Hayward, California

Hayward is a city in Alameda County, California, in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. The 2020 census counted 162,954 residents, making it the sixth largest city in the Bay Area and the third largest in Alameda County. The land became part of Rancho San Lorenzo, a Spanish land grant to Guillermo Castro in 1841. Most historians believe the place was named for William Dutton Hayward, who opened a hotel there in 1852, and it was known first as Haywards before the final s was dropped. A post office opened in 1860 and the state of California chartered a town under the name Haywards in 1876. The city covers about 64 square miles, more than a quarter of it water, including bayside salt ponds. Its economy long rested on agriculture and on the Hunt Brothers Cannery, which opened in 1895 and closed in 1981, and the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge, opened in 1929, links it to the San Francisco Peninsula.