1930’s: Quiet Time

• First Concord Hospital opened by Nurse Edna Haywood.
• Pergola, considered longest in world at that time, built around downtown park. Wisteria plantings grow to festoon the pergola.

1940’s: The War and a “Bedroom” Community

• U.S. Navy opens munitions supply operations near Port Chicago. Naval Magazine Port Chicago later expands southeast through local ranches and dairies along entire northeastern edge of town.
• Concord Army Airfield opens west of downtown. It becomes Buchanan Field Airport after war.
• Largest ever U.S. conventional munitions explosion occurs at Naval Magazine Port Chicago (1944). There is heavy damage in Concord.
• Catherine Galindo succeeds her husband as Concord treasurer. She later becomes town’s first woman to hold local elective office in her own right.
• Concord chartered as a California City (1948).
• Concord-area population grows from approximately 1,500 to approximately 10,000. Commuting to area industries and to “The City” (San Francisco) begin.
• Bertha Romaine, principal of Mt. Diablo Union High School (1917 – 1948) retires. She had “built” high school.
• Mt. Diablo Unified School District formed. It includes areas outside of Concord.
• Queen of All Saints School opens as first parochial elementary school in Contra Costa County.