The City of Oakley host's the annual "Heart of Oakley Festival". This event includes free admission…read moreand takes place along Main Street in front of City Hall (3231 Main Street) and in Civic Plaza. There will be live entertainment throughout the day including various cultural performances, vendor booths, food booths, an art exhibit and cultural booths. It's a good family event. They have several bouncy houses and arts and crafts for the kids to stay occupied. Try to come early because parking is limited. You can bring your own lawn chairs so you can enjoy the entertainment and hang out. There's lots of local businesses that give away free stuff.

The Crawdad Festival is home to the $25 cajun crawfish boil! This event takes place during Father's…read moreDay weekend, so it is a great place for families to attend! Great selection of foods, starting with seafood, all the way to sweets.. there is something for everyone. As you make your way through the festival, you'll be surrounded by amazing live music from local bands! Alongside all the food, there are also small business vendors that sell handcrafted goodies. This festival would have earned 5-stars if the prepaid parking lot was located closer to the event. It wasn't necessarily TOO far away, however it was just extremely hot causing many people to attempt to hitch rides from event shuttles or to just endure the heat and make the walk. The walk consists of going through a residential area where there is little to no foliage. The parking itself just seemed a little disorganized.. many cars ended up being blocked in by other cars and had to wait who knows how long in order to leave. We got lucky we found a spot near the exit. Plan ahead and get there early!

Now that the city of Isleton has taken back control of the festival and regained the original name,…read moreit is a far better experience. Lots of crawdad vendors, many other food vendors too, family owned shop vendors, kids carnival, great music and a wonderful, happy crowd. I'm looking forward to next year!

The owner is such a pleasure. This place is super organized. Easy to find everything. Very pleasant…read moreexperience and good energy.

Nice place. Clean and smells pretty good. Owners are friendly and helpful. The reading with…read morecowrie shells was incredible...!!! I did not believed going in but came out believing after what was said to me. There was no way that he would know about my problem. The best I got the help and extremely inexpensive. Thank you...!!!

Great experience in using their services for getting naturalization papers. Was very impressed with…read moretheir historical items, articles, books, photos.

If you're a local history buff, then you NEED to utilize the resources at Contra Costa Historical…read moreSociety! The historical society was founded in 1951 and contains Contra Costa County documents dating back as early as 1852. Although they have moved locations thrice over the years, their expansive curated collection remains: www.cocohistory.org/frm-center.html Their volumes of documents are cloth-bound, leather-bound, or loose leaf and can be viewed upon request. If you'd like to learn more about your family's background or want to look at your official property line, then this is the place to go! For those who can't visit them in person, they have digitized a plethora of documents that you can access via their online database: www.cocohistory.org/frm-resources.html You can search and peruse: + County Records + Court Records + Photographs + Immigration & Naturalization Papers + Probate Documents + Obituaries + West County Times + Newspaper Photo Negatives + Maps + School Records + General Subject Files (e.g. Agriculture - Growers, BART, Bridges) + Subjects by City (e.g. Antioch - History, Brentwood - People) + Special Collections They have THOUSANDS of old photographs that are also now digitized, thanks to the generous photography donation by the late Louis L. Stein, pharmacist and owner of Arlington Pharmacy in Kensington. Stein always wanted to be a historian and he collected an enormous amount of photos depicting Contra Costa County history from the 1850s to the 1930s: www.cocohistory.org/llstein.html Stein even saved The Martinez Adobe from being razed and it's now part of the John Muir National Historic Site: www.tinyurl.com/v2qp5rq So you KNOW that this collection contains almost anything that you've ever wanted to view of historic CoCo County! www.cocohistory.org/frm-photos.html There are great gifts in their bookstore (both on site and online) that you can purchase for history enthusiasts: www.cocohistory.ecrater.com/ and many of the books were researched and written at the CCCHS! They even publish a quarterly newsletter, essays, and videos that you can access on their website that are both interesting and informative : ) I especially appreciate their extensive list of links to additional local historical sites, which is helpful when you are doing research. Right now, they are featuring a tiny one-room exhibit, Women Win the Vote In California, Contra Costa & the Nation, for the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment. The society has both paid staff and volunteers who work to digitize and preserve history (you can sign up on Volunteer Match to help www.volunteermatch.org/search/org1049632.jsp). You can learn more about CCCHS in this 2 and a half minute video that was produced by KTVU in 2015 when it was chosen as a non-profit partner for the Lescher Foundation Speaker Series presentation by David McCollough: www.youtu.be/fTLIXmEsESo *Note: They offer memberships that supports the non-profit preservation of Contra Costa County history.

Small fire museum right in downtown Benicia. Interesting and items are well presented. You can…read morealso see the Benicia historic museum for no additional charge

I'd never been to the Crawdad Festival. Unless I'm a vendor I'll probably never return. All I…read morewanted was some good crawfish & they failed miserably. I'd advise anyone not to pay for "preferred parking". That was a waste of money as I ended up curbside on a side street. $25 for 1lb of uncleaned crawdads, a 1/2ear of corn & 2-3 pcs of potatoes, all unseasoned. I'm from the south so my expectations weren't too high but this was bad. There was only one booth for crawdads, go figure. Another booth was out, 3hrs after opening. I'm seriously thinking about getting a booth next year & cleaning house!! We had some fried gator, lobster & shrimp. Gator was perfect, lobster & shrimp were a little over. There were a lot of other food choices which I appreciate & there were cool & refreshing drinks to combat the heat. It was a decent outing & I can say I've been but probably never again.

I would keep going .. it was small butt can grow ! It will be fun to watch, like i did for the SRV…read morefestival

I had a great birthday celebration alongside my family at the museum, which was definitely worth…read morethe travel seeing all of the unique equipment used in various time periods. From as early as the colonial era, the World Wars, Korean War and Vietnam war, and to the gulf war leading to the present. The interactive exhibits with the several machine guns, aswell as entering vehicles was a great personal experience in the museum. My personal compliments goes to the curator Russ for guiding us through the tour. He was supportive and had a personal passion for history which I recognize. Overall, I say to the reader; study and involve yourself in history! It is real, and we carry a great responsibility in our own hands in determining it.

Good people work here!! Also, perfect place for a little boy. My son was engaged here when normally…read morehe would be bouncing off the walls. Check this place out!!

This home museum is a part of the Benicia State Capitol Park. I am reviewing in separately. It…read moreisn't always open when the Capitol Building is. It is worth timing your visit to see both of them. The very reasonable $3 admission will cover both the home and Capitol. I enjoyed a great tour of this pre-civil war home. It is filled with the items and artifacts of the original families. The house had stayed in the family until it was deeded to Benicia in the 1960s. It made it even more interesting to see how things had changed over the years. Our tour started in the rear of the house and worked to the front and then upstairs. The outer buildings are interesting. The garden is also worth exploring; the volunteers are replanting some of it. I enjoy house museums, and this one is great one. I loved to see how people lived and this one gave me a real feeling for the 100 years that the family lived here.

Thoroughly enjoyed our tour with Patty (on the Love train). She was knowledgeable about the history…read moreand had a great sense of humor. If you love learning about history, what better way than visiting actual places that encapsulates the era. For this location it was the mid-1850s. Recommend to visit when you're in Benicia.