East Bay Redwoods

The San Francisco Bay Area's Berkeley Hills are a member of the Inner Coast Ranges and generally exhibit vegetation characteristic of the dry California chaparral and woodlands biome.

Gibbons of the California Academy of Sciences identified the Rainbow trout under the taxonomic system,[5] calling them Salmo Irideus, they have since been reclassified as Onchorhynchus mykiss.

It is believed that the unique combination of coastal fog and ample sunlight in the inland East Bay provides optimal growth conditions for redwoods.

[7] The lack of urban development and favorable instream conditions have allowed these trout to persist, though they are threatened by drought and human interference in their habitat.

[2] Permanent and semi-permanent habitation sites have been identified within the redwoods which are a testament to a continued native presence in the area for centuries.

With the Spanish cession of Alta California to Mexico in 1821, commercial exploitation of the east bay redwoods continued on a small scale.

[8] Many of them would end up spending time in the east bay redwoods as they offered one of the most easily obtainable sources of wealth in the territory.

As mission and rancho land in the east bay was privatized and settled through the second half of the 19th century, demand for timber increased further to build new towns and other projects.

The 1850s saw a flurry of logging activity in response to the flood of American settlers in the territory;[8] James Lamson, a one-time logger and diarist wrote of the scene in the east bay redwoods in 1853:

During the first half of the 1850s, lumber produced by the mills in the east bay redwoods fueled the growth of towns like Martinez, Benicia, Hayward and Walnut Creek.

[2] The present city of Lafayette, California formed as the result of it being a natural stopping point for ox teams hauling redwood timbers to the port at Martinez.