Lost Valley and Gateway Valley - Oral History Interview Transcript
Scope and Content
Lost Valley and Gateway Valley are two adjacent natural areas in Orinda.
Gateway Valley, which many now know primarily as Wilder due to the subdivision built there,
was the subject of a decades-long grassroots movement to preserve open space. Beginning in the
1980s, local residents organized through Save Open Space Gateway Valley, and eventually
working alongside the Golden Gate Audubon Society and Sierra Club fought development
proposals. Their sustained activism resulted in a historic settlement that preserved over 1,300
acres as permanent open space - one of the most significant environmental victories in East Bay
history.
