Historical Videos of Contra Costa County

Fages-Crespi Exploration Video

Bill Mero and Dean McLeod have collaborated on a new video exploring the 1772 exploration of Don Pedro Fages and Father Juan Crespi through today's Contra Costa County, with its easternmost camp in what is now Bay Point.

A little history on our Society

In conjunction with the Bay Point Teen Video Project, producer Doug Harris brought his student film makers to Martinez in 2002, interviewing our Executive Director Betty Maffei about the history of the Contra Costa County Historical Society and the archives housed in our History Center. Below is a clip from that documentary:

An Exploration of Our History (Sheriff Veale)

Doug Harris has also published a YouTube video on Sheriff Veale featuring some of our History Center personnel. Hear how the one of the longest serving Sheriffs in California history (1895-1935) kept the peace in a rural county without firing a shot!

Scalp Hunter James Kirker in Contra Costa

James Kirker came from Ireland becoming an infamous scalp hunter in the Southwest. He spent the last years of his life in Contra Costa County, CA and died in California mysteriously on the isolated John Marsh Rancho at Los Meganos.

Gerry Anderson, in a recent BBC documentary, followed Kirker from his native Ireland here to Contra Costa County. This segment, featuring Bill and Kathleen Mero from the Contra Costa County Historical Society and the John Marsh Trust, talks about Kirker's time in the county. The Historical Society also provided technical support to the makers of this documentary.

Interestingly, based on records kept by the Society, most of what has been written about James Kirker's life and death in California is either unverifiable or plainly untrue.

An Exploration of Our History (Aviation)

Another Doug Harris YouTube video interviews Bill Larkins, a volunteer at our History Center and an authority on early Bay Area aviation. In the segment, he and others talk about the building of an airplane in 1911 in what was then Black Diamond, CA (now Pittsburg) and named after the city where it was built.

An Historical Mystery

Recently, the History Center received a donation of some film footage taken by an unknown photographer in and around the Martinez area in 1927. The footage has been broken into two parts, as shown below:

To view either of the videos, just click on the arrow embedded in each video. If you have any comments or can help us identify any people or places in the videos, please contact us by clicking here.

Black Diamond Memories

Our next video dates from 1985, and is a history of the Black Diamond Mines in what is now Antioch. Produced for the East Bay Regional Park District, the video includes footage of the area when it was a working mine interspersed with interviews of people whose families worked the mines.

California Gold TV Visits the John Marsh House

Huell Howser of the California Gold TV program recently visited the John Marsh Stone House which is the center piece of the proposed John Marsh State Historic Park in Contra Costa County. New Native Americans archaeological discoveries near Brentwood, CA and early California history are discussed.

The Great Port Chicago Explosion

Thousands of tons of naval munitions blew up severely damaging Port Chicago and killing hundreds of sailors in July 1944. With the help of several of the Contra Costa historical societies, local students put together a documentary of this tragic event. The video also touches on the racism of the day that influenced this disaster. Doug Harris was the instructor and producer of the video.