The Municipality

The municipality’s name is from the Hercules Works, the chemical factory that, for a century, operated in Refugio Valley. In 1900, the town was incorporated by officers of the Hercules Powder Company. Industrial production of chemicals continued until 1977. 

Hercules is a municipality in Contra Costa County. It is a suburban home for about 25,000 residents, local-serving businesses headquarters location for a global biotech corporation and a small and medium-sized businesses. The City of Hercules is part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region, which is the sixth largest in the nation. The Bay Area economy is the seventeenth largest in the world. 

Since 1972, Hercules has grown as a place to live, work and shop, exemplifying California’s pattern of housing development with single-family homes accessed by motor vehicles.  Hercules’ story over the last half-century of converting industrial land into a place for people reflects larger lessons for many places in California.