Discovering a Gem of Pinole’s History By Stella Faria Little is known about Pinole’s early history between the years 1860-1880. This period was known as the Immigration Phase of Pinole’s past. It was a time marked by the American expansion and takeover of the Spanishspeaking Rancho lands. It was also a time of the decline of the native Californio lifestyle and Rancho culture. A recent discovery of family treasures of these bygone years has shed light on the activities of a local family whose downtown home remains one of the few surviving buildings of very old Pinole. The small, wood-framed home at 2235 San Pablo Avenue was originally known to Pinoleans of recent memory as the Tessie Curran Baldwin house. Today, the sparkling white dwelling is owned by William McMaster, a nephew of the deceased Tessie Curran Baldwin. The Tessie Curran Baldwin home. McMaster also inherited and generously shared a family collection of photos and documents that revealed a living history of the earliest occupants of the Curran home. The building was constructed in the late 1800s, during the early time when both homes and businesses were intermingled along dusty San Pablo Road, as a busy downtown Pinole grew away from its San Pablo Bay beginnings. Undoubtedly, the home’s occupants witnessed the Martinez to San Pablo stage pass by their doors. The home began as a slaughterhouse and butcher shop, but was remodeled into a residence in the 1870s for newcomers Cipriano Silvas and his wife, Maria Rosario Alvarado Silvas. Cipriano Silvas had been a school teacher in Chile before emigrating to California and meeting his wife-to-be, who was a daughter of the Tessie Curran, 1922.
Contra Costa Marketplace - Oct 2015
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