An officer in the Mexican army bequeathed his name to the crescent-shaped basin once known as Castro’s Valley. Driven to ruin by squatters, drought, and gambling debts, he sold a portion of his cattle ranch to Methodist minister Zachariah Hughes, who built a church and school in what is now Crow Canyon. The one-room, redwood school Hughes christened Eden Vale educated about 50 children until a group from the burgeoning town to the south, Hayward’s, stole it by wagon in the dead of night. Undaunted, Castro Valley, delineated from its now friendly neighbors by hills, Lake Chabot, and an independent spirit, built and fully supported its own Redwood School. It has now developed into one of the most populous unincorporated areas in the United States.