Pittsburg, CA

Pittsburg (formerly, Black Diamond, and New York of the Pacific) is a city located in eastern Contra Costa County, California, the outer portion of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 63,264 at the 2010 census. The city has access to one BART station, the Pittsburg/Bay Point Station located in Pittsburg near Bay Point. Service will be extended further into the city via DMU train with a Railroad Avenue station that is currently under construction. The current zip code is 94565 for both Pittsburg and Bay Point, and the area code is 925.
In 1849, Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson (from New York) bought the Rancho Los Medanos land grant, and laid out a town he called New York of the Pacific. By 1850, this venture failed. With the discovery of coal in the nearby town of Nortonville, California, the place became a port for coaling, and adopted the name Black Diamond, after the mining firm that built the Black Diamond Coal Mining Railroad from there to Nortonville. Due to the industrial potential of the site, a name change to Pittsburg was proposed in 1909.
Pittsburg, originally settled in 1839, was called first "New York Landing", then "Black Diamond", before citizens voted on "Pittsburg" on February 11, 1911. The name "Pittsburg" has at least two origins. First, it was the name of a coal mining company that built a railroad in 1865 on the eastern edge of what is now the city. Second, some citizens wanted to honor Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, (with the "H" dropped), due to the city's relations with the steel building industry, which was first established by the Columbia Geneva Steel Company. The original town site fronts on the Sacramento River Delta, reflecting its origins as a deep water channel river port. (As of January 1, 2007, new state legislation will enable the city to manage its own riverfront for commercial development and subsequent port operations).[citation needed]