Alameda: Historic Preservation
NO. 45 SITE OF COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA – The University of California, chartered March 23, 1868, used buildings of the former College of California between Franklin and Harrison and 12th and 14th Streets from 1869 to 1873. Henry Durant, who founded the Contra Costa Academy in June 1853, was elected first university president in June 1870. The university moved to its present site in Berkeley in September 1873.
Location: NE corner of 13th and Franklin Sts, Oakland
NO. 46 VALLEJO FLOUR MILL – In 1856, José de Jesús Vallejo, brother of General M. G. Vallejo, built a flour mill here, on his Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda. Niles was once called ‘Vallejo Mills.’ The stone aqueduct built to carry water for the mill parallels Niles Canyon Road.
Location: Vallejo Mill Historical Park, NE corner Niles Canyon Rd and Mission Blvd (Hwy 238), Fremont
NO. 107 JOAQUIN MILLER HOME – Joaquin Miller, ‘Poet of the Sierras,’ resided on these acres, which he called ‘The Hights,’ from 1886 to 1913. In this building, The Abby, he wrote Columbus and other poems. He planted the surrounding trees and he personally built, on the eminence to the north, the funeral pyre and the monuments dedicated to Moses, General John C. Frémont, and Robert Browning. ‘The Hights’ was purchased by the City of Oakland in 1919.
Location: Joaquin Miller Park, NW corner of Joaquin Miller Rd and Sanborn Dr, Oakland
NO. 241 LIVERMORE MEMORIAL MONUMENT – Robert Livermore, first settler of Livermore Valley, was born in England in 1799. He arrived in Monterey in 1822 and married Josefa Higuera y Fuentes in 1830. On his Rancho las Positas, where he settled in 1835, ‘Next to the mission fathers, he was the first man to engage himself in the culture of grapes, fruit, and grain.’ He died in 1858. The Livermore hacienda was a short distance north of this spot.
Location: Portola Park, Portola Ave and N Livermore Ave, Livermore
NO. 246 RANCHO SAN ANTONIO (PERALTA GRANT) – Governor Pablo de Sola, last Spanish governor of California, recognized the forty years’ service of Don Luís María Peralta by awarding him the 43,000-acre San Antonio Grant on August 3, 1820. From this point northward, the grant embraced the sites of the cities of San Leandro, Oakland, Alameda, Emeryville, Piedmont, Berkeley, and Albany.
Location: In city park at NW corner of E 14th and Hays Sts, San Leandro (southern boundary of rancho)
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-66000204
NO. 279 ESTUDILLO HOME – Site of the last home, built about 1850, of José Joaquín Estudillo, grantee of Rancho San Leandro, and his wife, Juana Martínez de Estudillo. The family founded San Leandro, built a hotel, and donated several lots, including the original site of St. Leander’s Church, to the city.
Location: 550 W Estudillo Ave, San Leandro
NO. 285 PERALTA HOME – The first brick house built in Alameda County, the Peralta home was constructed in 1860 by W. P. Toler for Ignacio Peralta, early San Leandro Spanish settler. His father, Don Luís María Peralta, received the land grant from Spanish Governor Don Pablo Vicente de Solá on October 20, 1820.
Location: 561 Lafayette at Leo Ave, San Leandro
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-78000654
NO. 299 CAMINO OF RANCHO SAN ANTONIO – The Camino of Rancho San Antonio ran from Mission San Jose to Fruitvale, and later to San Pablo by way of Oakland and El Cerrito. The word camino means trail, road, highway, or line of communication that is in general public or private use.
Location: SW corner of Oakland and Santa Clara Aves, Oakland
NO. 334 MISSION SAN JOSE – On June 9, 1797, troops under Sergeant Pedro Amador, accompanied by Father Fermín Lasuén, set out from Santa Clara for the spot that the natives called Oroysom in the valley of San Jose. The following day a temporary chapel was erected, and on June 11, the father presidente ‘raised and blessed the cross. In a shelter of boughs he celebrated holy mass.’ On the 28th Fathers Isidoro Barcenilla and Agustín Merino arrived to take charge of the new mission. The mission, except part of the padre’s quarters, was completely destroyed in the earthquake of 1868.
Location: Mission Blvd at Washington Blvd, Fremont
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-71000131
NO. 335 SITE OF SHELL MOUND – It is said that the Indians who came to this site camped just above the shoreline. The shells they threw aside from their catches of shellfish eventually covered some hundreds of thousands of square feet, marked by several cones. When the University of California excavated this site in the 1920s, they found that the mound consisted mostly of clam, mussel, and oyster shells, with a plentiful mixture of cockleshells.
Location: 4600 block of Shell Mound St, Emeryville
NO. 440 ALAMEDA TERMINAL OF THE FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD – With the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 authorizing construction of a railroad and telegraph line, the first concentration of activity was east of Sacramento. Subsequently the line was opened from Sacramento to San Jose. During June 1869 construction was started near Niles, and by August a temporary connection had been made at San Leandro with the San Francisco and Alameda Railroad. On September 6, 1869, the first Central Pacific train reached San Francisco Bay at Alameda.
Location: Naval Air Station Mall, in front of Building No. 1, Alameda Naval Air Station, Alameda
NO. 503 SITE OF FIRST COUNTY COURTHOUSE This is the site of Alameda County’s first courthouse where county government began on June 6, 1853. Officials met in a two-story wooden building erected by Henry C. Smith and A. M. Church as a merchandise store. The seat of government moved to San Leandro in 1856, following an election in December 1854.
Location: 30977 Union City Blvd and Smith St, Alvarado District, Union City
NO. 510 FRANCISCO SOLANO ALVISO ADOBE – This building, erected in 1844-46 by Francisco Solano Alviso, was the first adobe house to be built in the Pleasanton Valley. It was originally called Alisal-The Sycamores. Following the Battle of Sunol Canyon, General John C. Frémont withdrew to this building, which became his headquarters for several days.
Location: 3459 Foothill Rd, 3 mi south of Dublin
NO. 586 CRESTA BLANCA WINERY – Here Charles A. Wetmore planted his vineyard in 1882. The Cresta Blanca wine he made from its fruit won for California the first International Award, the highest honor at the 1889 Paris Exposition, first bringing assurance to California wine growers that they could grow wines comparable to the finest in the world.
Location: 5050 Arroyo Rd across from Veterans Hospital, S of Livermore
NO. 641 CONCANNON VINEYARD – Here, in 1883, James Concannon founded the Concannon Vineyard. The quality it achieved in sacramental and commercial wines helped establish Livermore Valley as one of America’s select wine-growing districts. Grape cuttings from this vineyard were introduced to Mexico between 1889 and 1904 for the improvement of its commercial viticulture.
Location: 4590 Tesla Rd at S Livermore Ave, 2 mi SE of Livermore
NO. 642 LELAND STANFORD WINERY – This winery was founded in 1869 by Leland Stanford — railroad builder, Governor of California, United States Senator, and founder of Stanford University. The vineyard, planted by his brother Josiah Stanford, helped to prove that wines equal to any in the world could be produced in California. The restored buildings and winery are now occupied and operated by Weibel Champagne Vineyards.
Location: From I-680 take Mission Blvd N 0.5 mi to Stanford Ave, turn E to winery in Mission San Jose District, Fremont
NO. 676 SITE OF SAINT MARY’S COLLEGE – Site of Saint Mary’s College, ‘The Old Brick Pile,’ 1899-1928. Plaque placed by Saint Mary’s College Alumni, April 25, 1959.
Location: 3093 Broadway and Hawthorne, Oakland
NO. 694 CHURCH OF ST. JAMES THE APOSTLE – This church, founded under authority of Bishop Kip, first Episcopal Bishop for California, has given uninterrupted service to this community since June 27, 1858.
Location: 1540-12th Ave at Foothill Blvd, Oakland
NO. 768 SITE OF NATION’S FIRST SUCCESSFUL BEET SUGAR FACTORY – E. H. Dyer, ‘father of the American beet sugar industry,’ built the factory in 1870 on a corner of his farm. It began to process sugar beets on November 15, 1870, and produced 293 tons of sugar during its first operating season. The plant has since been completely rebuilt on the original site.
Location: 30849 Dyer St, Union City
NO. 776 SITE OF FIRST PUBLIC SCHOOL IN CASTRO VALLEY – This site was part of the original Don Castro Land Grant. In 1866 pioneer settler Josiah Grover Brickell donated it for ‘educational purposes only’ and paid the salary of the teacher, who taught children in the one-room schoolhouse by day, and farmhands by candlelight at night.
Location: 19200 Redwood Rd, between James and Alma, Castro Valley
NO. 824 SAN LEANDRO OYSTER BEDS – During the 1890s the oyster industry thrived until it became the single most important fishery in the state. Moses Wicks is supposed to have been the first to bring seed oysters around the horn and implant them in the San Leandro beds. The oyster industry in San Francisco Bay was at its height around the turn of the century, it reached a secondary peak by 1911 and then faded away because of polluted conditions of the bay.
Location: San Leandro Marina, S end of N Dike Rd, San Leandro
NO. 849 MILLS HALL – When Mills Seminary, forerunner of Hue college, transferred its operations to Oakland from Benicia in 1871, it moved into a long, four-story building with a high central observatory. The mansarded structure, which provided homes for faculty and students as well as classrooms and dining halls, long was considered the most beautiful educational building in the state.
Location: Mills College, 5000 MacArthur at Pierson St, Oakland
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-71000132
NO. 884 PARAMOUNT THEATRE – This is the ‘Art Deco,’ or ‘Moderne’ style of movie palace built during the rise of the motion picture industry. The Paramount, which opened on December 16, 1931, is the most ambitious theatre design of architect Timothy L. Pflueger. Restored in 1973, it has retained an exceptional unity of style.
Location: 2025 Broadway, Oakland – plaque located at 475-21st St
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-73000395
NO. 896 FIRST UNITARIAN CHURCH OF OAKLAND – Designed in 1889 by Walter J. Mathews, this solid masonry Romanesque church departed radically from California’s traditional Gothic wood frame construction. Noted for its world famous stained glass windows produced by Goodhue of Boston, and for arching redwood spans, the widest at that time west of the Rockies, the church remains a significant cultural and architectural landmark.
Location: 685 14th St at Castro St, Oakland
NO. 908 BERKELEY CITY CLUB – The Berkeley City Club was organized by women in 1927, to contribute to social, civic, and cultural progress. The building, constructed in 1929, is one of the outstanding works of noted California architect Julia Morgan, whose interpretation of Moorish and Gothic elements created a landmark of California design.
Location: 2315 Durant Ave, Berkeley
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-77000282
NO. 925 PERALTA HACIENDA SITE – One of California’s original Spanish colonists, Luís Peralta received the first and largest Mexican land grant. His hacienda was the nucleus of the Rancho de San Antonio, which covered the sites of seven present-day East Bay cities and reached to the Contra Costa frontier. The rancho’s first permanent adobe was located here, and the 1870 Italianate frame house is one of two remaining Peralta buildings.
Location: 2465 34th Ave and Paxton St, Oakland
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-77000285
NO. 946 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY CAMPUS – These landmarks form the historic core of the first University of California campus, opened in 1873: Founders’ Rock, University House, Faculty Club and Glade, Hearst Greek Theatre, Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Library, Sather Tower and Esplanade, Sather Gate and Bridge, Hearst Gymnasium, California, Durant, Wellman, Hilgard, Giannini, Wheeler, North Gate and South Halls.
Location: University Ave, Berkeley
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-82004638
NO. 954 CROLL BUILDING – This building is closely associated with sporting events significant to the history of the City of Alameda, the San Francisco Bay area and the State of California. Croll’s is important in the early development of boxing during the Golden Age of Boxing in California, a period of great California champions such as Jim Corbett and James Jeffries. From the 1890s to about 1910, Croll housed many of the best boxers in America in his hotel.
Location: 1400 Webster St, Alameda
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: NPS-82000960
NO. 957 WENTE BROS. WINERY – Here the first Wente vineyard of 47 acres was established by C. H. Wente in 1883. In 1935 his sons, Ernest and Herman, introduced California’s first varietal wine label, Sauvignon Blanc. The efforts of the Wente family have helped establish the Livermore Valley as one of the premier wine-growing areas of California. In their centennial year, Wente Bros. is the oldest continuously operating, family-owned winery in California.
Location: 5565 Tesla Rd, Livermore
NO. 962 SITE OF BLOSSOM ROCK NAVIGATION TREES – Until at least 1851, redwood trees on this site were used as landmarks to avoid striking the treacherous submerged Blossom Rock, in San Francisco Bay, west of Yerba Buena island. Although by 1855 the original stems had been logged, today’s trees are sprouts from their stumps.
Location: Madrone Picnic Area, Thomas J. Roberts Recreation Area, Redwood Regional Park, 11500 Skyline Blvd, Oakland
NO. 968 SITE OF THE CHINA CLIPPER FLIGHT DEPARTURE – Pan American World Airways’ fabled China Clipper (Martin M/130 Flying Boat) left Alameda Marina on November 22, 1935. Under the command of Captain Edwin C. Musick, the flight would reach Manila via Honolulu, Midway, Wake, and Guam. The inauguration of ocean airmail service and commercial airflight across the Pacific was a significant event for both California and the world.
Location: Naval Air Station Mall, in front of Building No. 1, Alameda Naval Air Station, Alameda (contact Staff Civil Engineer’s Office , 510/263-3712, for permission to see plaque-3 weekdays only)
NO. 970 RAINBOW TROUT SPECIES IDENTIFIED – The naming of the Rainbow Trout species was based on fish taken from the San Leandro Creek drainage. In 1855, Dr. W. P. Gibbons, founder of the California Academy of Sciences, was given three specimens obtained from the creek. He described and assigned them the scientific name Salmo iridia. Rainbow Trout are now worldwide in distribution and are a highly prized game fish.
Location: 50 yards past Redwood Gate entrance kiosk, Redwood Regional Park, Oakland
NO. 986 PIEDMONT WAY – Piedmont Way was conceived in 1865 by Frederick Law Olmsted, America’s foremost landscape architect. As the centerpiece of a gracious residential community close beside the College of California, Olmsted envisioned a roadway that would follow the natural contours of the land and be sheltered from sun and wind by ‘an overarching bowery of foliage.’ This curvilinear, tree-lined parkway was Olmsted’s first residential street design. It has served as the model for similar parkways across the nation.
Location: Piedmont Ave between Gayley Rd and Dwight Way, Berkeley.
NO. 1025 UKRANIA, SITE OF AGAPIUS HONCHARENKO FARMSTEAD – “Ukraina” is the site of the farm and burial place of the Ukrainian patriot and exiled orthodox priest Agapius Honcharenko (1832-1916) and his wife Albina. Honcharenko was the first nationally conscious Ukrainian to arrive in the United States. He published the first American newspaper in Russian and Ukrainian languages, The Alaska Herald, from 1868-1872. He wrote the first book for the educational use of Native Alaskans. After moving here from San Francisco in 1873, He continued to publish political literature, which was smuggled into Czarist Russia. Honcharenko was a prominent scholar, humanitarian, and early champion for human rights.
Location: Garin Regional Park, East Bay Regional Park District, San Francisco Bay
NO. 1027 PARDEE HOME – The property was built by prominent Oakland pioneer Enoch Pardee, who was a state senator and representative to the Assembly. He was also mayor of Oakland in the 1870’s. Enoch Pardee’s son George also served as Oakland’s mayor but is better known as the “Earthquake” Governor of California, holding office from 1903 through 1907. George Pardee was an important Progressive voice in California Republican politics, but his efforts at reform during his governorship brought on the wrath of the railroads and lost him the nomination of his party for a second term. Pardee went on to work for conservationist causes and to help bring Mokelumne River water to Oakland. The Pardee Dam on that river is named after him.
Location: 672 11th Street, Oakland, CA
NO. 1029 USS HORNET – In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark both for its service in the Pacific in World War II and as the recovery ship for the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 astronauts. Involved in several of the heaviest and most critical battles in the Pacific, the Hornet earned seven battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation. The Hornet or its aircrews were responsible for destroying more than 1400 enemy aircraft. After undergoing modernization the ship was called to service in recovering the landing capsules for the Apollo space program. The Apollo 11 mission was the first landing on the moon. The Hornet, with President Nixon on board, picked up astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins from the sea in the summer of 1969, welcoming them to earth from their historic mission. The Hornet recovered the astronauts of Apollo 12 before the carrier was de-commissioned in 1970.
Location: Pier 3 North, Alameda Point, 707 West Hornet Drive, Alameda
NO. 1036 Coast Guard Lightship WLV 605 – Relief (decommissioned) – Lightships were floating lighthouses anchored in areas where it was too deep, expensive, or impractical to construct a lighthouse. Lightship WLV 605 was built by the Rice Brothers Shipyard in Boothbay, Maine, and was one of six lightships constructed by the Coast Guard. She was commissioned in 1951 and served at Overfalls lightship station off Delaware coast. In 1959 she was transferred to the Blunts Reef station off Cape Mendocino, where she served until 1969. In 1969 she was assigned as “Relief” for all West Coast lightship stations. She was retired from duty in 1975, and decommissioned the following year. The WLV-605 is one of a small number of only 22 surviving American lightships in the United States and she is the last lightship in California. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990.
Location: Jack London Square, Oakland
Source: https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=21388
Author: Kirill Shrayber, Ph.D.