2348 Gamay Cmn
Livermore, CA 94550

Livermore is a city in Alameda County. The estimated population as of 2011 was 82,039. Livermore is located on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Livermore was founded by William Mendenhall and named after Robert Livermore, his friend and a local rancher who settled in the area in the 1830s. Livermore is the home of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for which the chemical element livermorium is named.  Its south side, home to local vineyards, has developed several executive subdivisions near Ruby Hill. The city has also redeveloped its downtown district. The city is considered part of the Tri-Valley area, including Amador, Livemore and San Ramon Valleys.

According to the latest U.S. Census information, Livermore is the third wealthiest midsize city in the nation.  In 2005, the median household income in Livermore was $96,632, which ranked it the third highest income midsize city (between 65,000 and 249,999 people) just behind number two Newport Beach, CA ($97,428) and Livermore's western neighbor, Pleasanton, CA ($101,022). One of the largest districts is Springtown, the northeast area of the city north of Interstate 580. Originally conceived as a retirement community in the early 1960s, Springtown has many of the city's hotels and a public golf course. The downtown, or Central district has two movie theaters, a community theater, and space for open air concerts. The North Livermore district is North of the Union Pacific Railroad that cuts through the Downtown. The South Livermore district has over 40 wineries.

Wine

One of California’s oldest wine regions, the Livermore Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA) played a pivotal role in shaping California’s wine industry. Spanish missionaries planted the first wine grapes in the Livermore Valley in the 1760s. In the 1840s, California pioneers looking for outstanding vineyard sites began planting grapes in the region. Robert Livermore planted the first commercial vines in the 1840s. Pioneer winemakers C. H. Wente, James Concannon, and Charles Wetmore recognized the area’s winegrowing potential and founded their wineries in the early 1880s.  The Wine Group has administrative offices just outside of Livermore, at the Concannon Vineyard.

History

Before its incorporation under the Roman Catholic Mission San Jose in 1796 and prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the 18th century, the Livermore area was home to the Ohlone (or Costanoan) native people. The Livermore-Amador Valley was primarily used as grazing land for Mission San Jose's thousands of cattle and sheep until secularization of California missions from 1834 to 1837 opened great amounts of land throughout California for Mexican land grants. The fourth and second largest of these land grants were the Rancho Las Positas grant, made to rancher Robert Livermore, a naturalized Mexican citizen of English birth, and Jose Noriega in 1839. Robert Livermore was as much interested in viticulture and horticulture as he was in cattle and horses. In 1846 he was the first in the area to plant both vineyards as well as orchards of pears and olives. The first building on his ranch was an adobe on Las Positas Creek. In 1849 a two-story "Around the Horn" house was added and was believed to be the first wooden building in the valley.

After the discovery of gold in California, Livermore became a popular 'first day' stopping point for prospectors headed for the Mother Lode country. It was usually one day's journey by horse or stagecoach when starting from San Jose, California.

Robert Livermore died in 1858 before the establishment of the town that bears his name. His ranch included much of the present-day city. The city itself was established in 1869 by William Mendenhall, who had met Robert Livermore while marching through the valley with Fremont's California Battalion. Livermore was officially incorporated on April 15, 1876. During Livermore's early years, it was also quite well known for the many large hotels that graced the downtown street corners, before new buildings replaced them. Livermore is also notable for the Italian families that played a role in the formation of its wineries. Since it has a Mediterranean climate, the Italian families found it a good location to grow wine grapes, which also helped contribute to the development of the early city. In 1942, the U. S. government bought 692 acres (2.80 km2) of ranch land, bounded by Vasco and Greenville roads and East Avenue, and built the Livermore Naval Air Station. This facility operated until it was decommissioned in 1946. In 1952, the government established Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the site.[10] In 1956, the California campus of Sandia National Laboratories opened up across East Avenue.

Climate

 Livermore has a Mediterranean climate with warm to hot, dry summers and mild to cool, wet winters (Köppen climate classification Csa). Summer daytime temperatures average in the mid-to-upper 80s (28 to 32°C), but sometimes reach 100 °F (38 °C) and can occasionally approach 110 °F (43 °C). Nights, however, are cool, with lows in the 50s and 60s (10 to 21°C). The period from June to September is extremely dry and is characterized by typically clear skies, but in late summer, subtropical moisture occasionally surges into the Livermore Valley, bringing high humidity, monsoon clouds, and, less commonly, thunderstorms.

Most of the 15.2 inches (390 mm) of annual rainfall comes in the winter, but there are still many bright, sunny days during this period. The coldest months are December and January, with a mean high of 56 °F (13 °C) and with frequent frost on clear mornings. The temperature can drop to as low as the mid 20s (−3 to −5°C) on an exceptionally cold night. Snow is rare, but light dustings do very seldom occur.  The record high temperature is 115 °F (46 °C), recorded on September 3, 1950, and the record low temperature is 18 °F (−8 °C), recorded on January 5, 1961 and December 9, 1972.