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! Oakland once had a red light district (like 72 other U.S. cities) which was officially tolerated by police, so long as prostitution activities were kept to this one area. The district was defined as the square created by 4th, Washington, 7th and Webster Streets. Prostitutes were given identification cards and had to present themselves every few days for a venereal disease screening.! Jack London lived in Oakland from 1876 to 1916, and was a graduate of Oakland High School. He dropped out of the University of California to become a writer and activist. In 1903 he gained international fame with his book "Call of the Wild." He ran for Mayor in 1901 as a socialist candidate, and lost with only 245 votes.
! It is no coincidence the University of California has moved into offices at 12th Street and Harrison. The University began here in 1855 as a preparatory school and occupied the space between 14th, Webster, 12th streets, and Harrison. It was moved to Berkeley in 1865.! Lake Merritt is today a very different shape than in the past. What is now a thin branch winding between the lake and the Bay was once a marsh where Oaklanders hunted waterfowl. A decision was made in the 1860's to dam the slough. The newly shaped lake was initially called Lake Peralta, after the original Spanish landowners, but people began calling it Merritt's Lake, because future mayor Samuel Merritt had put up the money to dredge the lake. A bridge was built at 12th Street-before its construction, there was actually a toll bridge across the marsh!
! When the Paramount Theater first opened in 1931, it closed six times immediately after opening, because it was not profitable. To save costs, management got rid of the orchestra and turned on only a small percentage of the theater's lights.!The Oakland Auditorium (now the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center) was pressed into service as a hospital/quarantine facility during the worldwide flu epidemic of 1918. Five hundred beds were set up in the Auditorium, with scenery from a play separating the men and women. Armistice Day was declared while patients were still abed, and there are contemporary photographs, which show celebrants in the streets wearing their hygienic white masks.
! What originally began as a Benicia seminary in 1852, Oakland’s Mills College is the second oldest institution of higher education for women in the country, having arrived here in 1871.
One man once owned the entire waterfront area of Oakland! Horace Charpentier created some misleading documents and inveigled councilmembers to sign away the city's rights to its own waterfront. After extended legal battles, the waterfront was won back.
Mammoths once roamed this area. When digging during construction of the Bay Bridge, workers found a ten pound mammoth's tooth, now in the collection of UC Berkeley's anthropology museum.
Oakland's California Columbarium (now the Chapel of the Chimes, on Piedmont Ave.) housed the first electric crematorium in the world. Lawrence Moore, the director, was given the name "Mr. Cremation" by the Cremation Association of America.The First and Last Chance Saloon, at Jack London Square, is so named because Alameda was once a "dry" island, and the saloon offered the first and last chance to get liquored up before and after the ferry trip to Alameda. The bar was one of Jack London's favorite haunts. It was built in 1880 from the timbers of a whaling ship, and originally served as a bunkhouse for oyster diggers.
Fourteen U.S presidents have visited Oakland while in office: Grant, Hayes, Harrison, McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Taft, Wilson, Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and current President Bill Clinton has visited at least 3 times. Lake Merritt escaped a fate of being filled in and used as a Southern Pacific Railroad train station. Close call!
The Necklace of Lights encircling Lake Merritt, although it may look very modern, dates back to 1925 when it was first installed. The lights were dismantled during WWII due to blackout requirements, but were re-established in 1985 after a major civic fundraising effort.
Oakland once had an elaborate system of streetcar lines called the Key System, which even ran across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge until 1958. The streetcar system was bought out by a secret conglomerate of tire and auto manufacturers, and quickly phased out. This conglomerate (including GM, Firestone, Mack Trucks and others) purchased and dismantled streetcar systems all over the U.S., hastening the age of the automobile and all the attendant pollution, traffic and parking problems. Suit was filed against the conglomerate, which was found guilty but ordered to pay only nominal fines.
Oakland's first two city halls were located in storefronts on Broadway. The present is the fifth, and a national contest was held to determine its design. The fourth city hall stood on the lawn of its larger offspring, existing simultaneously until its demolition. In 1938, Joseph B. Strauss, the engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge wanted to build a bridge across Lake Merritt, from 19th and Oak over Lakeshore Ave to East 18th Street and Foothill Boulevard. Sorry Joe. At least 34 languages are spoken in Oakland.
Oakland's experience of the 1906 earthquake: several buildings lost brick and mortar, which tumbled down into some streets and rendered them impassable. The only known moralities were five persons killed when the wall of a theatre collapsed onto them. Oakland is one of the most "wired" cities in the U.S. right now, with an intricate fiber optics network running underneath downtown.
Oakland led the West Coast in shipbuilding for the WWII war effort, with a 35% output of the pacific coast effort.The Artist Formerly Known as Prince is reported to have given Shelia E. (daughter of Pete Escovedo family and Oakland natives) a turquoise Mercedes. Oakland has an inordinate amount of flatiron buildings. Flatirons occupy triangle-shaped lots and are themselves triangular, like the business end of an iron. Two fine examples of flatirons are within a block of each other: the Lionel J. Wilson Building (originally called the Broadway Building, now named for Oakland's first African American mayor) on Broadway at 14th, and the Cathedral Building on Broadway at Telegraph.
Trestle Glen is so named because there was once a streetcar trestle running
across the gulch. The first airmail delivery ever made was in Oakland in 1912, when Farnum Fish flew from Emeryville in a homemade bi-plane. He tossed the letters out of a sack as he flew over downtown.
Oakland was once known as the Detroit of the West and by 1920 about 100 cars a day were produced at what was once a Chevrolet plant located in East Oakland.Rand McNally recently declared Oakland as the City with the best climate in America.A ghosthunter believes the historic Pardee Home on 11th Street at Castro is haunted. The Anchor Steam brewery was started here in Oakland, at 49th and Shattuck.
Reportedly, the first phone booth was built in Oakland. Oakland once had a flourishing cotton business, with 650 workers. A railroad spur led directly to the mills at 23rd Avenue in East Oakland.
Noted writer Jack London was a child laborer in an Oakland cannery, saying of the experience, "I know no horse that worked the hours I worked."Oakland was once known as the Athens of the Pacific for its popular private schools.
Gertrude Stein's famous quote about Oakland, "There's no there there", was not intended as a slam, but rather a reflection of the fact that her childhood neighborhood was unrecognizable to her as an adult. Atop the Tribune Tower these days you can see a green and white "There" flag, which humorously makes its point.
Oakland was the winner of the 1993 All-America City Award. It is the only city in the world with natural salt water "lake" (Merritt) within the boarders of the city. A Lake that incidentally, is not a true lake but the result of the flow of Bay waters into what were originally tidal wetlands.
Tony Martin was once a stock boy at the old Swan’s Market, The site of the original Swan’s Market has recently undergone renovation and is scheduled to reopen next year, as a multi- use building with residential quarters, commercial space, and a produce market. May 20, 1937 Amelia Earhart left Oakland Airport on a solo flight around the world, and was never seen again.
The 200-acre Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the same man who designed New York Central Park.
The Pointer Sisters, and Grammy Award winning gospel singer, Edwin Hawkins were born and raised in Oakland. Singing group Tony Toni Tone hails from Oakland. Legendary Latin Jazz percussionist and bandleader, Pete Escovedo originates from Oakland. The founder of Mrs.Fields Cookies, Debbi fields was once a foul line ballgirl for the Oakland A’s. Rainbow trout is reputed to have been discovered in a creek the Oakland hills.
The Mormon Temple is one of the most visible structures in Oakland. Isadora Duncan, the dancer, Clint Eastwood, Tom Hanks, Danny Glover, were all Oakland natives. The Oakland A’s may have an elephant as their icon, the city has almost 147,000 Democrats and about 37,000 Republicans.
After the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, almost 150,000 people sought shelter in Oakland. Over 65,000 became permanent residents. Oakland is credited as being the home of West Coast Blues with artist like John Lee Hooker landing here. Lake Merritt is the oldest officially declared wildlife sanctuary in the U.S. having received that designation in 1870.
The 550-acre Port of Oakland is among the top 20 ports in the world.Poet’s Joaquin Miller, and Ina Coolbrith, the states first poet laureate, became the city’s first librarian at the request of Jack London.
The Hells Angels originated in Oakland.The Morcom Amphitheater of Roses (The Rose Garden) has over 5,000 bushes and over 400 varieties.
The Bay Bridge, which feeds into Oakland, was originally supposed to be painted blue, but citizens intervened to stop the paint job. Basketball great, Bill Russell, was once a mascot for the McClymonds High School Warriors and wore feathers and carried a tomahawk at games.
Oakland as a city was created by dirty dealings. The Peralta family once
owned the entire region from San Leandro Creek north to El Cerrito, and from the bay east to the hills, as part of an 1822 land grant from the Mexican Government. Since their landholdings were so huge, the family was unable to control three men who sold parcels of the land as if it was their own. Boy, if only they'd had binoculars! Today, the Peralta name lives on in the community college district's name.