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The history of Piedmont, California, covers the history of the area in California's San Francisco Bay Area that is now known as Piedmont, up to and beyond the legal establishment of a city.
In 1850, what is now Piedmont was part of Rancho San Antonio. This area, owned by the Peralta family, covered much of the northeastern shore of San Francisco Bay, now northern Alameda County. Rancho San Antonio was sparsely populated except for cattle and the vaqueros who tended them. [1]
In 1860, retired South Carolinian Congressman Isaac Holmes bought a piece of land from his neighbor John Reed. The area included Bushy Dell Creek, a creek that runs through the dog-walking trail of modern-day Piedmont. Holmes bathed in the foul-smelling pink water of a nearby spring, believing the water beneficial for his rheumatism. [1]
In 1870, Walter Blair bought over 800 acres (3.2 km2) of land in the foothills of East Bay. Where the spring was located he built the Piedmont Springs Hotel, of 20 bedrooms and five dining rooms. The water of the spring was thought to have curative powers. Wealthy San Franciscans retired to the hotel during trips to "the country." [1]
In addition to the hotel, Blair built a dairy farm on what is now Highland Avenue and a quarry where Dracena Park is today. [2] He would also go on to establish the Broadway and Piedmont Railroad, which provided transportation to the area via horsecars. [3] [4]
In April 1877, James Gamble bought a 350-acre (1.4 km2) tract of land from Blair, and formed the Piedmont Land Company, along with James deFremery, George W. Beaver, Lucius A. Booth (cousin of Newton Booth), and Timothy L. Barker. [5] The Piedmont Land Company hired landscape engineer William Hammond Hall to plan the avenues and subdivide the tract into 67 parcels. The first auction of land took place on April 10, 1877. [1]
In January 1891, the women of Piedmont led a temperance movement to block the sale of liquor at the Piedmont Springs Hotel. They petitioned the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to withdraw the liquor license granted to the owner of the hotel. Prominent signers included Annie Barton, Anna Richardson, N. Randall, Florence Wing, Inez Craig, M. Laurence, Ethyl Robert, and Mary Gamble. [1]
The liquor controversy ended quickly with the Piedmont Springs Hotel fire. On November 17, 1892, sparks from the chimney of the hotel set the roof on fire. Newspapers reported that
The absence of any water supply left the occupants of the doomed building no other recourse than to sit down in the shade and watch the building burn. [1]
Firefighters had to arrive from Oakland, two hours later, at 11:30 a.m., to contain the flames.
Jack London married Bess Maddern in 1900, and the newlywed couple settled in a redwood bungalow in the hills east of Oakland. At the time, this area was growing into a community for artists. It was here that London wrote his novel Call of the Wild . [6] London's two daughters, including Joan London, were born during this time. [1]
In 1902, London moved to 206 Scenic Avenue, and "tried to create a childhood he never had," Piedmont historian Ann Swift wrote. [6] He entertained "Peter Pans of both sexes," flew kites, held bubble-blowing contests, and competed to see who could swallow the most soda crackers. [6]
London's friends included fellow Bohemians George Sterling, James Hopper, Herman Whitaker, Xavier Martinez, Blanche Partington, and Charmian Kittredge. After divorcing Bess Maddern London in 1904, he married Kittredge.
The Bohemians were characterized by living non-traditional lifestyles as artists, writers, musicians, and actors. Unlike their wealthier neighbors, the Bohemians of Piedmont could not afford to have their homes constructed for them and instead built them themselves. [6]
Francis Marion Smith and Frank C. Havens encouraged the development of pre-Piedmont into a city. Smith, who made his fortune on borax, built railroads, especially the East Bay's Key System. Havens headed and was in charge of the Realty Syndicate, which subdivided 13,000 acres (53 km2) of East Bay property. Havens acquired a five-year lease on the Piedmont Springs Park and began a major restoration. In May 1898 the new park was complete. [1]
In 1901, the first post office opened. [7]
In 1908 Havens built an art gallery where the tennis courts are today. Carrie Sterling, estranged wife of George Sterling, nephew of Havens, served as curator. [1]
The population of Piedmont increased fourfold following the 1906 earthquake. San Franciscans fled the City to the hills, which were believed to be safer from earthquakes. To accommodate the growing population, a new city hall and fire station were built a block from the park. [1]
Two elections were held among the citizens of Piedmont in 1907, both of which narrowly upheld the decision for Piedmont to become a city.
By the Roaring Twenties, Piedmont was known as the "City of Millionaires" because it had the most resident millionaires per square mile of any city in the United States. Many of these millionaires built mansions that still stand, notably on Glen Alpine Road/Sotelo Avenue and Sea View Avenue in upper Piedmont. Piedmont became a charter city under the laws of the State of California on December 18, 1922. On February 27, 1923, voters adopted the charter, which can only be changed by another vote of the people.
By the 1920s, Frank Havens had died and Piedmont Park was on the path towards subdivision. Wallace Alexander, who had recently moved to Piedmont from Hawaii with his wife, Mary Alexander, stepped forward. He loaned the city enough to buy the park, and encouraged the Bay Area architect Albert L. Farr to create the Civic Center Plan. [1]
This plan was presented to the community in 1922. It included expanding City Hall, building a city library, and connecting the entrance of Piedmont Park to the electric trolley line, which was the transportation at the time. Of the plan, little did materialize. The exedra, the structure that includes the iconic vase of Piedmont, was built at the head of Piedmont Park. Piedmont High School was built in 1921 and opened to students the following year. It was funded by a bond passed by voters in 1920. However, the stock market crash of 1929 plunged many into financial ruin that kept the rest of the plan, for which bonds had not already been passed, from completion. [1]
In 1925, the city's first African-American homeowners, Sidney and Irene Dearing, got around the racially restrictive covenants by purchasing a home using a white family member as a proxy. [8] [9] A mob of 500 residents surrounded their home and demanded that they leave. While the Dearings initially refused to leave, bombs were left around their property. Piedmont's chief of police at the time, Burton Becker, was an active member of the Ku Klux Klan, and could not be counted on to protect them from violent threats against their lives. They were soon forced to sell it to the city. [10]
Racially restrictive housing covenants and redlining excluded non-whites for many years. [11] The American sociologist and historian James W. Loewen identified Piedmont as a "probable" sundown town, meaning that non-whites were not welcome after dusk and could face violence and intimidation.
While surrounding Oakland is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the United States, [9] attempts to desegregate the city and allow for higher density and affordable housing are typically met with resistance from the city's residents. [12] In early 2021, the city council indicated that it intended "to move forward with public acknowledgement and an apology for the abhorrent treatment Sidney Dearing and his family received in 1924." [13]
Up until the creation of the high school, students had attended elementary school in Piedmont, and turned to Oakland for junior and senior high. In September 1922, the Piedmont Unified School District opened the city's first high school. The school was built in 1921 in a neoclassical design, part of the same plan that built the Piedmont city's Exedra. A cafeteria was added in 1923, a library in 1924, and an adjacent junior high in 1926. [6] Since its design by architect W.H. Weeks, the school has undergone several reconstructions, for reasons such as expansion, earthquake retrofitting, and combating dry rot. In 1974, the school was declared unsafe under state earthquake laws. It was demolished, and three new classroom buildings and a gymnasium were built. The original library, quad, and administration buildings were rehabilitated. [14]
In the 1920s the high school offered an equestrian club for students who rode their horses around Piedmont, which was then much less developed than today. Girls wore sailor-suit tops with uniform skirts, boys had a stricter dress code than today, and original artwork decorated the walls of the school.
Ever since its creation, when an additional $100,000 was needed to expand the school, the high school has faced reconstruction numerous times. In the 1970s the breezeway was one of the "back-to-nature"-esque additions made. During the 2003-2004 school years an entrance and trophy room to the gymnasium was added. In 2006, voters passed Measure E, issuing $56 million to earthquake retrofitting of the city's schools. [15]
Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2020 census recorded a population of 124,321.
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, financial, and cultural center within Northern California. With a population of 808,988 residents as of 2023, San Francisco is the fourth-most populous city in the U.S. state of California behind Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose, and the 17th most populous in the US. It covers a land area of 46.9 square miles at the upper end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second-most densely populated major U.S. city behind New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind four of New York City's boroughs. Among the 91 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2023. San Francisco anchors the 13th most populous metropolitan statistical area in the United States, with almost 4.6 million residents in 2023. The larger San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area, the fifth-largest urban region in the U.S., had a 2023 estimated population of over 9 million.
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the most populous city in the East Bay, the third most populous city in the Bay Area, and the eighth most populous city in California. It serves as the Bay Area's trade center: the Port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California, and the fifth- or sixth-busiest in the United States. A charter city, Oakland was incorporated on May 4, 1852, in the wake of the state's increasing population due to the California gold rush.
Piedmont is a small city located in Alameda County, California, United States, enclaved by the city of Oakland. Its residential population was 11,270 at the 2020 census. The name comes from the region of Piedmont in Italy, and it means 'foothill'. Piedmont was incorporated in 1907, and was developed significantly in the 1920s and 1930s.
Santa Rosa is a city in and the county seat of Sonoma County, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area in California. Its population as of the 2020 census was 178,127. It is the largest city in California's Wine Country and Redwood Coast. It is the fifth most populous city in the Bay Area after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont; and the 25th-most populous city in California.
The Key System was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, San Leandro, Richmond, Albany, and El Cerrito in the eastern San Francisco Bay Area from 1903 until 1960, when it was sold to a newly formed public agency, AC Transit. The Key System consisted of local streetcar and bus lines in the East Bay, and commuter rail and bus lines connecting the East Bay to San Francisco by a ferry pier on San Francisco Bay, later via the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. At its height during the 1940s, the Key System had over 66 miles (106 km) of track. The local streetcars were discontinued in 1948 and the commuter trains to San Francisco were discontinued in 1958. The Key System's territory is today served by BART and AC Transit bus service.
George Sterling was an American writer based in the San Francisco, California Bay Area and Carmel-by-the-Sea. He was considered a prominent poet and playwright and proponent of Bohemianism during the first quarter of the twentieth century. His work was admired by writers as diverse as Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Robinson Jeffers, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, H. P. Lovecraft, H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, and Clark Ashton Smith. In addition, Sterling played a major role in the growth of the California cities of Oakland, Piedmont, and Carmel-by-the-Sea.
Piedmont High School is a public high school located in Piedmont, California, United States, and is one of two high schools in the Piedmont Unified School District.
East Oakland is a geographical region of Oakland, California, United States, that stretches between Lake Merritt in the northwest and San Leandro in the southeast. As the southeastern portion of the city, East Oakland takes up the largest portion of the city's land area.
The Piedmont Avenue neighborhood is a residential and commercial district in the North Oakland region of Oakland, California. It is named for Piedmont Avenue, a commercial street known for dining and retail. The neighborhood is roughly bounded by Temescal and Broadway on the west, Oakland Avenue and the City of Piedmont on the east, the Mountain View Cemetery on the north, and the MacArthur Freeway section of Interstate 580 on the south.
Montclair is a hillside neighborhood in Oakland, California, United States. Montclair is located along the western slope of the Oakland Hills from a valley formed by the Hayward Fault to the upper ridge of the hills.
Rockridge is a residential neighborhood and commercial district in Oakland, California. Rockridge is generally defined as the area east of Telegraph Avenue, south of the Berkeley city limits, west of the Oakland Hills and north of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Avenue/51st Street and Broadway. Rockridge was listed by Money Magazine in 2002 as one of the "best places to live".
Howard Terminal Ballpark was a proposed baseball stadium to be built in the Jack London Square neighborhood of Oakland, California. If approved and constructed, it would have served as the new home stadium of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball (MLB), replacing the Oakland Coliseum. The 34,000-seat stadium was the last of several proposals to keep the Athletics in Oakland. The site is currently a parcel of land owned by the Port of Oakland. After securing the site, the Athletics planned to have the stadium built and operational after the team's lease expired at the Oakland Coliseum in 2024.
The Claremont Club & Spa, A Fairmont Hotel is a historic American hotel that is situated at the foot of Claremont Canyon in the Berkeley Hills. Located in the Claremont district, near the intersection of Claremont Avenue and Ashby Avenue, the site straddles the city limits of Berkeley and Oakland. The border between the neighboring cities runs down the former Key System E train right of way that now serves as a pathway between the tennis courts which belong to the Berkeley Tennis Club.
Temescal is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Oakland, California, located in North Oakland, and centered on Telegraph Avenue. The neighborhood derives its name from Temescal Creek, a significant watercourse in the city.
Glenview is a neighborhood in Oakland, California developed in the early decades of the 20th century, mostly with mid-sized 2 and 3-bedroom craftsman bungalows. The neighborhood lies in the Oakland foothills, bordering Dimond Park on the eastern side of the district, and Park Boulevard on the northwestern side. The upper portion of the neighborhood sits on the west side of Park Boulevard and is bordered by the Trestle Glen neighborhood as well as the City of Piedmont. Park Boulevard, as the neighborhood spine, also serves as the local shopping node, with a number of convenience shops and several restaurants stretching a few blocks. To the south, the neighborhood is delimited by MacArthur Blvd and the I-580 freeway.
Frank Colton Havens was a real estate and water developer in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Albert Lincoln Farr was an American architect, who was known for his designed residences in the Craftsman and Georgian styles. He was active in the San Francisco Bay Area. Farr was part of the firm Farr & Ward.
Lothlorien is a cooperative house consisting of two former mansions built next to the University of California, Berkeley, United States. It is located on 2405 and 2415 Prospect Street. Along with Kingman Hall, Casa Zimbabwe and Cloyne Court Hotel it is one of the well known houses in the Berkeley Student Cooperative system. Both buildings are considered to be significant for their architecture and location.
