Canyon, formerly known as Sequoya, is an unincorporated community located near the border of Contra Costa and Alameda counties, in the U.S. state of California. It is situated between Oakland and Moraga in the San Francisco Bay Area. The community is named for its location in the upper canyon of San Leandro Creek along the eastern slope of the Berkeley Hills. Canyon lies at an elevation of 1138 feet (347 m). The community is mainly traversed by Pinehurst Road and Canyon Road. The homes of the community are nestled amongst the steep, narrow private roads and footpaths that extend from the redwood groves and ferns along the creek, through the mixed live oak, bay, and madrone forests on the steep hillsides, up to the chaparral and knobcone pines that grow along the ridge. History Canyon has a colorful history. Logging camps and notorious saloons helped establish a local reputation for rowdiness in the nineteenth century. A vast forest known as the Moraga Redwoods once covered the valley that is now Canyon. An extant fire trail west of the spot where Pinehurst Road makes a sharp hairpin turn near Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve was previously known as Winding Way on some maps, and was originally an old 19th century logging road built by Hiram Thorn. In the 1850s, Thorn operated a mill on the site. Thorn built the road to bring redwood logs out of the forest and to his mill, and then over the mountain into Oakland via the Temescal Creek route on the northwest edge of Montclair Village. The Oakland part of the route is now known as Thornhill Road. In the first half of the 20th century, the local water company, East Bay Municipal Utilities District, purchased much land south of town. They constructed the Upper San Leandro Reservoir, which slowly as it filled up, flooded the former towns of Valle Vista and Redwood. The reservoir also flooded several neighborhoods of Canyon itself. In fact, the only reason Canyon is not the size of neighboring Moraga is because of a lack of a viable water resource. The few people that do live there are mostly commuters and retired people who like the town's seclusion, with close proximity to San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Earlier in the 20th century, the Sacramento Northern Railway ran through the canyon for which the community is named. The rails ran on a