DANVILLE is eighteen miles south of
Martinez, and is in the very choicest portion of the famous San Ramon
Valley, with the beautiful Los Tampos Range on the west, whose varying
shadows change with every hour of the day's sunshine and are ever admired,
while Mount Diablo rears its towering height of nearly four thousand feet on
the east. These physical features account for the uniform climate of the
place which renders it so desirable for homes.
The town had its inception some time about
1859, when Andrew and Daniel Inman, then owners of what is now Kelly
brothers' property, put up the first building to be used for a blacksmith
shop. Not long afterward M. Cohen, of the firm of Wolf & Cohen, Merchants,
of Alamo, then a flourishing business center, saw the advantages of the
location for a store and erected the building on the corner, which, after
defying the elements for nearly sixty years, was torn down only recently.
About the time the store was built came the question of a name for the town.
Inmanville and a number of others was suggested, but all proved
unsatisfactory, when Andrew Inman proposed they should leave the naming to
his mother-in-law, "Aunt Sallie" Young, grandmother of A. J. Young. She
asked that it be called Danville, after her native place in Kentucky.
A two-story hotel, afterward destroyed by
fire, was built by a Mr. Harris. In this building the post-office found a
home, in a windowless 7 by 9 room, in which Harris, as postmaster, often
performed his clerical duties by the aid of a lantern. For many years the
mail was carried from Walnut Creek by horseback. J. Madison Stowe, now mayor
of Pacific Grove, was the mail-carrier at one time. The mail was due at
Danville at 4 p. m. daily, and was always on time, unless "Jim" was
challenged by some boy on the road to play a game of marbles for "keeps", at
which time it was "unavoidably late." A second store was established by P.
E. Peel. He was succeeded by John Conway, who for many years carried on a
successful business. Thus by the addition of one enterprise after another
the little town had a prosperous growth.
The Grangers' Hall, the first public
building of the place, came in 1872-73, and two years later the Presbyterian
church was built, at that time the finest church edifice in the county. The
first schoolhouse was an old building, built in 1865, and stood one mile
south of the town. In 1870 it was moved to town, and occupied the identical
spot where the grammar-school building now stands and which took its place
in 1895.
In the summer of 1891 the Southern Pacific
Railroad reached the town. Soon after John Hartz surveyed and offered his
addition to the town og Danville, the lots being soon sold, and from that
time progress has been rapid, and the result is the achievements of the
present time. The Oakland, Antioch, & Eastern Railway made its advent in
1914, and by it the distance from San Francisco to Danville is reduced from
fifty-six miles to thirty-two miles, and the schedule time is cut to half
the former time required to make the trip.
Danville's future is promising. Many
improvements are in contemplation, among them the erection of the
high-school building at a cost of $15,000, which is to meet the requirements
of the school organized five years ago, and a new grammar-school building
will soon be needed. Enterprises of various kinds are to be developed. The
magnificent improvements at Diablo, with the expected influx of population
as a result of the sale of many lots in that estate, together with the
scenic highway to the summit, promises much. El Rio has done much and will
do more for the future of Danville.
It is eminently proper here, in addition
to those already mentioned, to name a few of the many pioneers who have been
instrumental in the development of Danville and the adjoining region: Thomas
Flournoy, J. J. Kerr, John P. Chrisman, J. E. Close, R. O. Baldwin, William
Z. Stone, William Meese, D. N. Sherburne, Charles Wood, Dr. J. L. Labarce,
A. J. Young, J. O. Stewart, and R. B. Love.