See also: Timeline of Oakland, California Depiction of Oakland in 1900. The Ohlone[edit] The earliest known inhabitants were the Huchiun tribe, who lived there for thousands of years. The Huchiun belonged to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone (a Miwok word meaning western people).[15] In Oakland, they were concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, a stream that enters the San Francisco Bay at Emeryville. Early history[edit] Conquistadors from New Spain claimed Oakland, and other Ohlone lands of the East Bay, along with the rest of California, for the king of Spain in 1772. In the early 19th century, the Spanish crown deeded the East Bay area to Luis María Peralta for his Rancho San Antonio. The grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain.[16] Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons. Most of Oakland fell within the shares given to Antonio Maria and Vicente.[17] The Peralta ranch included a stand of oak trees that stretched from the land that is today Oaklands downtown area to the adjacent part of Alameda, then a peninsula. The Peraltas called the area encinal, a Spanish word that means oak grove. This was translated more loosely as Oakland in the subsequent naming of the town, as recounted by Horace Carpentier in his first address as mayor: The chief ornament and attraction of this city consists, doubtless, in the magnificent grove of evergreen oaks which covers its present site and from which it takes both its former name of Encinal and its present one of Oakland. [18] As part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo following the Mexican–American War, the Mexican government ceded 525,000 square miles (1,360,000 km2); 55%[19] of its pre-war territory (excluding Texas) to the US in exchange for $15 million. The Treaty also provided for the safeguarding of the land and property of Mexican citizens. This provision was regularly ignored by squatters and land speculators, some of whom began settling on the Peralta Ranch, particularly during the Gold Rush. Before Congress created a Land Commission in 1851 to pursue a settlement of property claims, a group of three men---Horace Carpentier, Edson Adams, and Andrew Moon---backed at one point by a small army of some 200 men hired from San Francisco, began developing a small settlement on Peralta land initially called Contra Costa (opposite shore, the Spanish name for the lands on the east side of the Bay) in the area that is now downtown Oakland. Carpentier was elected to the California state legislature and got the Town of Oakland incorporated on May 4, 1852. By the time the Land Commission got around to confirming the Peraltas claims in 1854, Oakland was quickly being further developed. The Peraltas in the meantime had been persuaded to sell various parcels of their vast holdings.[18] In 1853, John Coffee Jack Hays, a famous Texas Ranger, was one of the first to establish residence in Oakland while performing his duties as sheriff of San Francisco.[20] On March 25, 1854, Oakland was re-incorporated as the City of Oakland. Horace Carpentier was elected the first mayor. His tenure did not last, however. He was ousted in 1855 by an angry citizenry when it was discovered that he had acquired exclusive rights to the waterfront from the Town Board of Trustees in 1852. Charles Campbell replaced him as Mayor on March 5, 1855. The city and its environs quickly grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminal in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, the site of todays Port of Oakland. The Long Wharf served as the terminus both for the Transcontinental Railroad and for local commuter trains of the Central (later, Southern) Pacific. The Central Pacific also established one of its largest rail yards and servicing facilities in West Oakland, which continued to be a major local employer under the Southern Pacific well into the 20th century. The principal depot of the Southern Pacific in Oakland was the 16th Street Station located at 16th and Wood, which is currently being restored as part of a redevelopment project.[21] In 1871, Cyrus and Susan Mills paid $5,000 for the Young Ladies Seminary in Benicia, renamed it Mills College, and moved it to its current location in Oakland, adjacent to what is now Seminary Boulevard. In 1872, the town of Brooklyn was incorporated into Oakland. Brooklyn, a large municipality southeast of Lake Merritt, was part of what was then called the Brooklyn Township. A number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland during the latter half of the 19th century. The first electric streetcar set out from Oakland to Berkeley in 1891, and other lines were converted and added over the course of the 1890s. The various streetcar companies operating in Oakland were acquired by Francis Borax Smith and consolidated into what eventually became known as the Key System, the predecessor of todays publicly owned AC Transit. In addition to its system of streetcars in the East Bay, the Key System also operated commuter trains to its own pier and ferry boats to San Francisco, in competition with the Southern Pacific. Upon completion of the Bay Bridge, both companies ran their commuter trains on the south side of the lower deck, directly to San Francisco. The Key System in its earliest years was actually in part a real estate venture, with the transit part serving to help open up new tracts for buyers. The Key Systems investors (incorporated as the Realty Syndicate) also established two large hotels in Oakland, one of which survives as the Claremont Resort. The other, which burned down in the early 1930s, was the Key Route Inn, at what is now West Grand and Broadway. From 1904 to 1929, the Realty Syndicate also operated a major amusement park in north Oakland called Idora Park
Posted on: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 23:20:49 +0000
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