Albany Hill
United States · Americas
About
Albany Hill is a prominent hill along the east shore of San Francisco Bay in the city of Albany, California. Geologically, the hill is predominantly Jurassic sandstone, carried to the western edge of North America on the Pacific Plate and scraped off there in the course of subduction. Albany Hill is part of a range of hills uplifted long before today's Berkeley Hills. These hills include Fleming Point and Point Isabel (their summits dynamited away), Brooks Island, the Potrero San Pablo, and the hills across San Pablo Strait.
Albany Hill's indigenous Ohlone name is unknown. The 1772 Fages expedition referred to the landmark as "El Cerrito," and it was named Cerrito de San Antonio by the Luís María Peralta family after the name of their ranch, Rancho San Antonio, a Spanish land grant which encompassed much of the East Bay. The name was changed to Albany Hill shortly after the city incorporated as Ocean View changed its name to Albany in 1909. The adjacent city of El Cerrito was named after the hill's original Spanish name.
Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.