The Claycord Online Museum – Every Tuesday at 2pm on Claycord.com.
This picture is of the CV Highlands and surrounding area in 1971.
You’ll notice the yellow “x” in the picture, that’s the intersection of Ygnacio Valley Road, Clayton Road and Kirker Pass.
Looking at the picture, Kirker Pass goes to the West, Ygnacio to the East and Clayton Road goes North and South.
Click on the photo for a much larger view!
ABOUT THE CLAYCORD ONLINE MUSEUM: The Claycord Online Museum is made up of historical photos, documents & anything else that has to do with the history of our area.
If you have any old photos or items that you’d like to place in the Claycord Online Museum, just scan or take a photo of them, and send them to the following address: news@claycord.com. It doesn’t matter what it is, even if it’s just an old photo of your house, a scan of an old advertisement or an artifact that you’d like us to see, send it in and we’ll put it online!
Click on the tag below titled “Claycord Online Museum” to view other items!
{ 44 comments }
Would loved if it was bit more expanded….that was 5 years before I moved here…and I remember a lot of those long open spaces…wish the houses were just little more spread out
Now I’m confused. Clayton Rd doesn’t run North/South. It’s mostly East/West. Kirker Pass run to the Northeast from that intersection. I’m thinking this map should be rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
wow the good old days! look at all that open space!
Wow very cool! Since I was lived in the area at the time, I can still pick out landmarks. Amazing how much has changed!
Umm, don’t you mean Kirker Pass goes to the East, Ygnacio to the West…?
The picture description should of probably said “top to bottom” instead of north to south and “right to left” instead of east to west.
In the top right is CV Highlands so that is Clayton road going “up” to Clayton town. The top of the picture is east. I’m probably wrong since I’ve been in Texas for the last 20 years but that’s what it looks like to me.
I said north south east & west based on the layout of the photo. Basically it’s left (west) right (east) up (north) and down (south).
I can see my house!
I love seeing these old photo’s. Keep it up Mayor.
Ah, yes, the good old days. That is when you had to go through downtown Clayton to go out Marsh Creek Road. And before Clayton put in that stupid fountain.
Wow, does that bring back memories! All those open fields on the right are where the Vineyard Center and apts are now. You can see the diagonal footpath which led from the end of the fence line on Alberta Way to in front of the Rose Glenn neighborhood. All the CVHS students used it as well as we kids who lived in that neighborhood. We used to fly kites and play in that field. Thanks Mayor.
Sil’s Bar on the corner of Alberta. (across from the foot path to Rose Glen)
Bowling Alley
Kinney’s Shoe Store
Miss all the almond and walnut orchards.
Was fun to trace the route leading to our first home on Indiana Drive in Clayton Valley Highlands! (However, we moved to our present home in 1965, six years before this photo was taken.) Yes, the almond, pear, and walnut orchards were lovely. See how tiny the first Clayton Valley Shopping Center was? And yet it had a police sub-station in it!
I think you have it backwards Mayor. Looking to the left of the X is East on Kirker Pass. Going up from the X is Clayton Road to the town of Clayton. Going right from the X is YV Rd going toward west toward WC. Going down from the X is Clayton Road heading toward downtown Concord.
LEFT(east)
RIGHT(west)
UP(south)
DOWN(north)
Buck Million is correct.
Those are trees growing in working orchards growing fruits and nuts for granola and those were long hair, bell bottom, Hippie days; groovy, far out and peace.
Buck Million – The Mayor has it right. I lived on a court off of Olive in the late 70′s and the open field with the creek going through it was right behind our house. The open field is now filled with apartment buildings. That creek almost flooded our house one rainy season.
This is a great photo.
I too can see my house, even the driveway. Also all the walnut trees that were there.
Anyone else remember ABC liquors/grocery on Clayton Rd. where Auto Zone is now..it kind of got put out of business by the 7-11 at Clayton and Ayers. We used to go get candy there as kids. We moved here in 1966. Clayton Rd was a two lane street then.
@KAD – Sorry wrong. Can’t be the state streets are on the far right. You can even see Kansas Cir which means West is to the right.
I agree with Buck Million. Olive Drive is in the lower left quadrant. The creek is there too. I was 5 when this was taken and was still living on Olive Dr.
Thanks Mayor for reminding me how old I am. I was in 10th grade at Concord H.S. when this was taken. I had forgotten how many orchards there were in the area. Good memories.
Whoever oriented this photo needs to be slapped. Everyone knows Ygnacio is always on the left and the dirt road to Texas/Nevada/Middle America on the right.
So the top left corner of the X is the Shell station.
No No No Buck A Million Has it Correct! Can’t you see Washington Blvd curling up from the back of the future shopping center. Go check your Google Map. I moved to Concord in the summer of 71 and went to Woodside. Those roads running up from the bottom left quadrant are Myrtle and Concord Ave…….take another look. Very cool picture, I can’t wait to see more.
Nice pic, still remember picking walnuts off the ground into metal buckets on weekends. That was some hard work, but fun for a kid learning how to earn a buck. To bad not many of our youngsters learn that lesson now. We parents just turn into ATMs.
Buck is right. See the creek at bottom left quadrant coming out at Navlets.
Kansas circle along west heading Ygnacio in top right quadrant.
That does bring back memories.
Buck – you got it backwards. The view is from the northwest looking southeast. On the bottom from left to right you have Laurel which does not quite reach Kirker Pass, Concord Blvd which looks wider but in those days was one lane in each direction with a huge gravel shoulder, Olive Rd, the creek, Clayton Valley Blvd, and Park Highlands. Kirker / Ygnacio slashes across from left to right.
Up at the very top, just to the left of the center, you can see Mt Diablo Elementary.
Wow! I can see my house & property too! Great photo; aaahhh, the “good old days”….
Funny how much of this conversation is about which direction is which. The Mayor was not being literal as to the map directions. He was just saying as you look at the map that is how it looks. We all know eastbound Clayton Rd toward The City of Clayton is up, westbound Clayton Rd is down, Kirker Pass, which runs to the North, is on the left, and YV to WC is on the right.
@CJ, lol
@Hungry, exactly!
Mayor – this is awesome! This was before I was born, but very cool to see! Things sure have changed!
Any chance you have a current aerial shot to compare from the same vantage point to see how much things have changed?
Do you happen to have any other aerial shots – perhaps of other parts of Claycord at that same time? My old house was near Myrtle Drive/Bailey Road…would love to see an aerial on that!
wait – where is Seeno’s house? Oh ya, this was before they bought hills, leveled them, and built mansions on them.
Dang, i was in 6th grade at Greogory Gardens, when this was taken.
This place was sure a lot different back then.
This was when this area was like “Mayberry” (except we didn`t have an Andy)
Can`t even think about how it was when my Dad was a kid around here (he`s 84)
Thanks for the old school photo…Keep em coming
Not sure when it may happen, but a buddy of mine in San Jose has his own plane.
He’s supposed to fly up here, and take me for a flight.
I’ll have him fly over the area and try to get a shot similar to what the Mayor has on here.
No guarantees though. His plane is an under-wing design. :p
Great pic! Seeno Hill is in the upper left and I believe that’s Easley’s air strip near top left. The lone oak tree beyond Kirker Pass in the big field is now next to my driveway. We used to fly RC gliders in that field.
Hey Killjoy – While in the air, check out the quarry on the north side of the hill near Crystal Ranch. Most people can’t see that it is actually a huge hole! Quite impressive.
#15 Buck Million is correct.
The top is South. At the very top you can see where clayton road turns right a block after the school. The old bar that sat facing the corner on clayton and Ayres? And where old kirker pass road exits and re-enters kirker pass road. is on the far left. the corner shell station and the stop n go right behind it.
I do remember Sil’s bar.It was an old wooden honky tonk. We used to hear music at night in the summer b/c we had no ac and our windows were open. My friends and I used to buy candy and soda at ABC Liquors, too. We’d hang out at the bowling alley or Straw Hat Pizza (Mountain Mike’s).
I miss those days. There weren’t many home invasion robberies or armed robberies or other scuzzbuckets mugging people on the street. I wish things were better now. I beginning to feel like I live in a ghetto.
That’s a great shot of Concord/Clayton. Anyone interested in seeing more overhead photos of early Concord should check out Historicaerials.com. They have aerial photos of Concord from various years ranging from 1946 – 2005 and you can compare images by dragging a slider back and forth.
I too can see my house, and how much has changed, since I moved here in 1983. For those of you that want to compare with current pic, use google earth pics, click on “sattelite” view and get birds eye view of this or any area.
WOW…thanks, Davillo! That’s a good link!
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