"El Cerrito is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The population was 23,171 at the time of the 2000 census.
El Cerrito was founded by refugees from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. They settled in what was then Don Víctor Castro's Rancho San Pablo, and adjacent to the ranch owned by the family of Luís María Peralta, the Rancho San Antonio. The settlers called their refugee camp Rust, which later became a village. In 1917 it was eventually incorporated and named after founder Wilhelm F. Rust, a German immigrant, with 1,500 residents. The village's residents did not care for the name and later changed it to El Cerrito." (
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