Back in old days, the indigenous Huchiun people would scrape clay pigments from the creek bed and use them to decorate their bodies.

Mountain lions were once common in the hills, and the neighborhood's name honors that -- since "leon" is the Spanish word for lion. Today we still get reports of the odd mountain lion sighting in Leona Heights.

Leona Heights once included an iron pyrites mine, Alma Mine, nicknamed the Devil's Punchbowl.

In the early 1900s, trace amounts of gold in the ore veins led to a small gold rush in the area. Alma Mine had a tramway that carried ore down the hill, miners' quarters and a rock-crushing machine. The industry must have been bustling at one time -- and quite noisy as well.

Local naturalist Paul Covel led tours of the mine after it was abandoned in 1915. Before its closure, hikers in the area were disconcerted but excited "by muffled thunder from underground blasts in the ore tunnels and picturesque miners with lighted candles in their caps," Covel wrote.

A network of underground tunnels may not make for the most stable ground, especially for a housing development in earthquake country. But as you can see by driving past one of the abandoned quarries (notable for its scraped-earth appearance, visible near Edwards Avenue and Interstate 580), development is happening there.

In addition to his work as a tour guide at Alma Mine, Covel was camp naturalist at Oakland's Feather River Camp in the Sierra Nevada for more than a decade. A trail in Joaquin Miller Park is named for him.

One of Covel's more lasting legacies is his creation of the Canada Goose population at Lake Merritt. As the lake's naturalist from 1934 to 1975, Covel traveled to Dixon to capture nine geese that were enjoying a farmer's pasture. Those nine then did what comes naturally -- and began the flock that we see today. Covel's love of the feathered ones led him to write a book in 1978, "People are for the Birds."