OAKLAND'S DEVELOPING WATERFRONT
1852-19O6
INTRODUCTION
The period after Oakland’s establishment up until the 1906 earthquake was characterized by the development of its waterfront. The city saw exponential population growth and started to transform into the major port that it is today during this era. There were a few notable figures that played large roles in sparking the progression of Oakland’s urbanization and waterfront. The first was John Coffee Hays, the first elected Sheriff of San Francisco and also one of the founding fathers of Oakland. While serving as Sheriff, Hays entered into the prisoner housing business. He later moved on to purchasing some of the first properties in the East Bay after failing in the prison industry. He and his deputy John Caperton not only suffered financial losses, but also allowed seventeen convicts to escape and were not able to recapture all of them.[1] Deciding to invest in land instead, the pair joined in with other investors during January of 1852 to buy the East Bay land that is today’s Oakland. After he retired from being Sheriff, Hays mainly maintained his properties and gave portions of it to Oakland's blossoming city.
Within that same year Oakland was recognized as a town in California after Horace Carpentier, a lawyer from New York, and several others convinced the State Legislature to incorporate it. Carpentier also jointly owned a Ferry service between Oakland and San Francisco, which foreshadowed his plans for Oakland.
THE WHARF AND THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
Shortly after Oakland's establishment, the city council decided to grant Carpentier control of Oakland’s waterfront real estate for a period over the next 37 years. In return, Carpentier was only asked to build a school as well as a wharf. He faced much opposition as all of these transactions for the waterfront's ownership were done with out prior consent from the residents of Oakland; many felt that he had taken control of something that rightfully belonged to the town and the public. When Oakland became a city 1854, Carpentier was elected as the first mayor. He later went on to become a state assemblyman, although in both positions, he received more votes than number of voters in the area implying that he had the ballots stuffed in his favor. None the less, he significantly increased traffic through the wharf transporting goods from lumber and saw mills while taking in 98% of the profits; he was still running a monopoly on the ferry service across the bay as his wharf trade was progressing [2] Many attempts were made that challenged Carpentier’s ownership of the waterfront, most of which were dodged through his legal advantages or his schemes of transferring the ownership to different members of his family. Eventually in 1968, the city was finally able to file an order that would return the waterfront to the city. Carpentier saw this happening and quickly formed the Oakland Waterfront Company and transferred all the interest in the waterfront to the city of Oakland. However, Carpentier was the director of this company and he and his associates controlled most of the shares in it. Around this same time, the Central Pacific Railroad Company was deeded the Oakland waterfront. [3]
The Central Pacific Railroad was the greatest driving factor in the development of the Oakland wharf and eventual port. In the deal with Carpentier, Oakland became the main Central Pacific train station in the Bay Area. This had a huge impact on Oakland’s economy, it becoming the central hub between the Transcontinental Railroad and the entire Bay Area. The ferry service thrived as well, seeing millions of passengers a year as well as the cross-country shipping business. The trip duration to travel from coast to coast was now under a week instead of three and a half months, making travel much more convenient. [5] Jobs were becoming more readily available in the shipping yards as well as around the wharf itself. Construction of the entire waterfront area was quickly growing and spreading out. Trains that headed inland to other parts of Oakland, such as Berkeley, allowed for settlement in those areas while maintaining easy access to the wharf and San Francisco and ultimately helped the formation of the University of California. Over the next 20 years after the wharf’s construction, Oakland’s population saw a spike from 1,543 to over 34,555. [4] In 1902, the marshlands lying between Oakland and Alameda were dredged, accommodating a deeper canal allowing the port to become a deep-water port. This connected the harbor of Oakland and the San Leandro Bay, turning Alameda into an island and creating today’s Port of Oakland. [6]
OAKLAND'S PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
The main source of transportation to travel to different places in the East Bay relied mostly on the Central Pacific steam powered trains. However, these trains were becoming quite outdated, being too noisy and causing too much pollution to be traveling into the mostly residential areas away from the waterfront. Cable cars started to slowly come into play along with horse drawn carts in the late 1860s. Unfortunately, these forms of transportation featured limited service that did not go very far. The first electric streetcar appeared in1890. unfortunately, all different, independent companies provided all of the electric streetcar services. This flooded the sector, having too many of the same trains going to the same places through almost the same routes and not going to a wide range of places. Every company struggled to keep business flowing against all of the competition. [7] [8] Luckily, the electric streetcar service would soon change significantly for the better.
Another notable person in Oakland’s history was Francis Marion “Borax” Smith from Richmond, who was known for making his fortune in mining Borax. He was a strategic businessman, eventually forming the Realty Syndicate, a group that sold estates in the Oakland area. In order to bring clients out to see his properties all over the East Bay, Smith started to buy out these electric streetcar companies to provide transportation to and between his lands for sale. The easier it was for him to get people out to his properties, the easier it was to sell them. As an indirect benefit, he purchased so many of these independent streetcar lines that the services eventually became consistent and uniform as transportation for the general public. He started to add to and improve the existing lines in addition to creating extremely easy access from the streetcars to the ferries to get to San Francisco. His train service became known as the Key System, the predecessor to AC transit that still runs in the East Bay today. [9]
OTHER OAKLAND SETTLEMENTS AND LAND USAGE
Behind the scenes of the bustling waterfront, there were other events occurring helping Oakland grow in different ways. Oakland had California’s first public university, creating a different type of attraction to the city that could build its own community beside the commerce of the wharf. The original goal was to start a university that would “contribute even more than California’s gold to the glory and happiness of advancing generations” [10]. The University of California was established in 1869 from two separate schools joining forces, the College of California and the Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts Institution. The College of California was a private school started by Henry Durant and was intended to be a Christian school modeled with Yale and Harvard in mind. The Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts Institution, which was government funded, was created after the Gold Rush. The Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts Institution had the financial background while the College of California had the real estate. [11] Oakland later became the location of the Mills College, the first college west of the Mississippi to hand out a bachelor’s degree to a woman.
In addition, Oakland saw a large Chinese settlement during this time period. Many of these Chinese people came to California in search of gold but ended up being forced out of the mining sites due to racism. After moving around and being bullied out of various Oakland neighborhoods, the Chinese finally settled in the area of today’s current Chinatown in 1870. Oakland’s Chinatown offered a close proximity location to San Francisco while being more affordable to live in and having a greater availability of service and manual labor jobs, such as construction, railroads, and farming. Faced with lots of hostility not only in Oakland but all over the country, the Oakland Chinese community persevered and Chinatown survived the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. [12]
WORKS CITED_____________________________________________________
1. Hennessy, Michael. "John Coffee Hays: San Francisco's First Elected Sheriff." New Page 1. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://sfsdhistory.com/JackHays.htm>.
2. "Learn More - Horace Carpentier." Waterfront Action. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.waterfrontaction.org/learn/horace.htm>.
3. "Horace Carpentier." A history of Berkeley, From the ground up. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://historyofberkeley.org/horace_carpentier.html>.
4. "City of Oakland -- 1860 to 1940 Census data." Census. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Oakland40.htm>
5. "The Waterfront Changes Hands." Waterfront Action. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.waterfrontaction.org/history/large/70_changes.htm>
6. "History." The City of Alameda -. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.cityofalamedaca.gov/About-Alameda/History>.
7. "History of East Bay Public Transportation." AC Transit. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.actransit.org/about-us/in-the-community/history-of-east-bay-public-transportation/>.
8. "When Trains Ruled the East Bay." - Oakland Magazine. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/Oakland-Magazine/January-2008/When-Trains-Ruled-the-East-Bay/>.
9. "Francis Marion "Borax" Smith." - OaklandWiki. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://oaklandwiki.org/Francis_Marion_%22Borax%22_Smith>.
10. "History - 19th-century founding of UC's flagship campus - UC Berkeley." UC Berkeley. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.berkeley.edu/about/hist/foundations.shtml>.
11. "California Digital Library." California Digital Library. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.cdlib.org/>.
12. "CHINATOWN OVERVIEW." Oakland Chinatown History Overview. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.oaklandchinatownhistory.org/chinatown.html>.
2. "Learn More - Horace Carpentier." Waterfront Action. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.waterfrontaction.org/learn/horace.htm>.
3. "Horace Carpentier." A history of Berkeley, From the ground up. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://historyofberkeley.org/horace_carpentier.html>.
4. "City of Oakland -- 1860 to 1940 Census data." Census. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/cities/Oakland40.htm>
5. "The Waterfront Changes Hands." Waterfront Action. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.waterfrontaction.org/history/large/70_changes.htm>
6. "History." The City of Alameda -. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.cityofalamedaca.gov/About-Alameda/History>.
7. "History of East Bay Public Transportation." AC Transit. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.actransit.org/about-us/in-the-community/history-of-east-bay-public-transportation/>.
8. "When Trains Ruled the East Bay." - Oakland Magazine. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.oaklandmagazine.com/Oakland-Magazine/January-2008/When-Trains-Ruled-the-East-Bay/>.
9. "Francis Marion "Borax" Smith." - OaklandWiki. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://oaklandwiki.org/Francis_Marion_%22Borax%22_Smith>.
10. "History - 19th-century founding of UC's flagship campus - UC Berkeley." UC Berkeley. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.berkeley.edu/about/hist/foundations.shtml>.
11. "California Digital Library." California Digital Library. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.cdlib.org/>.
12. "CHINATOWN OVERVIEW." Oakland Chinatown History Overview. 07 Mar. 2013 <http://www.oaklandchinatownhistory.org/chinatown.html>.
IMAGES_______________________________________________________
1. http://sfsdhistory.com/images/Hays-Fernwood-Oakland2.jpg
2. http://sfsdhistory.com/JackHays/Hays-Brady-2.jpg
3. http://www.peraltahacienda.org/PH_allalbums/pllroom/images/10.jpg
4. http://www.cprr.org/Museum/images/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/Specimen_Book_1885/_long_wharf_oakland.jpg
5. http://www.cprr.org/Museum/images/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/photographs/oakland_long_wharf.jpg
6. http://modelhobby.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1482.-Arrival-of-the-Eastern-Train-Oakland-Wharf-Western-Pacific-Railroad.-1860-1870-600x574.jpg
7. http://blockainc.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/port-of-oakland-0641.jpg?w=640
8. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F3upAgRO9cU/TvC4ChORzFI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/nsQLlHHJfZw/s1600/keysystemmap.gif
9. http://berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/images/UC_campus/South.Hall.jpg
2. http://sfsdhistory.com/JackHays/Hays-Brady-2.jpg
3. http://www.peraltahacienda.org/PH_allalbums/pllroom/images/10.jpg
4. http://www.cprr.org/Museum/images/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/Specimen_Book_1885/_long_wharf_oakland.jpg
5. http://www.cprr.org/Museum/images/I_ACCEPT_the_User_Agreement/photographs/oakland_long_wharf.jpg
6. http://modelhobby.eu/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/1482.-Arrival-of-the-Eastern-Train-Oakland-Wharf-Western-Pacific-Railroad.-1860-1870-600x574.jpg
7. http://blockainc.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/port-of-oakland-0641.jpg?w=640
8. http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F3upAgRO9cU/TvC4ChORzFI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/nsQLlHHJfZw/s1600/keysystemmap.gif
9. http://berkeleyheritage.com/berkeley_landmarks/images/UC_campus/South.Hall.jpg