Unveiled October 10, 2026
A walk through 150 years, one sign at a time
On Saturday, October 10, neighbors from Lafayette and Moraga gathered at the Lafayette Community Center to celebrate the Lafayette-Moraga Regional Trail’s 50th anniversary. They also got a first look at the new Lafayette Moraga History Trail.
The Moraga Community Foundation is proud to be one of the project’s funders.
Most of us know the trail as the paved path along St. Mary’s Road where we walk the dog, push a stroller, or ride to school. Fewer of us know where it came from. In the 1800s, mule trains used this route to haul redwood lumber out of the hills. In 1913 it became part of the Sacramento Northern, an electric railway that could take you from Moraga all the way to San Francisco across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. When the rails were abandoned after World War II, the corridor sat as a utility easement. Then in 1974, Lafayette, Moraga and the East Bay Regional Park District turned it into the trail we use today.
The new interpretive panels tell that story at nine stops between Reliez Station Road and Valle Vista. They cover fossils from the inland sea that once covered the valley, the Moraga rancho, the pear orchards that made Moraga one of the country’s largest Bartlett pear producers, and Valle Vista, the neighborhood that disappeared under the Upper San Leandro Reservoir. The panels will be installed along the trail later this year. You can explore every stop now at lmhistorytrail.org.
This project came together through a partnership of the Lafayette Historical Society, the Moraga Historical Society and the East Bay Regional Park District, with the cost of the nine history panels supported by matching donations of $6,000 each from MCF and the Community Foundation of Lafayette to the Regional Parks Foundation. Special thanks to Shane Reisman, who led the effort, and to Mary McCosker, Susan Sperry, Susan Skilton and John Kaiser for the research behind every panel.
Next stop: the Moraga Commons
Stop 7 on the History Trail is Moraga Commons, where the story is about the ranching that shaped this valley. Today the Commons is home to the Lamorinda All Access Playground. It was built by our community so that children of every ability could play side by side.
It was built without any shade.
On warm afternoons, the playground surface gets too hot for many of the children it was designed for, including kids who use wheelchairs or walkers and kids who have trouble in direct sun. MCF is working with the Town of Moraga and the Moraga Park Foundation to change that, and we’re raising $200,000 to bring permanent shade to the playground.
If the History Trail reminded you how much this community has built together, we hope you’ll help with the next project.