San Antonio Valley, California

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The community of San Antonio Valley, also called San Antonio, is located along the Diablo Range in eastern Santa Clara County, California. The locale is on the border of Alameda County and Stanislaus County. The sparsely-populated area is located at the junction of San Antonio Road, Mines Road, and Del Puerto Canyon Road. San Antonio Road connects with State Route 130 (SR130) and is the shortest route to San Jose and UCO Lick. Mines Road leads to Livermore. Del Puerto Canyon Road leads to Interstate 5. The National Geographic Names Database shows the area as San Antonio Ranger Station, (a CDF fire station, feature number 232369) or San Antonio Valley, a valley with the feature ID 232374.

1 Variant names
- 1.1 Historic variant names
2 Sphere of influence
3 Fire station
4 Telephony
5 Sources
6 External links

[edit] Variant names

The 1956 Thomas Brothers map spells it San Antone. This spelling mimics the way it is pronounced in common, modern usage by locals. It was spelled San Antone on the 1924 "Mount Boardman, California" U.S. Geological Survey 15-minute quadragle.

[edit] Historic variant names

In 1776, Anza and his explorers called the area El Cañada de San Vicente.

The U.S. Postal Service established a Deforest Post Office in the area during 1892. It was moved within the area in 1897, 1906, and finally closed in 1909. Another 1924 map calls a group of buildings along San Antonio Creek, Deforest. The name comes from Ransford S. Deforest, the first Postmaster in the community.

[edit] Sphere of influence

The area is within the sphere of influence of three different counties. The flattest and easiest drive to town is via Mines Road to Livermore in Alameda County. Del Puerto Canyon Road leads 20- to 25-miles east to the area of Interstate 5 and the Stanislaus County community of Patterson. The steepest route out, San Antonio Road, climbs west toward University of California, Lick Observatory, topping out at around 4,200 ft (1,280 m). There it turns into California State Route 130 and descends into San Jose in Santa Clara County.

[edit] Fire station

The community includes a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection station at 47405 Mines Road. The station is called, San Antonio or (officially) Station 15 and is part of the Santa Clara Ranger Unit, (Firescope mutual aid identifier SCU).

[edit] Telephony

The area was served by manual telephone service until deregulation forced the arrival of dial service in the early 1980s. Prior to this, a non-dial Western Electric 1A1 coin telephone served on San Antonio Road about one mile east of the Observatory. It's telephone number was San Antonio California Toll Station Number 3. Today, wired telephone numbers for the area follow the format (408) 897-xxxx. The telephone utility serving this area today is Global Valley Networks.

[edit] Sources

Santa Clara County Street Atlas, (1956 Edition), George Thomas.
Durham, David L., Durham's Place Names of the San Francisco Bay Area, (Clovis, California: Word Dancer Press, 2000) pp. 153.