Modern 'Homesteaders' Buy Another Slice of Historic Contra Costa County, Dec 23, 1953, Oakland Tribune

Modern 'Homesteaders' Buy Another Slice of Historic Contra Costa County Wed, Dec 23, 1953 – 17 · Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California) · Newspapers.com

Modern 'Homesteaders' Buy Another Slice of Historic Contra Costa County

Another historic real estate deal has taken place in what used to be called El Rancho de Laguna de Palos Colorados.

Sale of Contra Costa County's pioneer McCosker ranch at public auction for $20,000 is far removed, in terms of dollars, from the sale of the Moraga Company and its 5000 acres of land for more than $4,000,000.

But one is a virtual neighbor of the other and the McCoskers, first family to homestead in Canyon, may have an edge in history.

The ranch, 100 acres stretching from Snake Road to Skyline Boulevard at the head of the canyon, was homesteaded in 1865 in the first book of records of Contra Costa County.

The McCosker and Pereira families were related, and their combined holdings represent "the ranch," from the 1908 Official map of Contra Costa County, California : compiled from private surveys and official records, 1908

It remained in the same family until Thursday, when it was auctioned to Mr. and Mrs. Linton A. Mollath of Oakland, highest of a number of interested bidders.

In the years in between a great deal of change has come to what used to be known as Redwood Canyon ... a change which has gone from the fires of campers through the boom of the summer home era to the future of a model city for 28,000.

 

Patrick McCosker and his wife Katherine, who had come West from Philadelphia to settle temporarily in San Francisco, came into a virtual wilderness when they drove by surrey from the hamlet of Oakland over the hill and down Thornhill Road ... the original road into the canyon. [In the map above, you can see how the road continued up to what's now Skyline Boulevard, where it continued down through modern Sobrante Road to Thornhill Drive. The remainder of the road, from the switchback on Pinehurst is now a trail in Huckleberry Botanical Preserve. - MF]

There were Indians and Mexicans near the present town of Moraga and the canyon was a mecca for hunters and fishermen, but there were no neighbors when the McCoskers took the first piece of available land, near what is now the eastern end of the proposed Shepherd Canyon tunnel, to build their own home. 

 

UNCHANGED ROAD

 

Thornhill Road, virtually unchanged from that time, still winds along the edge of the property, shaded by trees and bordering one of the creeks on the ranch. Different from most of the Canyon property, the ranch has three excellent springs and enough water for several ranches.

The McCoskers built a two-story white frame house and a barn and their five children grew up in bountiful times, with good horses to ride and the wide open spaces of their own hills and the deeply wooded canyon at their feet for their playground.

When Patrick and Kathrine McCosker homesteaded a ranch in 1865 to become Canyon's first residents, they had a handsome, two-story house. When it burned in 1893, this cottage, now long deserted, took its place. In the rear is the barn, built for the McCoskers by Indians. The property has been sold at public auction.

 

The creek was lively with trout, the hills were - and still are - full of game. There were many visitors who drove down Thornhill Road and stopped at the McCoskers to pass the time of day. 

 

GASLIT HEYDAY

 

Mrs. Katherine McCosker Bohan, last owner of the ranch, reminisced before her death here in December, 1951, at the age of 86, that she could have “married 100 men” - so many were the callers at the ranch in its gaslit heyday.

Mrs. Katherine McCosker Bohan, last owner of the pioneer McCosker ranch, died here two years ago at 86.

 

An eccentric little old lady with “blue blue eyes"in her later years, she was married to Patrick Bohan, a pioneer blacksmith, whose shop was opposite the City Hall in Oakland's early days.

A year before her death, Mrs. Bohan walked 10 miles to the Canyon home where she was born, for her last look at her birthplace. But time had long since turned the place into a shambles of fallen buildings.

The house, built for the McCoskers by Indian and Mexican laborers, burned a few months after the pioneer Patrick and Katherine died on the same day, February 14, 1893. Their children built another smaller house near the original site, but they soon married and moved away.  

 

NEARBY HOMESTEAD

 

John, the oldest son, homesteaded a nearby ranch in 1888 and after his marriage, moved there to make his home. That property now belongs to his widow, Mary. Their home, built in 1896, is still standing.

The last of the McCosker children, Mrs. Margaret Kohler, died a few months ago at the age of 82 in Cloverdale, and the 12 grandchildren and other descendants, most of them residents of the Oakland area, decided to sell the original homestead. There are now five generations of the family in Oakland, with Allan Griffis, 2, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Griffis, 5450 Thomas Avenue, as the fifth. [See C.A. Kohler, a page about her mother-in-law Cordelia. - MF]

The Canyon had a law of its own in its early days and family members recall tales of a "war" in the early 70's, when the settlers drove out the Mexicans, and there was bloodshed. 

 

RAILROAD BOOST

 

They remember talk of the Hooper Lumber Company, which cut and hauled trees from the canyon by mule team to Oakland and the ferry at the foot of Broadway. The area got its biggest boost when the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern - known as Sacramento Short Line and then the Sacramento Northern - had its opening April 5, 1913, and Madrone and Pinehurst parks sprang up as elite picnic grounds. [Read more about Madrone and Pinehurst parks, and the McCosker family in Amelia Sue Marshall's excellent book, East Bay Hills, A Brief History. - MF]

The canyon now has only a few hundred residents, but its future, with a new tunnel and highway, is as rosy now as Patrick McCosker thought it would be just 88 years ago.

The Mollaths, who live at 5756 Florence Terrace, plan to tear down the old buildings and build their own home at the top of a knoll, where they can see out over the entire canyon.