Save Mount Diablo
Protecting the Mountain Since 1971
Fall 1998, No . 24
Blackhawk & The MountainA Twentieth Century History By Beverly Lane
T
oday the name Blackhawk conjures up a vision of luxury homes situated a few miles east of Danville at the foot of Mount Diablo. But Blackhawk is a development of fairly recent vintage. Its proposal in the 1970s was so controversial that the debates that raged around it were called "The Blackhawk Wars." Blackhawk Ranch was established in 1917 when Ansel Mills Easton and his son-in-law William Q. Ward purchased 1200 acres east of the San Ramon and Sycamore Valleys. Architect Louis Muffgardt designed a large house for the two families and the ranch was named for a famous Irish race horse, called Black Hawk, which Easton's family had owned decades earlier. In 1934 the ranch was sold to Raymond Force, owner of the Caterpillar Tractor Company. Mr. and Mrs. Force initially used the Ranch as a summer home, where they planted one hundred acres of walnuts and raised Arabian horses and Hereford cattle. The size of the ranch was increased by purchasing the adjacent Wilson, Frietas, Sousa, Frick and Goold properties. The Forces moved from Piedmont to the Ranch in 1941 and Mrs. Force, an ardent gardener, planted and maintained a beautiful garden and grounds. Force also used the land to test new versions of farm equipment and tractors, transporting the experimental vehicles under wraps so they could be tried out in secret. Force donated 97 acres near Curry
Point for use by the Boy Scouts. Castle and Cook Ltd. acquired the Ranch after Force died and owned it from 1956 to 1964. In 1988 the "Boy Scout Camp", as
Blackhawk developer Bob Carrau gave this caricature to County Planning Director Anthony Dehaesus. The Blackhawk development controversies did have their lighter moments.
it was known, was acquired by the State for addition to Mt. Diablo State Park. One Saturday in the sixties, Howard Peterson (owner of Peterson Tractor) learned the Blackhawk Ranch was available. In the habit of going north from his ranch to get his hair cut in Danville, he recalled that one day Bill Flett, of Geldermann Realtors, saw him in the barber shop. Flett said to him "Howard, how' d you like to buy l
the Blackhawk Ranch? It's up for sale." Peterson, who had long admired Force and the Blackhawk Ranch, said he could hardly wait to get out of the barber chair. He bought all 6500 acres of the Ranch in 1964, which included the Easton-Ward house, 140 acres of walnuts, 500 acres of hay, 1000 head of beef cattle and seven acres of gardens. Peterson said he and his wife loved the ranch. They remodeled the house, grew walnuts, grazed cattle and raised quarter-horses. Like other large ranchers, they had a walnut processing plant at the ranch. One year Peterson sold 103 tons of walnuts to Diamond. When EBMUD was expanding and came to Diablo Country Club, the policy was "to bring water to people's yards near the main pipeline." Peterson convinced EBMUD that he simply "had a big yard" and the entire ranch went into the water district's service boundary. At the time of his purchase in 1964, Castle and Cook was in the process of transferring 2100 acres to Mount Diablo State Park. Peterson accepted this transaction as a completed fact, since he understood it was "sell or be condemned." These acres included part of BBQ Terrace near Wall Point, much of Curry Canyon and the Knobcone Point area, including Balancing Rock. Howard Peterson said that he sold Blackhawk because the county reassessed the Ranch as a potential subdivision, raising the taxes to $100,000 a Continued on next page