..Rancho Las Positas.
Meaning "little ponds or springs" in old Spanish, it
was the name given to his ranch by Robert Livermore; that Spanish
land grant and his later acquisition, Canada de los Vaqueros
which was mostly in Contra Costa County, covered some 44,000
acres in the 1850s.
..Tassajara. Means loosley
in Spanish "a place where strips of venison or beef are
hung on lines in the sun to dry." It is derived from the
word "tasajo" which is a dried meat we call jerky.
..Tesla. This was once
a community in Coral Hollow 12 miles southeast of Livermore.
It was a coal mining town where some 500 men were employed by
the San Francisco & San Joaquin Coal Co. in the 1890s and
early 1900s. A giant electric power plant was also planned there
so it was named after the famous electrician Nikola Tesla.
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