A community leader described Pleasant Hill on the eve of its incorporation in 1961 as "a dozen subdivisions looking for unity." Pleasant Hill had previously been a loosely knit farming community on land first inhabited by the Ohlone Indians and later by Mexican rancho owners. Many heard the call following World War II to come to Pleasant Hill for a "modern" and "western" life. The hallmarks of suburbia--tract houses with sprawling lawns, tree-lined...