USA > California > Alameda County > Oakland > Illustrated album of Alameda County, California; its early history and progress-agriculture, viticulture and horticulture-educational, manufacturing and railroad advantages-Oakland and environs-interior townships-statistics, etc., etc > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12
22
ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
and its teachings were slightly sectarian in that line, but of late years it has been unsectarian, while evan- gelically Christian in its teaching. Its attendance has been from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy-five.
At Livermore is situated the Livermore College, an institution similar to the one at Irvington, for the ed- ucation of both sexes. It has an annual attendance of about one hundred and twenty-five and graduates a class every year, many of the graduates being from distant points. It is under the superintendence of Professor J. D. Smith, who is the President of the Col- lege.
Within the boundaries of the City of Oakland are a number of private educational institutions. One of the oldest of these is the Field Seminary, on Telegraph Avenue, established by Miss Harriet Field in 1870. It is called a home school for girls. It is now under the principalship of Mrs. W. B. Hyde.
The Snell Seminary, on Twelfth Street, near Clay, is also a school for young ladies that is very popular and annually graduates a large class of young women prepared for the active duties of life. Richard B. and Miss Mary E. Snell are the principals.
A school for young inen is that of the Hopkins Academy, under Professor W. W. Anderson, as prin- cipal. It is situated between Thirty-second and Thirty- fourth Streets, New Broadway, and Telegraph Avenue. The graduates are admitted to the State University without entrance examination. It was endowed by the late Moses Hopkins some years ago and Mrs. Hopkins promises another endowment. The trustees are looking for a larger site.
The Pacific Theological Seminary, the denomina- tional school of the Congregational Churchies of Northern and Central California, for the education of young men for the ministry, is also situated in Oak- lund, on grounds adjoining the Hopkins Academy. It has a full faculty and contains the usual chairs of such an institution, and each year graduates a class of young men fully equipped and prepared for the Chris- tian ministry. During the present year efforts are be- ing made to increase the endowments and facilities of the Seminary.
About twenty-eight years ago Archbishop Alemany, of San Francisco, founded a school for boys, which was carried on by the clergy of the church, under his supervision, for eight or ten years. It was then trans- ferred to the care of the Order of Christian Brothers, and was conducted by them in the outskirts of San Francisco, near the Mission road. In 1888 the corner- stone of a new structure was laid on New Broadway, Oakland, and a magnificent building, complete in all
its appointments, five stories in height, erected. In 1891 the school was transferred to this building. Its curriculum embraces the usual classical, scientific, and literary college courses. There is also a preparatory school and commercial course. An exhibit from this college and model of the building is on exhibition at the Columbian Exposition.
The California College, at Highland Park, Oakland, is the denominational college of the Baptist Church. It is also a preparatory school for the denominational theological seminary. It has the usual academic and college courses.
Aside from the colleges, seminaries, and academies mentioned, there are also two commercial colleges, where special education is given for commercial busi- ness. One of these is the Oakland Business College and Institute of Penmanship, on Clay Street, near Eleventh, conducted by Professor O. J. Willis. The other is situated on the second floor of the Young Men's Christian Association building, at Clay and Twelfth Streets, conducted by Professor J. H. Ayde- lotte. Both these schools have large classes in the usual commercial school courses.
CHAPTER IV. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES.
Salt Works-Beet Sugar Factory-Soap, Iron, and Nail Works -Car Works-Agricultural Works-Oil Refineries-Paint Works-Cotton, Jute, Planing, and Flouring Mills-Tile, Terra Cotta, and Art Pottery-Brick Yards-Tanneries, etc.
Nowhere on the Pacific Coast is there a situation better adapted to the erection and carrying on of all kinds of manufactures than on the Alameda County shores of the Bay of San Francisco, and along the banks of the estuary of San Antonio, or Oakland Creek. This has been exemplified already by the several industries already carrying on works on these shores, and there are still hundreds of locations suitable, and with the rapid growth there is no doubt that many more of these sites may soon be occupied. They are near rail transportation, as well as being close to deep water, thus handy for shipping to the interior or east, as well as loading on vessels for coast, Mexican, South American, Hawaiian, Australian or Oriental ports. A brief account will be given of some of the manufactories and works already established. Some of them have been in successful operation a number of years.
MANUFACTURE OF SALT.
A Pioneer Industry of Alameda County and of the State.
Alameda County is the pioneer of the Pacific Coast in the salt industry and is now the principal place
PLATE 9
RES. OF J. C. WHIPPLE, DECOTO.
23
ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
where salt is gathered in California. As early as 1850, at New Haven, now Alvarado, salt deposits were gathered, and for a long time the entire con- monwealthı depended upon it for the supply. Its out- put now is very large and last year aggregated thirty- seven, thousand eight hundred and fifty tons or thirty- seven million eight hundred and fifty thousand pounds. There are no less than eighteen different salt beds along the shores. Of these that of the Solar Salt Company of B. F. Barton is shown in plate No. 21 of this album. There was gathered at these beds last year two million five hundred thousand pounds of salt. His works are at Alvarado, and near his works, at the same place, are four others, making from five hundred to fifteen hundred tons annually, or an aggregate of fifty-six hundred tons. At Newark there is only one firm engaged, but it gathers and prepares for market four thousand tons of salt. At Russell's Station two thousand two hundred tons are gathered up by three persons. At Mount Eden the largest quantities are gathered, one company prepar- ing twelve thousand tons annually, another five thou- sand, and several two thousand tons. At this place last year twenty-two thousand tons or twenty-two million pounds were gathered up and prepared for market.
During the salt season over two hundred la- borers are employed; one steamer and seven sailing vessels are kept busy transporting the salt from these beds, which range along the shore for nearly eight miles. This salt is sold at prices ranging from $7.00 to $14 per ton, and that which is refined by the larger companies is held to be equal to the best Liverpool salt. In passing along the railroad between San Le- andro and Newark it is an interesting sight to see the great white pyramids along the bay shore. The process followed is that of spontaneous evaporation of the water of the Bay of San Francisco similar to that used on the shores of the Mediterranean. A large piece of land varying from one to several acres barely above high-water mark is leveled, and in some in- stances puddled with clay so as to prevent the water from percolating and sinking away. A reservoir is constructed alongside also rendered impervious, in which the water is stored and allowed to settle to a certain extent.
The prepared land is partitioned off into large basins or setting reservoirs, and others, smaller in size and more shallow, to receive the water as it becomes more and more concentrated, sufficient fall being al- lowed from one set of basins to the other to cause the water to flow slowly through them. This sea salt, after the water has been all drained off, is then col-
lected into small heaps or rows from the surface of the beds by means of a wooden scoop or scraper, and is allowed to stand for a time where it undergoes a first partial purification, the more deliquescent salts (especially the magnesium chloride) being allowed to drain away. From these small heaps and rows it is gathered into larger ones or pyramids, where it drains further and becomes more purified. Some of the larger companies make a refined product by taking it to the refinery, where it is either washed and stove dried, or dissolved in fresh water and then boiled down .and crystallized like that made from the rock salt brine, but the most of it goes into commerce just as it comes from the large heaps and pyramids at the salt beds.
The Solar Salt Works shown in plate 21 have seven hundred acres of marsh land, divided into reservoirs, settling ponds, and crystallizing vats. The capacity is five thousand tons yearly of crystalline salt.
MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR FROM BEETS.
The Pioneer Beet Sugar Factory of the United States, Located in Alameda County.
The pioneer beet sugar factory of the United States was erected at Alvarado, Alameda County, California, in 1869, with a capacity of sixty tons of beets daily. After running four seasons, at a great loss, the ma- chinery was removed and re-erected at Soquel, Santa Cruz County, and run two or three seasons at a loss, when it was closed down. In 1879 another factory was erected at Alvarado by E. H. Dyer & Co., for the Standard Sugar Company, and F. H. Dyer appointed General Manager. It commenced operations in the fall of that year. Its daily capacity was eighty tons of beets, and its cost about $300,000. In the first four seasons a net profit of $103,349.63 was made. This factory was run eight seasons, when the works were destroyed by a boiler explosion. Owing to the low prices of sugar, the profits the last four seasons were very small.
In the year 1889, E. H. Dyer & Co. erected an- other factory at Alvarado, which is still running. It was incorporated under the name of the Pacific Coast Sugar Company, and had a daily capacity of one hundred and fifty tons of beets. In 1890 a con- trolling interest was sold to San Francisco capitalists, who re-incorporated as the Alameda Sugar Company and enlarged the works to a daily capacity of upward of two hundred tons of beets. The cost of the pres- ent works was about $350,000. The officers of the company are: John S. Howard, President; James Cof- fin, Secretary ; E. C. Burr, Manager, and J. W. Atkin- son, Superintendent.
24
ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
There are hundreds of acres in Alameda County suitable for the cultivation of the sugar beet for profit. It demands a soil easy to till, one that is loose and pliable, but not too sandy. It also requires proper preparation before and cultivation and care after planting. The best results have been obtained by a deep plowing a month or two previous to seeding, say twelve or fourteen inches, or with two plowings, the first about nine inches and a second subsoil plowing of six to eight inches deeper. The plowing is done in the early winter so that the atmospheric influences destroy the cohesion of the soil and at the same time kill any insects that may be present.
The reason for the deep cultivation is that the point of the beet root may penetrate the earth deeply without resistance, so as to produce as few rootlets as possible, and form a beet of good size and conical shape. It also allows it to develop without crowding itself out of the ground, producing better in weight and in percentage of suger. The seeding, done from early in March to May, according to location-up- land or lowland-must be carefully done, and the best results are said to be obtained where the seed is only covered to the depth of half an inch to one inch. The cultivation of the beet requires the greatest care, both in regard to keeping out the weeds and in. work - ing the soil. They mature from August I to Oc- tober 15, according to location and date of planting.
The largest acreage of the sugar beet in Alameda County is near Alvarado, and nearly all the land suit- able for its cultivation in that vicinity has been used for the purpose at different periods during the past twenty years, but not all at the same time. It was at first difficult to get the farmers to understand the nc- cessity of careful cultivation (the company does not cultivate the beets , and the consequence was a less price received by them and less percentage in sugar. The average price paid at the Alvarado factory is about $5.00 per ton. From ten to fifteen tons are produced on an acre, thus averaging from $50 to $75 to the farmer, less the expense of farm labor, etc. A few hundred acres were planted to beets near Pleas- anton last season and the product was handled at the factory at Alvarado.
The Alameda Sugar Factory at Alvarado turns out, when running full blast, day and night, with two shifts of hands, forty thousand to fifty thousand pounds of white sugar daily. Eighty men are employed in the factory in the various departments, and during the last season, between September 15 and December 25, fifteen thousand tons, or thirty million pounds, of beets were handled, two hundred to two hundred and fifty tons per day, and fifteen hundred tons or
three million pounds of white sugar turned out. The last season was considered a good one for the farmers and the factory. Several tons of beets, grown near Antioch, Contra Costa County, were shipped to the factory at Alvarado last year.
The works are situated on Alameda Creek, a small stream which runs down from the foothills and emp- ties into San Francisco Bay, but is not navigable. It is also on the line of the South Pacific Coast Division (narrow gauge) of the Southern Pacific Company's system.
The process used at the factory at Alvarado is known as the diffusion process. The beets used are a highly cultivated variety of the Beta Maritima (sea beet), natural order Chenopodacec, the seeds of which are imported from Germany and France, where the greatest care is exercised in the production, with a view to obtaining beets with the highest percentage of sugar. This ranges from fifteen to eighteen per cent, but the average beets produce from twelve to fifteen per cent of sugar. There are at least fifteen different varieties grown in California, and several of these are shown in jars in the Alameda County Exhibit, as well as the sugar at different stages of its manufacture at the Alvarada factory. The varieties mostly used in Alameda County are the Klein-Wauzleben, white ; Vilmorin, white; White Silesian and Improved Im- perial, rose and white.
The limit of the average composition of the sugar beet is given below :-
Water. .Juice. . 84.5 to 70.0
Sugar and other soluble bodies } f 11. 5 to 17.0
Solids. .
Cellulose and other solids . . .. { 4.0 to 4.0
The non-saccharine solids in the juice are very complex, embracing albumien, amido-acids and other nitrogenous bodies, beet-root gum, soluble pectore, compounds, fat, coloring matter, with the phosphates, sulphates, oxatates, and citrates of potash, soda, iron, lime, and silica.
The process of manufacture of sugar from the beet is an exceedingly interesting one, when it is consid- ered that at no period, from the moment the juice is taken from the beet until it reaches the vacuum pan, where it is boiled, does it remain more than five min- utes in any one place, but is kept constantly moving. It will sour in less than half an hour if allowed to stop anywhere during the process.
The beets are pulled up and sacked in the field, then hauled in wagons by the farmer to the factory, weighed and dumped in long bin-like sheds, which have a water trough, or flume, running along under- neath the center. When the water is turned on, the beets are carried by it into a tank in the lower part of
PLATE 10
ESHR
CENTELLO
LAUREL RANCH, RESIDENCE OF J.H. STROBRIDGE, NEAR HAYWARDS.
25
ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
the factory, where they are washed by a revolving wheel, carried by it to an elevator, which conducts them to the slicing machine, in which a large drum or cylinder, armed with close set rows of blades revolv- ing with great rapidity slices them up into strips about one-eighth of an inch square and differing in length from two to six inches, according to the size of the beet. The slices are then conducted to the diffusion battery, which consists of twelve cells, or diffusers, ar- ranged in circular form, nine being in use, while the other three are being emptied, cleaned, and refilled. A brief description of the diffusion process might well be added at this point. This process for obtaining the juice depends on the action of dialysis, in which two liquids of different degrees of concentration, sep- arated by a membrane, tend to transfuse through the membrane until the equilibrium of solution is attained. In the beet the cell walls are membranes inclosing a solution of sugar. The theory of the process is that if these cells be brought into contact with pure water, and that they contain twelve per cent of sugar, trans- fusion will go on until an equal weight of water con- tains six per cent of sugar, while by the passage of water into the cell the juice there is reduced to the same density. Taking the six per cent water solu- tion, and with it treating fresh roots or slices, contain- ing twelve per cent of sugar, a nine per cent solution will be attained, which on being brought a third time in contact with fresh roots, could be raised to a den- sity of ten and five-tenths. According to this, theo- retically, seven-eighths of the whole sugar would be obtained at the third operation, and on this is based the process of diffusion.
The diffusers mentioned are large, close, upright cylinders, each capable of holding two or three tons of sliced beets. They are provided with manholes above, perforated false bottoms, and pipes communi- cating with each other, so that the fluid contents of any one can be forced by pressure into any other. In working the process, pure water from an elevated tank is run into No. I cylinder, which contains the sliced beets almost exhausted of their soluble 'con- tents; it percolates the mass, and by pressure passes into No. 2, where it acts on slices richer in juice. From No. 2 it goes on through the entire series, ac- quiring density in its progress, and in each successive cylinder meeting slices increasingly rich in juices. Prior to its entering the last cylinder, the watery juice is heated, and under the combined influence of heat and pressure, becomes richly charged with sugar. No. I cylinder, when exhausted, is disconnected, and the pulp passes to a steam press, where all the re- maining water is expressed, and it is carried outside
the building and hauled away by the farmers for fod- der. No. 2 cylinder becomes No. I, and a newly- charged cylinder is added on, and thus the operation goes on continuously during the entire season, night and day. It is said that it requires two weeks' instruc- tion to enable a man to properly understand the handling of a diffusion battery.
From the diffusion battery the juice passes into a large tank, where it is heated by steam vapor and passes to the carbolization process, where carbonic acid and lime are added to clarify it. It passes through three of these processes, and after the third carbolization, goes into the filter process, where, pass- ing through three of these, the lime is extracted, and the clear, pure, but thin and watery juice is carried into a series of closed vessels, or tanks, called the quadruple effect, where it is thickened. These tanks are provided internally with a series of closed pipes for steam vapor heating, the steam passing by a pipe from the first one into the worm of the second and so on to the third and fourth. The thickened juice passes from the fourth tank of the quadruple effect into a reservoir and from there is drawn into a large closed tank on the fourth floor of the factory, called the vacuum pan, in which it is boiled about four hours at a low temperature. This pan is a closed globular vessel, in which by the aid of a condenser and air pump, a vacuum is maintained over the boiling juice, and the boiling point is lowered in proportion to the decrease of air pressure. This immense vessel will hold about thirty tons of the thickened juice. When it has been sufficiently crystallized, the boiled- down juice, being a grainy mass of crystals floating in fluid syrup, then called "magma," is transferred to the mixing pans, which are kept constantly moving to prevent solidifying, and from these is fed into the drums or buckets of the centrifugal machines.
A small quantity is dropped into these machines and they are set in motion, revolving at a high rate of speed, which separates the crystals and sirup, the latter being driven through the meshes of the basket, while the crystals remain on the meshed walls. For the further cleaning of the sugar crystals, water is sprinkled upon them from a hose while the machine is in motion. The sirup is returned for reboiling and the sugar passes into receptacles, from whence it is conducted to the drier, a revolving steam drum, and comes out a pure, dry, granulated white sugar, which is placed in one hundred pound sacks or in barrels for the market.
From the second boiling of the sirup, a brown sugar is made, but it is in turn worked over and man- ufactured into white. The final molasses, or tailings,
26
LLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
is a highly impure mixture of crystallizable potash and other salts, smelling and tasting strongly of its beet origin. No attempt is made at the Alvarado factory, on account of the high price of fuel, etc., to recover the large amount of sugar, forty to fifty per cent, contained in this molasses, though in Germany and France several methods are employed, one being by fermenting and distilling from it an impure spirit for industrial purposes.
In the process a great deal of lime is used, and the company burn their own limestone, using fifteen tons daily at their kiln.
THE ALAMEDA BORAX REFINERY.
A Pacific Coast Product Prepared for Market in Alameda County.
At Alameda Transfer, a little railroad station upon the Bay of San Francisco, the Southern Pacific Com- pany switches onto the side track of the Pacific Coast Borax Company's Refinery not less than seven or eight car loads of fifteen tons each of crude borax every week in the year. At a similar rate the refined product is reshipped either by car or upon schooners from the end of the little wharf. During the period of detention of this material at the works, an interest- ing chemical romance has been enacted. "It is a story of fickle affinities, wherein, as often happens with such affinities elsewhere, the two fickle ones unite in a waste combination, while the deserted ones get together and make a respectable and valua- ble product."
The rough, broken masses of brown colored rock, a borate of lime, have been transformed by the agency of mechanical energy, and the wonderful alchemy of chemistry into beautiful, translucent crystals of pure borax, a staple product known to every druggist and grocer, and coming into use in every household.
Borax is distinctively a Pacific Coast product, being found nowhere else in North America. Since the important discoveries in 1873, California and Ne- vada have furnished an ample supply for the domestic consumption. This has steadily increased from five million pounds in 1876 to fourteen millions in 1892, or more than doubling every ten years.
It is to the credit of the Pacific Coast producers that the price has steadily declined, till now borax is not only within the reach of all, but one of the cheap- est articles of household economy. This is the more important as wherever used it seems to become indis- pensable.
The most noted region yielding this valuable staple is the world-renowned Death Valley, in Inyo County.
This valley lies two hundred feet below sea level, and is intensely hot and dry, though not necessarily as deadly as has been supposed. Borax deposits are usually thinly spread over the surface of low ground. The Death Valley deposit extends upon higher ground, and the later sources of main supply are deep beneath the surface At Calico, near Dagget, in San Bernardino County, the borate of lime is found in ledges or veins of crystal, which require mining and pulverizing before the borax can be separated from the residuum.
The Alameda Refinery is an interesting establish- ment for two reasons: First, the fact that it is the only borax refinery on the coast, and probably the largest in the world. Second, the fascinating character of the mechanical and chemical processes there carried on. The purity of the article and cleanliness of all the operations give the factory somewhat the character of a flouring mill. The crude material passes first through rock breakers, then to mills, rolls, and burr- stones, till finely pulverized. It is then, with a small portion of carbonate of soda, also a product of the deserts of California, thrown into an immense steam chest, or pressure boiler, called a digester, probably the hughest stomach now known, where, under heat, pressure, and agitation, the existing affinities are com- pletely upset. The carbonic acid drops the soda, and unites with the lime, which yields its boracic acid. The latter quickly unites with a small portion of the soda, and we have a bi-borate of sodium, the chemist's name for borax. It is yet, however, in solution, and must be drawn off into large tanks to crystallize. Here the pure product forms by successive crystalli- zations upon thousands of tiny steel rods. as rock candy crystallizes upon a thread. This process is re- peated until a proper degree of purity is reached, when the refined borax is ready for market, though powdered for many uses.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.