Mount Diablo Group

"What's Up on Mount Diablo"

Wednesday, September 13, 7 pm, Winslow Center, 2590 Pleasant Hill Road, Pleasant Hill (corner of Taylor Boulevard and Pleasant Hill Road).

Join us at the next general meeting of the Mount Diablo Group of the Sierra Club and meet Craig Mattson, the new head ranger at Mount Diablo State Park. A lot is going on around Mount Diablo these days, and who better to bring us up to date?

Mount Diablo's road system, nearly 100 years old in some areas, is undergoing extensive repair and renovation. How will that affect access to trailheads for our hikes? A project is underway to restore rustic park architecture constructed by Civilian Conservation Corp crews during the 1930s. One type of CCC structure, the stone stoves found in Rock City, Live Oak, and elsewhere in the park, proved so successful that the design was utilized in other parks throughout the country. Today these ubiquitous stoves are still known as Diablo stoves!

Superintendent Mattson will also speak about the efforts to create a new state park at the site of John Marsh's stone house in Brentwood. Marsh is an often overlooked but critically important figure in the early history of California. Marsh was the first Anglo to settle near Mount Diablo, on his Rancho Los Meganos. Marsh sent letters back east encouraging immigration to California. Marsh was also California's first licensed physician (though he never attended medical school). It is fitting that Marsh settled near Devil Mountain, since many of his contemporaries called him "the meanest man in the West".

Marsh built the stone house in 1856 as a wedding present for his second wife Abigail. The couple never occupied the house, though. Shortly after the house was finished, Abigail died of tuberculosis, and Marsh was murdered. Now 150 years later, funds are being raised to rehabilitate this historic structure and create a state park in the area.

Craig Mattson, a 31-year State Parks veteran, is superintendent of the Bay Sector, California State Parks. Craig's last assignment before coming to Mount Diablo was as superintendent of seven parks in the Mojave Desert.