Rust. If you came here in the 1900s and asked where El Cerrito was, you wouldn't find it. You'd find rust instead. Rust the town, that is.

Originally, El Cerrito was called Rust after Wilhelm F. Rust -a German who came to California in 1883- and owned a blacksmith shop, hardware store and post office in the small town. He later became El Cerrito's first Postmaster.

Back then cattle outnumbered people in the town, which tended to have dusty summers and muddy winters. Several dairy and chicken farms dotted the almost-bare hillsides.

Rust's denizens changed the town's name in 1917 to El Cerrito -which means "little hill" in Spanish- when it was incorporated. The city then had a population of 1,500. El Cerrito has since bloomed into a city of 24,000.

El Cerrito -which lies in Contra Costa County- is about four square miles. Albany and Kensington border El Cerrito to the south, Richmond is to the west, East Richmond Heights is to the north and Wildcat Canyon Regional Park is to the east. Berkeley is just to the southeast.

El Cerrito lies about five miles from the University of California Berkeley campus and has two Bay Area Rapid Transit [BART] stations-El Cerrito del Norte and El Cerrito Plaza.