Schoolhouse Creek (Alameda County, California)

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Schoolhouse Creek is the name of a creek which flows through the city of Berkeley, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Berkeley, California City in California, United States

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California. It is named after the 18th-century 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 2010 census recorded a population of 112,580.

San Francisco Bay Area Conurbation in California, United States

The San Francisco Bay Area is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo and Suisun estuaries in the northern part of the U.S. state of California. Although the exact boundaries of the region vary depending on the source, the Bay Area is generally accepted to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other sources may exclude parts of or even entire counties, or expand the definition to include neighboring counties that don't border the bay such as San Benito, San Joaquin, and Santa Cruz.

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History

The creek acquired its name from a school which was sited adjacent to it, the Ocean View School (the first school in today's Berkeley, established 1856 on land donated by José Domingo Peralta). The school was later replaced by the San Pablo Avenue School and still later, the Franklin Elementary School. In 2003, Franklin was closed, and in 2004, the Berkeley Adult School moved into its remodeled buildings. On this site at the corner of Curtis and Virginia Streets, a small park created by citizen volunteers, the Schoolhouse Creek Common, was opened on May 13, 2006.

Schoolhouse Creek rises in the Berkeley Hills from a number of small springs just south of Codornices Creek and north of Cedar Street. Its principal tributary, Lincoln Creek begins in the hills at the top of Virginia Street. Schoolhouse and Lincoln have their confluence in the vicinity of McGee and Cedar Streets on the flatlands below the hills. From there the creek runs southwest between Virginia and Cedar Streets. Throughout most of its upper and middle courses, the creek is culverted. It emerges for part of the block between Sacramento and Acton Streets, above Chestnut Street, and again at Curtis Street. Where it crosses the old right-of-way of the Santa Fe railroad, now a pedestrian-bicycle trail, a massive buried concrete abutment and culvert hide the creek.

Berkeley Hills

The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills", but with the establishment of Berkeley and the University of California, the current usage was applied by geographers and gazetteers.

Codornices Creek river in the United States of America

Codornices Creek, 2.0 miles (3.2 km) long, is one of the principal creeks which runs out of the Berkeley Hills in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In its upper stretch, it passes entirely within the city limits of Berkeley, and marks the city limit with the adjacent city of Albany in its lower section. Before European settlement, Codornices probably had no direct, permanent connection to San Francisco Bay. Like many other small creeks, it filtered through what early maps show as grassland to a large, northward-running salt marsh and slough that also carried waters from Marin Creek and Schoolhouse Creek. A channel was cut through in the 19th Century, and Codornices flows directly to San Francisco Bay by way of a narrow remnant slough adjacent to Golden Gate Fields racetrack.

Watershed

Originally, the creek flowed into the south end of a large, northward-flowing salt marsh and slough that also carried waters of Codornices and Marin Creeks to San Francisco Bay. West of this marsh, low dunes and a crescent of sandy beach curved northwest to Fleming Point. But the marsh was filled, the creek was channeled into a pipe that also carried sewage to the Bay, and the shoreline was extended westward with Berkeley's garbage.

East Bay Municipal District intercepted the sewage in the late 1940s, but the creek still flows in the pipe just north of and parallel to Virginia Street, reaching San Francisco Bay in the squared off "North Basin" that was destined to be filled by more garbage, before citizen effort halted Bay fill in the 1960s.

This shoreline is now part of Eastshore State Park, managed by East Bay Regional Park District. The long-term plan for the park contemplates daylighting the creek here to create a small salt marsh that would also lessen flood danger in West Berkeley. Friends of Five Creeks, a volunteer group, does maintenance and revegetation work in this area. [1]

East Bay Regional Park District

The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special district operating in Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California, within the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area. It maintains and operates a system of regional parks which is the largest urban regional park district in the United States. The administrative office is located in Oakland.

See also

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Cerrito Creek

Cerrito Creek is one of the principal watercourses running out of the Berkeley Hills into San Francisco Bay in northern California. It is significant for its use as a boundary demarcation historically, as well as presently. In the early 19th century, it separated the vast Rancho San Antonio to the south from the Castro family's Rancho San Pablo to the north. Today, it marks part of the boundary between Alameda County and Contra Costa County. The main stem, running through a deep canyon that separates Berkeley from Kensington, is joined below San Pablo Avenue by a fan of tributaries, their lower reaches mostly in culverts. The largest of these is Middle or Blackberry Creek, a southern branch.

Hayward Regional Shoreline

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Friends of Five Creeks is a regional community volunteer organization founded in 1996 by Sonja Wadman originally dedicated to the stewardship of creeks in northern Alameda County and western Contra Costa, California, United States. Education about wildlife and restoration is also a major facet of the FFC's mission.

References

Coordinates: 37°52′14″N122°18′26″W / 37.87066°N 122.3072°W / 37.87066; -122.3072