![]() ![]() It’s about a 4-mile round trip from the parking area at Sunol for Little Yosemite. Getting there requires a bit of detective work, and those familiar with reading topographic maps will find it without much difficulty. ![]() Tom Stienstra/Tom Stienstra / The Chronicle Looking up at 1,360-foot Flag Hill, one of several sites in Sunol Regional Wilderness with historic rock outcrops where bandits from the 1850s in the gold rush may have found or developed forts as hideouts. James Benny and Bob Bardell ventured out to confirm the site, and in turn, DeGraffenreid, a Chronicle field scout, visited as well. Last month, it was rediscovered by the East Bay Hills People. I remember saying, “If these rocks could talk,” then kept going. I first saw this site by accident years ago during an off-trail trek, during which I ventured off the Ohlone Trail to head to the Alameda Creek watershed. It’s possible that stagecoaches filled with miners and their booty, heading from the Sierra Nevada and through Niles Canyon to San Francisco, could have been hijacked in Niles Canyon by outlaws, who then fled to hideouts like the one above the Alameda Creek Canyon. Historians have identified the Niles area near Sunol as a location for robberies during the Gold Rush era. “The mason skills are definitely European-influenced.” “These are low defensive walls, too low for livestock, but perfect for shooting from behind,” DeGraffenreid said. In addition, there was no ranching or farming in the immediate area near the structure, as with the walls built by the Chinese, so they served a far different purpose. The walls’ small size and enclosures bear little resemblance to the miles of rock walls built by Chinese laborers in many areas of the Sierra foothills. Tom Stienstra/Miles DeGraffenreid / Special to The Chronicle Historian Richard DeGraffenreid tucked behind a section of a fortress-like rock structure discovered at Sunol Regional Wilderness that DeGraffenreid believes could have been used as a hideout by outlaws from the 1850s in the post gold rush era. On each side, the views are excellent, including of the canyon below, making an ambush impossible. There are short, wide walls made of rocks put together like pieces of a puzzle, the type of masonry skills rare for historic walls. It is there where, along a sub ridge, someone built a series of rock enclosures. The site is above the canyon of the headwaters of Alameda Creek in Sunol Regional Wilderness, one of the Bay Area’s largest parks, located 10 minutes from Interstate 680 in southern Alameda County. “This is most definitely a hideout, a bandit fortress-hideout in Sunol Park,” said Richard DeGraffenreid, who specializes in the history of the ancient Miwok tribes in the region. A group of historians and explorers from East Bay Hill People, a group that studies Native American sites and the history of the foothill wildlands of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, ventured to the site last week and made the connection to its possible outlaw past. ![]()
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