Moraga History Index

The Moraga History section, in contrast to the Resources section which links to digitized archival content, is for curated and interpreted historical content. Some of the items in this section such as In the News have only a single page with links to third party articles hosted by other web sites that gets updated regularly. Others such as Moraga 50th Anniversary are single web page that was a one time creation and will not change. Some such as Walking Tours and Voices of the Past will see additions over time and in the case of Voices of the Past end up with a linked web page featuring the transcript of the audio or video posted to our YouTube channel. Some such as Land Grant and Joquin Moraga Adobe serve specific topics. A very important section is Infrastructure which breaks down into groups such as Volunteer Organizations and Subdivisions which in turn are “index” pages that link to web pages focused on specific topics within that group such as the Valle Vista Subdivision. The goal is to grow the Moraga History section into a full fledged resource for people to discover Moraga’s history.

Moraga 50th Anniversary	In 2024 the Town of Moraga celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding on November 12, 1974. MHS devoted its 2024 quarterly newsletters to describing the road to incorporation. This section assembles information about past anniversaries and archival newspaper clippings from the founding period. We also documented the creation of the Moraga Time Capsule and its dedication ceremony.
In the News	We are always on the lookout for articles which feature the history of Lamorinda and which are not hidden behind a paywall. So far the Lamorinda Weekly has been the prime source of such articles and this page provides a list of such articles with links to their online source.
Voices of the Past	We have a YouTube channel to which we post audio and video recordings in our archives that we have converted to MP4 format. Currently we have posted about 40 videos that past archivists have stored as DVDs. This section lists them. Our plan is to generate transcripts, time stamp key topic shifts so that viewers can jump to that segment in the video, and provide relevant photos from our archives. Examples of this plan are the Brother Mel history of SMC and Ed Lucas Fire Department history talk. This is a work in progress. When we are done with the videos we will tackle the audio recordings, many of which have been converted by student volunteers into Audacity files from original cassettes. We call this section Voices of the Past because that is literally what these recordings are.
Infrastructure	The Infrastructure section was created to allow us to document the more recent history of stuff that still serves us today. This is a work in progess which goes hand in hand with our digitization strategy that is currently focused on our photo collection and selectively on our vertical file collection. Each of the Infrastructure topics will have its own web page which in turn will be an index to more specific topics with dedicated web pages. In 2026 we are focused on documenting Moraga’s history of volunteerism. When we are done you will be able to visit pages about specific volunteer organizations whose content will grow as we accumulate more history.
Past Events	The Moraga Historical Society has a rich tradition of events that include Speaker Events, Romerias which are organized historical junkets beyond the Moraga Rancho, banquets, potlucks for members, and just plain celebrations such as our 60th anniversary party in 2025. We have a trove of photographs which it is our ambition to assemble the best ones into a collage illustrating each event.
Walking Tours	We have created one Walking Tour which features the Old Moraga Town Site envisioned in 1913 by the Moraga Company of James Irvine II. Daniel Berkes as his Eagle Scout project created one for Saint Mary’s College. The Walking Tours are integrated with our web site. As such the content of each Walking Tour will keep growing over time. It is designed so that anybody can self-appoint as a docent and lead a group on a tour. We are currently working on a Valle Vista Walking Tour that will allow one to explore the world of Moraga’s first formal subdivision that ended up being swallowed by a water company in 1926. Our longer term plan is to stitch together enough “walking tour” segments to create a 50 mile Walking Moraga Challenge.
Land Grant	The original mission of the Moraga Historical Society was to recover and archive the history of the Spanish and Mexican settlement of Moraga which was formalized through the Rancho Laguna de los Colorados Land Grant to Joaquin Moraga and his cousin Juan Bernal in 1841. This section is devoted to the history of the land grant and how ownership changed until eventually most of the original land grant area was owned by the Moraga Company of James Irvine which acquired control between 1913-1920.
Joaquin Moraga Adobe	This section is devoted to the history of the Joaquin Moraga Adobe which for a long time had ups and downs that culminated in its designation as a historical landmark and finally its preservation and restoration as a “learning center” through the efforts of the Friends of the Joaquin Moraga Adobe.
Historical Periods	This section mirrors the Time Period Index in our Resources section, but, rather than linking to a catalog of scanned items classified according to one of the 11 time periods (which includes “undefined”), it will host a curated list of articles published by MHS pertinent to each time period.
Turning Points	This section is also a legacy of 2019 when the redesign of the MHS web site was undertaken. Its purpose was to host a series of historical articles which described key turning points in the destiny of Moraga. It is currently set up as a web page with a series of articles, but eventually it may be turned into a “milestone” style index linking to articles such as quarterly newsletter headline articles featured as “excerpts”.
Historical Sites	This section is also a legacy of the 2019 web site redesign which will eventually become the page for a location based system for designating important places within the Moraga Rancho.
People	When the new MHS web site was created in 2019 its ambitions were considerably more modest than today. This section was created as an index for articles about individuals who played an important role in Moraga’s history. Although described as “legacy” we may just keep this space as a place to feature people who did make a difference.
Pears in California	This section celebrates pears. It will be a manually constructed collection of comments about pears and links to articles about pears.