El Cerrito, Spanish for "Little Hill," is a bustling and modern community today, sandwiched between Albany and Richmond along busy San Pablo Avenue. Quaint houses in the hills look down upon an active commercial strip with two BART stations and over the bayfront, where warehouses and processing plants in neighboring Richmond hum night and day. But as modern it is, El Cerrito has roots that run deep. In the early 1900s, only about 1,500 people lived in these hills, then a scruffy cattle-grazing enclave known as Rust. Founder William Rust had a blacksmith shop at the site of the present-day Pastime Hardware. Soon the name was changed to El Cerrito. A tax was levied on the 20- odd saloons scattered through town so that streets could be paved and a modern city administration could be set up. The town grew steadily, especially in the postwar boom years, and today houses roughly 23,000 people in a pleasant and sylvan bayside environment.
