Welcome to San Ramon

Today San Ramon is a dynamic young city, one of California’s outstanding urban villages. It has a variety of homes, parks and stores and a major employment center, all in a setting of remarkable beauty.

It was once home to the Seunen Indians, Ohlone/Costanoans whol lived adjacent to the valley creeks. After 1797 it was Mission San Jose grazing land; later it included Jose Maria Amador’s 16,000 plus acres Rancho San Ramon. American settlers first came to San Ramon in 1850 when Leo and Mary Jane Norris purchased 4,450 acres of land from Amador.

San Ramon had several names in the nineteenth century. The first village developed at the intersection of today’s Deerfield Road and San Ramon Valley Blvd. In 1873 when a permanent post office was finally established, it was called San Ramon.

In 1895 attorney Thomas Bishop Acquired 3,000 acres of Norris land. The Bishop Ranch raised cattle and sheep and was planted with hay, grain, diversified fruit crops and walnuts. In 1966 the new Interstate 680 freeway was completed through San Ramon to Dublin.

In 1970 Western Electric purchased 1,733 acres of the Bishop Ranch and proposed a “new town” complete with a variety of housing, green belts, stores and light industry, placed in the center of San Ramon. Eventually park of the land became new homes and, in 1978, 858 acres became today’s Bishop Ranch Business Park, a premier modern office development.

In 1983 San Ramon voters decided overwhelmingly to incorporate as a separate city and took control over development, police, parks and other services.