Although there is no formal definition of the neighborhood, the general boundaries are Highway 24 to the north, Joaquin Miller Road to the south, the city of Piedmont to the west and the Contra Costa County border to the east.

The center of the neighborhood is a compact shopping district known as Montclair Village, which is located next to Highway 13 in the bottom of the valley.

Prior to the Spanish Mission era, native Huchiun and Jalquin tribes of Ohlone Indians populated the general area.

In 1820, Montclair and Dimond Canyon were part of the land from El Cerrito to San Leandro which was granted to Luis Maria Peralta.

In 1850, the area's first steam sawmill was built on the edge of Montclair at Palo Seco Creek in the head of Dimond Canyon.

[4][5][6] After the first logging period, Caspar Hopkins, an early settler of the Fruitvale District, formed the Sausal Creek Water Company and built a dam and reservoir at the upper end of Dimond Canyon.

The tracks ran southward from Lake Temescal and crossed into Montclair over a trestle at Moraga Ave. and Thornhill Dr.

and Snake Road via trestle and then continued up Shepherd Canyon to a tunnel, the west portal of which was located immediately below Saroni Drive.

One of the first schools located in Montclair was at the current site of the now-closed Moraga Avenue firehouse and was named in honor of John Coffee Hays, one of the founders of the city of Oakland.

The 1927[9] Montclair firehouse was designed in the Hansel and Gretel style[10] by Eldred E. Edwards of the Oakland Public Works Department.

Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake the Oakland Fire Department built a new station house on Shepherd Canyon Road and, upon completion, vacated the 1927 structure.