Martinez is a small city of 36,715 residents, 12.47 sq. miles, where parents raise their children, antique stores fill the downtown, and Amtrak stops daily. It is the home of "Joltin" Joe DiMaggio, a local boy who made good.

From a trading post in 1849 to incorporation in 1876, Martinez was a gold rush and shipping boomtown. Early settlers of the county bought, sold, and shipped their goods here. One of them also created the popular drink known as the "Martini".

Today, Martinez is a city with a strong sense of its history and a keen appreciation for the families that are its future. More than a dozen parks and plenty of open space are located within its twelve square mile area. The waterfront now features a fine marina and related activities, such as, fishing, hiking trails, world class bocce ball courts and tournament-style baseball and softball fields. Youth programs and historical museums thrive here, along with the businesses that make this city a hub of activity.(source: http://www.cityofmartinez.org/our_city/history.asp)

Martinez has two great hotels to serve you. The Super 8 Motel in Martinez is also a great choice. The accomodations at the Best Western John Muir Inn are superb. Concord, just a few miles away, has great lodging as well. The Marriot hotels in Pleasant Hill are beautiful and recently renovated. Walnut Creek is a larger city known far and wide for its specialty and upmarket shopping areas. It has a beautiful downtown. The Walnut Creek Renaissance and the Marriott Walnut Creek are impressive.

The John Muir House John of the Mountains they called him, and rightly so. He lived and earned the title. Intimately linked, John Muir’s life and writing championed American wilderness at a crucial point in history.	The Martinez Museum Opened in June of 1976, the historic two-story Borland House is filled with photographs, artifacts and documents generously donated by descendants of the pioneer families who settled in Martinez.
The Marina Recreational Opportunities are abundant in the City of Martinez, which offers access to a variety of entertainment activities. By land or by sea, the outdoor enthusiast has access to it all.	Best Western John Muir Inn Discover the BEST of Best Western with the newly renovated and AAA 3 Diamond appointed Best Western John Muir Inn. This three-story, suburban hotel (nestled in redwoods) is a peaceful, affordable, unique inn close to everything yet away from the congestion.

Old photos at the Martinez Museum help unfurl even more of the history of the small town, as does the memorabilia on display. A few of the many artifacts inside include a hitching post from 1875, a 1,000-pound bell that used to sit on the courthouse in 1885, and an iron gate from 1925 that was once part of the Bank of Martinez. The museum itself is housed in an 1890s cottage that was almost torn down for a parking lot before being saved in 1973 with the help of the Martinez Historical Society.

Long before the cottage was built, Martinez was established at the behest of Col. William Smith, son-in-law of Don Ignacio Martinez. Don Ignacio had been the recipient in the early 1800s of a 17,000-acre Mexican land grant north of Pinole Creek and west of Alhambra Creek. The town, officially founded in 1849, became a critical link to Gold Country, as prospectors would take the Martinez-Benicia Ferry on the way to the Sierra foothills. At times there would be 200 wagons waiting to get across the river. The town was named the seat of government for Contra Costa County in 1851, and 25 years later became a main juncture along the route of the Intercontinental Railroad.

Farms and cattle ranches dominated Martinez at first, and later grain shipping became the town's first true industry. But it was liquids, aside from the martini, that prospered. In the early 1900s the Alhambra Water Company began bottling water in Martinez. Around the same time the wine industry peaked in the area, though now only one winery is still in operation -- the Viano family's vineyard on Morello Avenue, which still gives tours.

Then came the oil industry. The Associated Oil Company set up shop a few miles out of town in 1913 and the Royal Dutch Shell Oil Company built a refinery right in town in 1915. Now refineries pockmark what is otherwise a peaceable setting amid the Alhambra hills and along the Carquinez Strait.

When Shaw first arrived in Martinez in the '50s, stores like Montgomery Ward and JC Penney lined the streets where the antique shops now stand. Many of Martinez's 35,000 residents have been around even longer than that. "One generation doesn't make you an old-timer in Martinez," Shaw said. "I've been here 43 years. That makes me a newcomer."

Another old-timer, Ed Goddard, who has been in Martinez more than 70 years, remembers when the Whiskerino contest was big in town, during his youth. The annual event was a competition to see who in Martinez could grow the best beard. Those who didn't participate were fined or worse. "People would run around and if they would catch a guy without a beard, they would throw him in jail for a while," Goddard recalled.

But Martinez has always been and continues to be a serene spot. "This is a quiet town," concurred Ginnie Crane, owner of Bad Girls Antiques, one of the more than 20 antique stores in Martinez that line the downtown district.

The Natural

That quiet must have been appealing to John Muir, who lived here from 1890 to 1914. His 17-room Victorian home, Martinez's most famed attraction, is now a national historic site, though it seems out of place in its location among the strip malls and supermarkets on Alhambra Avenue. I arrived in time for a noon viewing of "The Naturalists," a half-hour video documentary about Muir, though I was the only one there to watch it. "Looks like it's a private showing," the docent at the historic site said. "You can make all the rabbit ears you want."

The out-of-focus footage of Yosemite and the stills of Muir weren't quite as inspiring as Muir's pithy wisdoms quoted in the video. "Civilization has not much to brag about." "We were all made slaves by the vice of over industry." And my favorite, "Any fool can destroy trees, they can't run away."

The interior of the John Muir house looks more polished than a cut diamond. I learned the site only harbors two original pieces of Muirs' furniture -- the chopping table in the kitchen and the tethered wooden desk in the study. As it turns out the design of the house is mostly based on the recollection of Muir's grandchildren and other surviving acquaintances.

Quotes posted around the house reveal more about his personality. For instance, this man of the wilderness despised the word hiking, and posed people use the word saunter instead. "You know when the pilgrims were going from England to the Holy Land, the French would ask them, 'Where are you going?' And they did not speak French very well, but they would say 'sante terre' (Holy Land). That is where we get our word saunter, and you should saunter through the Sierra, because this is a Holy Land if there ever was one."

(source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2000/05/25/martinez.DTL)