City Charter was adopted by the voters in November 2018. The City Council consists of five members elected at large for four-year, overlapping terms. The Council selects the Mayor for a one-year term from among its members. The Mayor and City Council provide community leadership, develop policies to guide the City in delivering services and achieving community goals, and encourage citizen understanding and involvement. The Council Members also serve as the governing body of the El Cerrito Employees’ Pension Board and the El Cerrito Public Financing Authority. The City provides police and fire services as well as recreation, streets and roads, recycling, economic development, public improvements, building, planning and zoning, and general administrative services. Residents are provided water by East Bay Municipal Utility District and sewer services through Stege Sanitary District. PG&E provides gas and electricity services, and in addition the city is a member of MCE, a public, not-for-profit electricity provider that gives all PG&E electric customers the choice of having 60% to 100% of their electricity supplied from clean, renewable sources. Library services are provided by the County of Contra Costa. The City contracts with East Bay Sanitary for garbage and green waste collection service through a franchise agreement. Comcast, AT&T, and a host of smaller companies provide telecommunication services.

Education

El Cerrito is in the

West Contra Costa Unified School District The West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD; formerly known as Richmond School District) is the school district for western Contra Costa County, California. It is based in Richmond, California. In addition to Richmond, the district ...

, a multi-city district that operates three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school in the city: *Fairmont Elementary School *Harding Elementary School *Madera Elementary School *Fred T. Korematsu Middle School (opened in 2015 at the site of the former Castro Elementary School, replacing Portola Middle School which was deemed seismically unsafe) * El Cerrito High School

Libraries

There is a branch of the Contra Costa County Library system in El Cerrito.

Transportation

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...

runs north–south through El Cerrito, with San Pablo Avenue serving as the primary surface artery.

Bay Area Rapid Transit Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes and of track, including eBART, a spur line running to Antioch, and Oakland Airport Connecto ...

serves two stations in the city – and – while

AC Transit AC Transit is the main Public transport bus service, bus transit operator in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California. AC Transit is the third largest bus operator in California, serving the western portions of Alameda and C ...

operates local bus service. El Cerrito del Norte station is a major hub for AC Transit, as well as North Bay regional bus operators including FAST, Golden Gate Transit, Vallejo Transit, Napa VINE, and WestCat. The Ohlone Greenway is part of a regional north–south active transportation route, and is a popular path for bike commuters and recreational cyclists and pedestrians.

In popular culture

* El Cerrito is mentioned in the book '' ttfn'' by

Lauren Myracle Lauren Myracle (born May 15, 1969) is an American writer of young adult fiction. She has written many novels, including the three best-selling "IM" books, ''ttyl (novel), ttyl'', ''ttfn (novel), ttfn'' and ''l8r, g8r''. Her book ''Thirteen Plus O ...

. Character Angela finds out the family is moving to El Cerrito. * El Cerrito, referred to as "Old El Cerrito", is mentioned in the book ''Star Trek: The Kobayashi Maru'' by author Julia Ecklar. While attending Star Fleet Academy in San Francisco, Cadet James T. Kirk, on failing the ''Kobayashi Maru'' test for the second time, travels to the World Library annex in Old El Cerrito in hopes of finding a solution to the test. * El Cerrito is mentioned in the song "Golden Gate Fields" by Rancid. *

Metallica Metallica is an American heavy metal band. It was formed in Los Angeles in 1981 by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich, and has been based in San Francisco for most of its career. The band's fast tempos, instrume ...

wrote ''Ride the Lightning'' and ''Master of Puppets'' in a small house in El Cerrito where the band lived for a while. Cliff Burton joined the band only if Metallica would agree to move to El Cerrito. *

Game Theory Game theory is the study of mathematical models of strategic interactions. It has applications in many fields of social science, and is used extensively in economics, logic, systems science and computer science. Initially, game theory addressed ...

's 1988 song "You Drive" mentions El Cerrito in the first line. * Cracker recorded a song titled "El Cerrito" released on their 2014 album '' Berkeley to Bakersfield''.

Notable people

Catherine Asaro Catherine Ann Asaro (born November 6, 1955) is an American science fiction and fantasy author, singer and teacher. She is best known for her books about the Ruby Dynasty, called the Saga of the Skolian Empire. Biography Catherine Asaro was b ...

, science-fiction author, grew up in El Cerrito * Jeff Atwood, co-founder of

Stack Overflow In software, a stack overflow occurs if the call stack pointer exceeds the stack bound. The call stack may consist of a limited amount of address space, often determined at the start of the program. The size of the call stack depends on many fa ...

* Paul Baloff, lead vocalist of metal band Exodus * Les Blank, documentary filmmaker (1935–2013) * Ernie Broglio, former

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

player * Doug Clifford, musician * Emily Compagno, television journalist and

Fox News The Fox News Channel (FNC), commonly known as Fox News, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conservatism in the United States, conservative List of news television channels, news and political commentary Television stati ...

host * Stu Cook, musician *

Drew Gooden Andrew Melvin Gooden III (born September 24, 1981) is an American former professional basketball player who is currently a broadcaster for Monumental Sports Network. The power forward (basketball), power forward played 14 seasons in the Nationa ...

Milwaukee Bucks The Milwaukee Bucks are an American professional basketball team based in Milwaukee. The Bucks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Central Division (NBA), Central Division of the Eastern Conference (NBA), East ...

forward, attended El Cerrito High School; during his tenure, basketball team went to and lost state basketball final * John C. Dvorak, right-wing podcaster *

John Fogerty John Cameron Fogerty (born May 28, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Together with Doug Clifford, Stu Cook, and his brother Tom Fogerty, he founded the swamp rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), for which he was th ...

and Tom Fogerty, musicians from the band

Creedence Clearwater Revival Creedence Clearwater Revival, commonly abbreviated as CCR or simply Creedence, was an American Rock music, rock band formed in El Cerrito, California. The band consisted of lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter John Fogerty, h ...

, grew up in El Cerrito; band reunited to play its last concert during 1983 El Cerrito High School reunion at

Golden Gate Fields Golden Gate Fields was an American horse racing race track, track straddling both Albany, California and Berkeley, California along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay adjacent to the Eastshore Freeway in the San Francisco Bay Area. With the closi ...

in Albany *

Karen Grassle Karen Grassle ( ; born February 25, 1942) is an American actress, known for her role as Caroline Ingalls in the NBC television drama series ''Little House on the Prairie''. Early life Karen Grassle was born in northern California and moved to ...

, actress, ''

Little House on the Prairie The ''Little House on the Prairie'' books comprise a series of American children's novels written by Laura Ingalls Wilder (b. Laura Elizabeth Ingalls). The stories are based on her childhood and adulthood in the Midwestern United States, Americ ...

'', resident of El Cerrito * Pumpsie Green, first African American to play for the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...

* Larissa Kelly, record-setting ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...

'' champion * Tung-Yen Lin,

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research List of structural elements, structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of ...

who founded T. Y. Lin International * Thomas Pridgen, former drummer for the band

The Mars Volta The Mars Volta is an American Rock music, rock band formed in 2001. The band's only constant members are Omar Rodríguez-López (guitar, producer, direction) and Cedric Bixler-Zavala (vocals, lyrics), whose partnership forms the core of the ban ...

* Susan Rasky, journalist * Maria Remenyi, Miss California USA 1966,

Miss USA Miss USA is an American beauty pageant that has been held annually since 1952 to select the entrant from United States in the Miss Universe pageant. The Miss Universe Organization operated both pageants, as well as Miss Teen USA, until 2020. ...

1966 * Alice Schwartz, co-founder of Bio-Rad Laboratories, billionaire * Marcus Semien,

player * Adam Sessler, co-host of

X-Play ''Xplay'' (previously ''GameSpot TV'', ''Extended Play'', and ''X-Play'') was a television program about video games. The program, known for its reviews and comedy skits, aired on G4 in the United States and has aired on '' G4 Canada'' in Canada ...

on G4 * Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie records * Maw Shein Win, first Poet Laureate of El Cerrito * Tess Taylor, poet and

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

contributor * Gail Tsukiyama, author * Joyo Velarde, musician * Matt Young, former

player

Notes

External links

*
El Cerrito Chamber of Commerce
{{Authority control Incorporated cities and towns in California Populated places established in 1906 Cities in Contra Costa County, California Cities in the San Francisco Bay Area 1906 establishments in California