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 9
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ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
CHAPTER VII.
CITY OF OAKLAND AND ENVIRONS.
The Second City in California-"Athens of the Pacific"- Great Railroad Center-Unexcelled Climate-Fine Har- bor-Superior Manufacturing Sites-Educational Advan- tages-Excellent Public Schools and Colleges for Tech- nical Training.
The city of Oakland, the county seat of Alameda County, California, is on the mainland, on the shores of the Bay of San Francisco, directly opposite the city and peninsula of that name. It is partly in Oakland and partly in Brooklyn Township. The following con- densed statement with reference to this city was pub- lished in the December, 1892, North American Review:
"Oakland is the second city in California; popula- tion, sixty thousand; steady annual increase, four thou- sand; situation directly opposite San Francisco on the eastern shore of the bay, eight miles from city to city. Trains and ferryboats make connecting trips, one every fifteen minutes; time across, thirty minutes. Ferry trains penetrate the business and residence por- tions; single fare, fifteen cents; round trip, twenty-five cents; monthly commutation ticket, daily round trip, $3.00per month, or five cents across-eight miles for five cents. Number of passengers daily, over twenty thou- sand. The steamer ride (fifteen minutes) is across the most beautiful harbor in America. Oakland is the actual terminus of the transcontinental railroad; all inland trains stop here, San Francisco being reached by ferry. Freight and passenger service are separate. Passenger boats carry from two thousand to four thou- sand passengers each. The importance of Oakland as a railroad center is well stated in the official 'Report of the Internal Commerce of the United States,' at page 178, thus: 'Oakland is in fact a great railroad center, the system which penetrates there being local, suburban, State, coast, and transcontinental.' Daily departure and arrival of trains, over three hundred.
"OAKLAND HARBOR .- On the south side of the city stretches the only east side harbor, an arm of the bay; $990,000 completes it; the work can be done in two years; $1,534,000 has already been expended by the government. Harbor freight traffic, 1874, only one hundred fifty-four thousand three hundred tons; in 1888, two million five hundred ninety thousand tons; it is now over three million tons annually.
"ELECTRIC RAILROADS .-- City, suburban and cross town roads, fifty miles; cable roads, ten miles; any fare, with transfers, five cents; steam train from eastern to western city limits, five miles. No charge within city limits allowed.
"RESOURCES, WEALTH, ETC .- The taxable base, real estate alone in the city, $42,000,000; personal property, $4,000,000. One dollar on the hundred is the charter limit of city tax. Streets, bituminized or macadamized, one hundred miles; sewers, one hundred and fifty miles.
"MANUFACTORIES .- Ninety-eight ; people employed, five thousand-including cotton mills, nail works, iron- works, fruit packing establishments, carriage factories, piano factory, flour mills, planing mills, potteries, shirt factories, tanneries, boiler works, paint factories, boot and shoe factory, sash and door factory, brass works, jute mills, glass works, railroad shops, etc. Banks, seven; capital stock paid in, $1,604,000; deposits, $10,513,530.
"ATHENS OF THE PACIFIC .-- Properly so called be- cause of educational and geographical resemblances. To the west lie the bay and islands, like the Grecian Archipelago; eastward rise the slope and Coast Range foothills, of the same height and appearance as those about Athens. This slope rises gently from the bay shore; at from three to seven miles inland it rises into undulating foothills from fifty to five hundred feet high. No view surpasses that here presented facing the bay and Golden Gate.
"SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES .- Public school children, ten thousand; private school children, four thousand. Bonds now being expended, $400,000, to enlarge the common and high school facilities, now rivaling the very best. California had the benefit of the older States' experience, and has leaped to the educational vanguard at once. The State University is but five miles north of Oakland's center, at Berkeley-endow- ment $5,000.000; students, thirteen hundred. Oakland churches, sixty-six, all denominations; membership, eighteen thousand.
"SOCIETIES .- Fraternal, musical, and art, of opera- tive activity, are here found, as well as in the oldest States.
"CLIMATE .- Fresh, cool ocean atmosphere, with no harsh winds. Why ?- Because west of San Francisco rises a range of hills one hundred feet high, east of Oakland a range at its summit from seven hundred to nine hundred feet high. This pitches the summer trade winds of the ocean upward, as they pass over Oakland, and to a height of (say) nine hundred feet. Oakland, cool, shaded and fanned, but never wind- swept, lies in the triangle of repose, on the slope east of the bay, west of its own hills, and under the cloud- bearing trade winds of summer. There is more differ- ence between the San Francisco and the Oakland cli- mate than would be found in five hundred miles' travel in the Mississippi Valley.
VIEW (LOOKING EAST ) OF THE CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERS
PLATE 19.
ES MOORE, ARTIS
Y, GROUNDS & BUILDINGS, BERKELEY, CAL.
1887
J
VIEW (LOOKING WEST) OF THE CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERS
PLATE 20.
L
R
ARTIST
Y, BERKELEY. BAY & CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO & GOLDEN GATE.
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ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
"A soil warm and sandy, produces fruit and flowers the year round; the grade furnishes perfect drainage; germ diseases are practically unknown; mortality, only thirteen to the thousand. Flowers bloom here out- doors the year round, thousands of them. The palm, banana, orange, magnolia, heliotrope and rose flourish side by side. Thrift and comfort are universal. The green lawn is in front of the cottage as well as the palatial residence. County population, one hundred thousand. Every fruit, grain, and flower, every vine and tree produced in California, thrives in Alameda County.
"Oakland is the second city in the State, but only in wealth and population. In education, refinement, life enjoyment and civilization force, Oakland stands first on the Pacific Coast."
The above is a concise resumé of Oakland and her peculiar advantages, but it may be well to go more into detail for the purposes of this work. The dis- tance intervening between Oakland and San Francisco is five miles, and it is sometimes said that Oakland is on the "land side," and San Francisco on the "water side"-meaning thereby that while Oakland is on the mainland, and is easy of access from north, east and south, San Francisco is built upon a narrow peninsula which is impossible of access by land except from the south. This cause gives to Oakland the termini of the principal railroads already existing, and also much greater prospective importance, as destined to be one of the greatest railroad centers in the United States a few years hence. Railroads, a good harbor, numerous large manufactories, and ample facilities for more, give Oakland first-class importance among Pacific Coast cities in an industrial sense.
With reference to this a recent writer says: "The sharp contrast between the two sides of the great Bay of San Francisco impressed the minds of the earliest settlers. On one side a peninsula of land, surrounded by deep water, but itself divided between the posses- sion of shifting sands of the beach and of steep hill- sides, swept every day by chilly breezes and often by volumes of fog from the neighboring ocean-little herbage and scarcely a tree in sight; on the other side there was a natural park-a broad and gentle slope covered with groves and groups of magnificent oaks, which came down quite to the water's edge and dipped their branches in the sea-the whole covered in winter and spring by a brilliant carpet of luxuriant grass and red, white, and purple flowers. But the better natural harbor being on the other side of the bay, the great city of California was founded there, and Oakland was left to grow slowly for many years. But gradually, as means of communication were established, and as peo-
ple learned that the difference between the climates of the two sides of the bay was as great as can ordinarily be found by going from one zone to another, and especially as schools and municipal improvements in- creased, the population of Oakland grew, because this was the best side of the bay to live upon. The people who came had means and taste. They spared-as often as they could -- the native oaks, and they planted European forest trees between them; they lined the streets with the trees of the temperate and the tropical zones; they built elegant houses and surrounded them with beautiful gardens; they made streets which are a paradise for drives, and, going further back to the nearest hills, they planted their villas and their gar- . dens upon the slopes or in the warm elbows of the hills, where they can look down upon the forest of roofs and spires, upon the blue waters of the bay, upon the western wall of mountains, upon the Golden Gate opening through it, and upon the distant ocean be- yond. Such is fair Oakland, 'the Athens of the Pa- cific,' and the home of much that is best and most promising in California."
EARLY HISTORY AND STEADY PROGRESS.
The first actual settler on the site of what is now the city of Oakland, aside from the Spanish grantees, was Moses Chase, who pitched his tent at what is now the foot of Broadway, in the winter of 1849-50, as a hunter. He was followed by the Patten Brothers, in February, 1850. Next came Colonel Henry S. Fitch and Colonel Whitney, who, foreseeing that a great city would in time spring upon this land side of the bay, made an unsuccessful attempt to purchase the site from Peralta, the Spanish grantee. In the summer of 1850 came Messrs. Moore, Carpentier, and Adams, who squatted upon the land, claiming that it belonged to the government and not to Peralta, and erected a shanty near the foot of Broadway. The site of the present city was then covered with dense thickets of brush and live oak shrubs and trees, through which ran cattle trails in different directions. The advent of these last-named gentlemen was the inauguration of the squatter war and title contests, which lasted for years. This agitation had a tendency to attract many to Oakland who probably would have sought other portions of the State.
In 1852 Oakland was incorporated as a town, by an Act of the Legislature, and the Act was signed by Gov- ernor Bigler at Benicia, then the capital of the State, on May 21, and the first election under the charter was held on the second Monday of the same month. This was the inauguration of the great city which was
6
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ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
to be, and now is, and which wise mnen then saw in the distance, as through a glass darkly. The same year a steamer was put upon the creek route, to run between this embryo city and San Francisco.
In the spring of 1853 the attention of scholars was directed to this fair and picturesque site, as a desirable place to found institutions of learning, and Rev. Henry Durant established here the Oakland College School, which was the germ of the State University, Dr. Du- rant becoming its first president.
In March, 1854, Oakland was inaugurated as a city, and H. W. Carpentier was elected the first Mayor; and soon after, that powerful engine of civilization and progress, the press, was founded in this young city, and a paper started called the Alameda Express. This, however, was preceded by that other great civilizing and refining power-the church-Rev. Samuel B. Bell having established a small church somewhere in the vicinity of what is now Third and Franklin Streets.
The city grew slowly up to the year 1864, when it started out in the real race of progressive and rapid growth. The third great civilizer and aid in progres- sion had come into the field-the locomotive. Ground had been broken for the construction of the great transcontinental railway, and the railroad builders were at work; and Oakland was the only point where the railroad and tide water could meet; and it was de- termined to make this city the terminus of that great highway which was being pushed across the continent. It took some six years to get it here, but it came, for it had no other outlet to the Pacific Ocean, where car and ship could meet and exchange cargoes.
The federal census of 1860 showed a population in the city limits of one thousand five hundred and fifty- three. For the next ten years Oakland forged ahead, the census of 1870 showing a population of ten thou- sand five hundred. The next decade showed an increase of two hundred and fifty per cent, the census of 1880 giving a population of thirty-five thousand five hun- dred. Since 1880 the increase in population has been remarkable, and to-day the lowest estimate is fifty-five thousand, while those acknowledged to be experts claim that the population is not less than sixty thou- sand. Add to this the population of the natural sub- urbs of Oakland-Berkeley, Claremont, Temescal, Lorin, Golden Gate, Piedmont, Brooklyn, outside the city limits, and the population would be not less than seventy-five thousand, or nearly fifteen thousand more than the population of the whole county in 1880.
The increase in wealth has kept pace with the in- crease in population. In 1854 the assessed valuation of property in the city limits was $100,905; in 1864;
$794,121 ; in 1870, $4,257,294; in 1875, $19,869,162 ; in 1880, $28,691,640; in 1893, $46,500,000.
In 1854 Oakland was without streets, in fact, though the survey showed them upon the maps. To-day there are some one hundred and fifty miles of legal streets, about one hundred miles of them paved and macad- amized, furnishing the finest drives of any city on the continent. There are two hundred and twenty miles of sidewalks, about one hundred and twenty-five of them concrete paved. Within the past three years many streets have been paved with bituminous rock, a pavement the material for which nature has furnished this State with an inexhaustible supply, ready mixed and prepared, and when laid makes the finest, smooth- est, cleanest, and most durable of pavements, and what is of greater benefit still, it is comparatively noiseless.
In 1853 the first attempt at the organization of a fire department was made. Three volunteer companies were organized. The Board of Trustees appropriated $2,000 for the purchase of an engine, and two cisterns were constructed. This was the starting of what has since grown into one of the most efficient fire depart- ments on the coast.
The arca of Oakland has increased with its increase of population. Three times its charter lines have been extended since its first incorporation as a city, in 1854. The area of the city at the present time is about four- teen square miles; but the time is not far distant when there will be either a consolidated city and county of Oakland, or its charter lines will be extended to the whole limits of the two townships, taking inthenumerous growing and populous suburbs which are now realiz- ing the great need of municipal government. The agitation of this subject commenced about three years ago.
It may be of interest to note and give the dates of a few of the more important events in the city's history : In 1866 the first sewer was laid, and the same year marked the introduction of city water by the Contra Costa Water Company. In 1867 began the system of street improvement with the macadamizing of Broadway. In 1872 eleven miles of street were macadamized, and the same year the houses were ordered to be numbered. In 1875 the Main Lake sewer, by means of which the Oakland street drains can be flushed twice every day with clear salt water, was begun, and a year later it was completed at a cost of $166,000-the most ex- pensive public improvement which had then been made. In 1877 the present handsome City Hall was built upon the site of an older one, which was burned down. The dates of several other innovations were as follows: 1853, opening of the first public school;
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S
S
SOLAR SALT WORKS ON ALAMEDA CREEK (NEAR THE BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO )
OFFICE
PLATE 21.
2
3
4
5
8
9
10
13
14
15
16
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
SACRAMENTO ST., SAN FRANCISCO, B. F. BARTON PROP.
1, 2.3.4.5. SETTLING PONDS OR RESERVOIRS, 6 TO 16 EVAPORATING PONDS. 119.12 SALT HEAPS. S.S.S CRYSTALINE SALT PILES.
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ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
1854, first newspaper, a weekly called the Contra Costa; 1860, harbor improvements undertaken at expense of city and county; 1863, the first railroad operated, from Broadway to end of wharf, four miles; 1865, railroad extended from Broadway to Brooklyn and later same year to Hayward; 1864, first street railroad; 1865, gas introduced; 1865, jute mills established; 1867, first bank; 1868, fire limits established; 1868, Lusk Can- ning Factory opened; 1869, High School founded; first overland train enters Oakland; 1870, Webster Street bridge built; 1872, annexation of Brooklyn; 1872, opening of San Pablo Avenue; 1873, extension of the local railroad; 1873, city wharf built; 1874, United States Government work begun on harbor; 1874, reorganization of Fire Department; 1876, Eighth Street bridge built; 1876, fire alarm telegraph intro- duced; 1878, Free Public Library; 1880, South Pacific Coast (narrow gauge) Railroad enters Oakland; 1881, California and Nevada Narrow Gauge Road started; 1881, California Ilosiery Company's factory; 1882, Judson Iron Works and Pacific Nail Works; 1884, cotton mills: 1886, Board of Trade established; 1888, adoption of new city charter; 1892, voting of $400,000 for new schoolhouses.
PARKS, WATER PARK AND BOULEVARD.
In the body of the city there is a salt water lake, known as Lake Merritt, or Lake Peralta, connecting by tide gates with the harbor and bay. This lake, or water park, belongs to the city. Its waters can be re- newed with each ebb and flow of the tide. The main sewer of the city is flushed from it. When tide is low in the bay, the high tide caught in the lake is turned in at the eastern end of this main sewer and rushes through, discharging in the bay. Proceedings are well under way for the beautifying of this lake, or water park. The improvement will include a boule- vard around it, a distance of about three miles. This boulevard will be one hundred and fifty feet wide, will provide for foot walks, street cars, and a double driveway, and will also involve the dredging of the lake to a uniform depth of about five feet. This, when completed, will furnish at once as beautiful a land drive and as beautiful a water park as can be found in this country. The sum of $1,000,000, it is estimated, will be required to complete this work. A portion of the boulevard is now under construction, and a steam dredger was built during the past winter upon the lake for the purpose of cleaning it out. There are also eleven handsome, well-kept parks in various por- tions of the city. The grass and shrubbery in these are green all the year round, and, in strange contrast
with those of the Eastern cities, men, women, and children may be seen-the children enjoying them- selves playing in the walks, and the older persons walking around, or sitting enjoying the pleasant · weather-in November, December, January, and Feb- ruary as much as in April, May, June, July, August, September, or October.
OAKLAND HARBOR.
The most magnificent harbor on the American con- tinent is the Bay of San Francisco, which is capable of accommodating the maritime fleets and navies of the world. A portion of this immense harbor and the safest part is on the south side of the city of Oakland, being an arın of the bay completely sheltered. It is here that many vessels, especially the whaling fleet, cast anchors for a winter haven. Along this arm of the bay, whose geographical name is the Estuary of San Antonio, but commonly known as Oakland Creek, terminating at East Oakland in a large circular basin, are facilities for wharves and manufactories second to none on the Pacific Coast or in the world. This har- bor is being gradually improved. The sum of $1,534,- ooo has been expended upon it by the government, and $990,000 will complete the work yet to be done. It is expected that this will be finished next year. As yet there is only a beginning in the matter of wharves and of manufacturing industries along this water front of more than forty miles in Alameda County. The difference in the tonnage of Oakland Harbor between 1874 and last year will show to what extent it has grown in less than twenty years. The tonnage traffic in 1874 was only one hundred fifty-four thousand three hundred tons. In 1888 it had grown to two million five hundred ninety thousand, and the past year it was over three million tons. When the improve- ments now in progress are completed and the tidal canal completed between the San Leandro Bay and the estuary, it is confidently expected that a number of new wharves will be erected and the tonnage largely increased. This canal is partially cut through the neck of land between the two bodies of water, and it is understood will be completed in the course of a year. It is for the purpose of keeping the channel of the estuary flushed out, by the ebb and flow of the tides.
Oakland, however, has in effect two harbors-an in- ner and an outer. The former will admit vessels draw- ing eighteen feet of water, and the latter possesses a depth varying from nothing at the shore line to a depth accommodating the largest ships at the outer end of the existing wharves-extending from the end
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ILLUSTRATED ALBUM OF ALAMEDA COUNTY.
of the mole on the northerly side more than two miles into the bay. About all the transhipments from vessel to car, and vice versa, are made at the end of these long wharves, while the local shipping traffic is con- ducted in the inner harbor-the estuary and the basin, as the lower and the upper portions are respectively known. During the year 1891-92 the shipping traffic in the estuary and the basin amounted to upward of two million tons, and the traffic at the end of the pier to perhaps half as much more. When the depth of water in the estuary and its approaches has been in- creased from fourteen to twenty feet or more, there will be scarcely any limit to the growth of the com- merce of Oakland, and that can be done if the present plans of the United States engineers are executed. Even with the present depth of water, the shipping trade of Oakland would amount to several times its present magnitude, if there were more wharves, and more particularly if there was warehouse accommoda- tion. Perhaps there is nothing for which Oakland waits with so much impatience at this time as a good dock and warehouse system. The present indications are favorable to the early attention of docks and ware- houses, the work having been already commenced on the inner harbor.
THE CITY GOVERNMENT.
The legislative department of the city is under the control of a City Council, composed of eleven members, elected biennially, one from each of the seven wards and four from the city at large. The Council is the Board of Aldermen of the city. It grants franchises, fixes tax levies and water rates. Orders for all street work and laying sewers emanate from the City Coun- cil. The work on streets and sewers, however, is done by the Superintendent of Streets under the direction of the Board of Public Works who are appointed by the Mayor to serve four years. The members of the Coun- cil serve practically without compensation, receiving the nominal salary of $40 per month.
The executive of the City Government is the Mayor, who receives a salary of $3,000 per year. His duties are similar to those of like office in other cities. His term of office is two years, and he is elected by the people.
The other officers, such as Auditor, Assessor, Tax Collector, etc., are similar in name and duty to those of the same nature in other cities of the same class.
The Board of Education also consists of eleven members, elected biennially at the same time and in the same manner as the members of the City Council. All legislation pertaining to the public schools is con-
trolled by this Board, but the carrying out of contracts for schoool buildings, furniture, and supplies is left to the Board of Public Works. The City Superintendent of Schools is ex-officio Secretary of the Board of Ed- ucation.
The Board of Public Works and ex-officio Board of Police and Fire Commissioners are appointed by the Mayor of the city. Their terms are four years and are so fixed that one member goes out of office every two years, thus giving each Mayor (whose term is only two years) the appointment of one member of the Board of Public Works, except in case of resignation, removal, or death, in which case the Mayor then in office fills the vacancies. Only two of the Board of Public Works may be members of one political party. All street work and other public work of the city is under the direction of this Board. It appoints the Superintendent of Streets and his deputies and assist- ants, also the Chief Engineer and other officers and employes of the Fire Department, the Chief, Cap- tains, and members of the Police force, all of whom serve during the pleasure of the Board, but can only be removed for cause.
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