Collections
The Orinda Historical Society collaborates with regional archives, neighboring historical societies, and digital preservation projects to make Orinda's history available to researchers, students, and curious neighbors. Below are the resources we use most, and that we recommend if you're researching Orinda or the broader Lamorinda area.
The platform where we catalog our own collection and share artifacts with the public. Browse photographs, documents, and exhibit items.
Our partnership here has digitized parts of our collection for permanent online access, including issues of the Orinda Sun (1948–1972).
Local newspaper that runs a regular history column and reports on Society events. A good starting point for recent local history.
Aerial photography and documentation of the East Bay's geography, ecology, and historical land use.
OHS president Alison Burns writes a bi-monthly local history column for The Orinda News. A few worth starting with
The debut column, tracing the Sacramento Northern Railway line that once ran through these hills and the trails and roads that still follow its route.
An undated Les Sipes photograph of a dozen children on an Orinda Fire District truck, still unidentified. Even AI can't agree whether it was taken in the 1930s or 1960, so Burns is asking readers to look.
By 2019 other county historical societies were writing OHS off. Burns tells how two California Revealed grants, a CatalogIt subscription, and 824 issues of the Orinda Sun turned that around.
Not an All Our Yesterdays column, but the same beat: why Orinda spent decades without local control before finally becoming a city.
We maintain reciprocal relationships with our neighbors and often co-host events or share research:
Email us at info@orindahistory.org and we'll point you in the right direction. Our volunteers regularly help with property research, family genealogy, school history, and historical photo identification.
