Pinole Creek

Pinole Creek is a stream in western Contra Costa County, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, California.The creek has one of the last primarily undeveloped watersheds in the Bay Area.CourseThe headwaters of Pinole Creek are in the Briones Hills on Costa Peak, within the western area of Briones Regional Park. It flows westerly through the towns of Pinole and El Sobrante, to its river mouth at the Chelsea Wetlands in Hercules on San Pablo Bay. Its mouth is 4mi east of Point Pinole.HistoryThe name Pinole is from the Spanish term for "parched corn", which the Mexicans ground for eating. In 1823, a Mexican land grant for 17000acre that included Pinole Creek was granted to Don Ignacio Martinez, a Commandant of the San Francisco Presidio. The land grant was initially known as El Rancho de La Nuestra Sonora de Merced, and later renamed Rancho El Pinole. Martinez built the first adobe in Pinole Valley and brought his family to settle the property with livestock and orchards.