Oakland, founded in 1852, is the eighth-largest city in the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Alameda County. Oakland is approximately 8 miles east of San Francisco and the cities are separated by San Francisco Bay. The San Francisco Bay Area is the sixth most populous metropolitan area in the United States. Based on United States Census Bureau estimates for 2006, Oakland is the 44th largest city in the United States with a population of 397,067.
Oakland is a major West Coast port, and is home to several major corporations including Kaiser Permanente and Clorox, as well as corporate headquarters for nationwide businesses like Dreyer's and Cost Plus World Markets. Oakland is a major hub city for the Bay Area subregion collectively called the East Bay.
According to the 2000 U.S. census, Oakland and Long Beach, California are the most ethnically diverse cities in the United States, with over 150 languages spoken in Oakland. Attractions include Jack London Square, the Oakland Zoo, the Oakland Museum of California, the Chabot Space and Science Center, Lake Merritt, the East Bay Regional Park District ridge line parks and preserves, and Chinatown.
The earliest recorded inhabitants were the Huchiun tribe, belonging to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone (a Miwok word meaning "western people"). In Oakland, they were heavily concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, a stream which enters the San Francisco Bay at Emeryville.
Oakland, along with the rest of California, was claimed for the Spanish king by explorers from New Spain in 1772. In the early 19th century, the area which later became Oakland (along with most of the East Bay), was granted to Luís María Peralta by the Spanish royal government for his Rancho San Antonio. The grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. The area of the ranch that is today occupied by the downtown and extending over into the adjacent part of Alameda (originally not an island, but a peninsula), included a woodland of oak trees. This area was called encinal by the Peraltas, a Spanish word which means "oak grove," the origin of the later city's name. 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. They would open the land to settlement by American settlers, loggers, European whalers, and fur-traders.
Full-scale settlement and development occurred following California being conquered by the United States during the Mexican-American War, and the California Gold Rush in 1848. The original settlement in what is now the downtown was initially called "Contra Costa" and was included in Contra Costa County before Alameda County was established on March 25, 1853. The California state legislature incorporated the town of Oakland on May 4, 1852.
The town and its environs quickly grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminus in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, the site of today's Port of Oakland. The Long Wharf served as both the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad as well as the 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 (2006–8) being partially restored as part of a redevelopment project.
A number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland in the latter half of the 1800s. 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 today's 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 direct 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's 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, located 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.
The original extent of Oakland upon its incorporation lay south of today's major intersection of San Pablo Avenue, Broadway and 14th Street. The city gradually annexed farmlands and settlements to the east and north. Oakland's rise to industrial prominence and its subsequent need for a seaport led to the digging of a shipping and tidal channel in 1902, creating the "island" of nearby town Alameda. In 1906, its population doubled with refugees made homeless after the San Francisco earthquake and fire who had fled to Oakland. Concurrently, a strong City Beautiful movement, promoted by mayor Frank K. Mott, was responsible for creating and preserving parks and monuments in Oakland, including major improvements to Lake Merritt and the construction of Oakland Civic Auditorium which cost $1,000,000 in 1914. The Auditorium would briefly serve as emergency ward and quarantine for some of Oakland's Spanish flu victims in 1918 and 1919. The three waves of that pandemic killed more than 1,400 Oaklanders (out of 216,000 residents). By 1920, Oakland was the home of numerous manufacturing industries, including metals, canneries, bakeries, gas engines, automobiles, and shipbuilding.
The 1920s were economic boom years in the United States as a whole, and in California especially. Economic growth was fueled by the general post-war recovery, as well as oil discoveries in Los Angeles and the widespread introduction of the automobile. General Motors opened a major Chevrolet automobile factory in Oakland at 73rd Avenue and Foothill (the current location of Eastmont Mall) in 1916, making cars and then trucks there until 1963. A large lot in East Oakland, 106th and Foothill Boulevard (the current location of Foothill Square), was chosen by the Fageol Motor Company as the site for their first factory in 1916, turning out farming tractors from 1918 to 1923, and introducing an influential low-slung "Safety Bus" in 1921 followed quickly by the 22-seat "Safety Coach." Sporty Durant Motors operated a plant in Oakland from 1921 to 1930, making two basic models: the low-priced "Forty" and the faster "Sixty," the latter with a greater number of styling options including two-door, four-door, hardtop, cabriolet (convertible) or open-air roadster. Mayor John L. Davie was on hand in 1922 at the occasion of the first Durant to roll off the line. By 1929, when Chrysler expanded with a new plant in the city, Oakland had become known as the "Detroit of the West."
Russell Crapo Durant (called "Rex" or "Cliff" by his friends), a race car driver, speedboat enthusiast, amateur flyer, president of Durant Motors in Oakland and son of General Motors founder William "Billy" Crapo Durant, established Durant Field at 82nd Avenue and East 14th Street in Oakland in 1916. The first experimental transcontinental airmail through flight finished its journey at Durant Field on August 9, 1920, with famed pilots Army captain Eddie Rickenbacker and Navy lieutenant Bert Acosta at the controls of the Junkers F 13 rebadged as the model J.L.6 for US Postal Service. The airfield served only secondary duties after 1927, as its runway was not long enough for heavily loaded aircraft. A tragic death occurred in April 1930 at Durant Field when Lockheed test pilot Herbert "Hub" Fahy and his wife Claire hit a stump upon landing, flipping their plane and mortally wounding Hub without injuring Claire. Durant Field was often called Oakland Airport, though the current Oakland Airport was soon to be established four miles to the southwest.
On September 17, 1927, Charles Lindbergh attended the official dedication of the new Oakland Airport. A month earlier, participants in the ill-fated Dole Air Race had taken off from Oakland's new 7,020 ft. runway on August 16, 1927, headed for Honolulu 2,400 miles away; three fliers died before getting to the starting line in Oakland, five were lost at sea attempting to reach Honolulu and two more died searching for the lost five. On May 31, 1928, Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew took off from Oakland in Southern Cross on their successful bid to cross the Pacific by air to finish in Australia. Both Boeing Air Transport (one of the origins of United Airlines) and Model Airlines began service from the new airfield in 1927 and 1928, respectively. Oakland was used in October 1928 as a base for the World War I aircraft involved in the final shooting of Howard Hughes' film Hell's Angels. On December 7, 1928, Louise Thaden lifted from Oakland to set a women's altitude record. She then set endurance and speed records in March and April, 1929, to become a triple record holder, all three flights in a Travel Air flown out of Oakland.
Oakland grew significantly in the 1920s, flexing to meet the influx of factory workers. 13,000 homes were built from 1921 to 1924, more than in the period 1907 to 1920. Many of the apartment buildings and single-family houses still standing in Oakland were built in the 1920s. Many large office buildings downtown were built in the 1920s, and reflect the architectural styles of the time.
Rocky Road ice cream was invented in Oakland in 1929, though accounts differ regarding its first promoter. William Dreyer of Dreyer's is said to have carried the idea of marshmallow and walnut pieces in a chocolate base over from his partner Joseph Edy's similar candy creation. Fentons Creamery in Oakland claims that William Dreyer based his recipe on a similar ice cream flavor invented by his friend, Fentons' flavor chief George Farren, who blended his own marshmallow-walnut-chocolate candy bar into ice cream. Both accounts agree that Dreyer was the first to use toasted almond instead of walnut pieces.
During World War II, the East Bay Area was home to many war-related industries. Among these were the Kaiser Shipyards in nearby Richmond whose medical system for shipyard workers became the basis for the giant Kaiser Permanente HMO, which has a large medical center at MacArthur and Broadway, the first to be established by Kaiser. Oakland's Moore Dry Dock Company expanded its shipbuilding capabilities and built over 100 ships.
Valued at $100,000,000 in 1943, Oakland's canning industry was the city's second-most valuable war contribution after shipbuilding. Sited at both a major rail terminus and an important sea port, Oakland was a natural location for food processing plants whose preserved products fed domestic, foreign and military consumers. The largest canneries were in the Fruitvale district and included the Josiah Lusk Canning Company, the Oakland Preserving Company (which started the Del Monte brand), and the California Packing Company.
Prior to World War II, blacks constituted approximately 3% of Oakland's population. Aside from restrictive covenants pertaining to some Oakland hills properties, Jim Crow laws mandating racial segregation did not exist in California, and relations between the races were mostly harmonious. What segregation did exist was voluntary; blacks could, and did, live in all parts of the city.
The war attracted to Oakland large numbers of laborers from around the country, though most were poor whites and blacks from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Mississippi--sharecroppers who had been actively recruited by Henry J. Kaiser to work in his shipyards. These immigrants from the Jim Crow South brought their racial attitudes with them, and the racial harmony that Oakland blacks had been accustomed to prior to the war evaporated. Southern whites expected deference from their black co-workers, and initially Southern blacks were conditioned to grant same. As Southern blacks became cognizant of their more equal standing under California law, they began to reject subservient roles. The new immigrants prospered, though they were affected by rising racial discrimination and informal postwar neighborhood redlining.
The Mai Tai drink was first concocted in Oakland in 1944, and became very popular with military and civilian customers at Trader Vic's restaurant located at San Pablo Avenue and 65th, very close to Berkeley and Emeryville. Established in 1932, Trader Vic's became successful enough by 1936 that San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was inspired to write that "the best restaurant in San Francisco is in Oakland." Trader Vic's in Oakland was chosen by the State Department as the official entertainment center for foreign dignitaries attending United Nations meetings in San Francisco. The restaurant continued to grow in popularity but was running out of room until 1951 when founder Victor Bergeron opened a larger one in San Francisco. The Oakland location closed in 1972 when it moved operations to the Emeryville Marina.
During the late 1940s the conspiratorial dissolution of the Key System of electric streetcars began following the National City Lines (NCL) holding company acquisition of 64% of its stock in 1946. The holding company converted the Key System's electric streetcar fleet to buses that operated on fossil fueled engines that required motor oil changes, in addition to new tires periodically, and other suspension and mechanical parts that would wear down faster on bumpy streets surfaces instead of smooth tracks. Streetcar tracks were removed from Oakland streets and the lower deck of the Bay Bridge was converted to automobile traffic, which created a smaller carrying capacity of passengers per hour. Freeways were planned and constructed, partitioning the social and retail fabric of neighborhoods with freeway flyovers and on ramps. Automobile ownership increased, which further reduced demand for mass transit. The state Legislature created the Alameda and Contra Costa Transit District in 1955, which still exists today as AC Transit, the third-largest bus-only transit system in the nation.
Soon after the war, with the disappearance of Oakland's shipbuilding industry and the decline of its automobile industry, jobs became more scarce. Many of the poor blacks who had come to the city from the South decided to stay in Oakland. Longstanding black residents complained that the new Southern arrivals "tended towards public disorder," and the segregationist attitudes that the Southern immigrants brought with them disrupted the racial harmony they had been accustomed to prior to the war. Many of the city's more affluent residents, both black and white, left the city after the war, moving to neighboring Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito to the north and to the newly developing East Bay suburbs--Orinda, Pleasant Hill, Walnut Creek and Concord. The newly arrived poor Southern whites tended to move to Alameda, San Leandro and Hayward. Between 1950 and 1960, approximately 100,000 white property owners moved out of Oakland—part of a nationwide phenomenon called white flight.
By the end of World War II, blacks constituted approximately 12% of Oakland's population, and the years following the war saw this percentage rise along with an increase in racial tensions. Starting in the 1950s, the Oakland Police Department began recruiting officers from the South to deal with the expanding black population and changing racial attitudes; many were openly racist, and their repressive police tactics exacerbated racial tensions.
Oakland was the center of a general strike during the first week of December, 1946, one of six cities across the county which experienced a general strike in the first few years after World War II. It was one of the largest strike movements in American history, as workers were determined not to let management repeat the union busting that followed the first World War.
In the late 1950s, the largest high rise up to that time was planned on the former site of Holy Names University, a parcel at the corner of 20th and Harrison Streets: the headquarters building of Kaiser Corporation. Also in this era, the seedy, rundown area at the foot of Broadway was transformed into Jack London Square.
Despite this progress and development, by the late 1950s, Oakland, which had been racially harmonious and quite prosperous before the war, found itself with a population that was increasingly poor and racially divided.
During the 1960s the city was home to an innovative funk music scene which produced well-known bands like Sly & the Family Stone, Graham Central Station, Tower of Power, Cold Blood, and The Headhunters. Larry Graham, the bass player for both Sly & the Family Stone and Graham Central Station, is credited with the creation of the influential slap and pop sound still widely used by bassists in many musical idioms today.
By 1966 only 16 of the city's 661 police officers were black. Tensions between the poverty-stricken black community and the predominantly white police force were high, and police brutality against blacks was common. Killings of young black boys in Harlem and San Francisco added fuel to the fire. In this charged atmosphere, the Black Panther Party was founded by Merritt College students Huey Newton and Bobby Seale as a response to police brutality.
It was also during the 1960s when the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club's Oakland Chapter, began to grow into a formidable organization. By the 1980s it was the most feared and respected of all Hells Angels chapters. Its Oakland Clubhouse still sits at 4019 Foothill Boulevard in East Oakland.
President Johnson's "War on Poverty" found major expression in Oakland; at its peak various federal programs dispensed monies each year that amounted to more than twice the city's annual budget, yet poverty kept increasing and welfare rolls grew, especially among Oakland blacks.
During the 1940s and 1950s, drug use had been confined primarily to a low-key, underground drug scene centered around Oakland's jazz and music clubs. Beginning in the late 1960s, marijuana use became common, and the use of hard drugs, like heroin and cocaine, was on the rise. As in many other American cities, Oakland began to experience serious problems with gang-controlled drug dealing, along with attendent increases in both violent crime and property crime. The 1970s saw the rise of drug operations topped by drug lord Felix Mitchell, whose activities, based in the public housing project known as San Antonio Villa, helped push Oakland's murder rate to twice that of San Francisco or New York City.
In late 1973, the Symbionese Liberation Army assassinated Oakland's superintendent of schools, Dr. Marcus Foster, and badly wounded his deputy, Robert Blackburn. Two months later, two men were arrested and charged with the murder. Both received life sentences, though one would be acquitted after an appeal and a retrial seven years later. The SLA, led by the self-named "Cinque," went on to kidnap newspaper heiress Patty Hearst from her Berkeley apartment the following year.
In sports, the Oakland Athletics Major League Baseball club won three World Series in a row (1972, 1973, and 1974); the Golden State Warriors won the 1974–1975 National Basketball Association championship; and the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League won Super Bowl XI in 1977.
Starting in the early 1980s, the number of Latinos, mostly of Mexican origin, began to increase significantly in Oakland, especially in the Fruitvale district. This district is one of the oldest in Oakland, growing up around the old Peralta estate (now a city park). It has always had a concentration of Latino residents, businesses and institutions, but increased immigration which has continued right up to the 21st century has added greater numbers.
During the 1980s crack cocaine became a serious problem in Oakland. The drug culture that had gained a foothold during the 1970s became increasingly violent and socially disruptive. Poverty increased, and by the end of the 1980s, more than 20% of Oakland's population was on welfare.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, Oakland featured prominently in rap music, both as the hometown for such artists as MC Hammer, Digital Underground, Hieroglyphics (including Souls of Mischief and Del tha Funkee Homosapien), The Luniz and Too Short. Tupac Shakur, who grew up in New York City and Baltimore and later moved to Oakland, lived there for 5 years, longer than in any other city. Outside of the rap genre, Grammy award winning artists such as Green Day, En Vogue and Tony! Toni! Tone! also emerged from Oakland.
The Loma Prieta earthquake occurred on October 17, 1989, in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, its surface wave measuring 7.1 on the Richter magnitude scale. Several structures in Oakland were badly damaged. The double-decker portion of the Cypress Viaduct freeway (Interstate 880) structure, located in Oakland, collapsed, killing 42. The eastern span of the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge also sustained significant damage and was closed to traffic for one month. Throughout the 1990s, buildings throughout Oakland were retrofitted to better withstand earthquakes.
On October 20, 1991, a massive fire swept down from the Berkeley Hills above the Caldecott Tunnel. 25 were killed and 150 injured and over 2,000 homes were destroyed. The economic loss has been estimated at $1.5 billion. Many homes were rebuilt much larger than they originally were.
During the 1990s, the TV sitcom Hangin' with Mr. Cooper was set in Oakland, starring actor/comedian Mark Curry, who was born in Oakland.
In late 1996, Oakland was the center of a controversy surrounding Ebonics (African American Vernacular English), an ethnolect the outgoing Oakland Unified School District board voted to recognize on December 18.
After his 1999 inauguration, Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown continued his predecessor Elihu Harris' public policy of supporting downtown housing development in the area defined as the Central Business District in Oakland's 1998 General Plan. Since Brown's stated goal was to bring an additional 10,000 residents to Downtown Oakland, his plan was known as "10K." It has resulted in redevelopment projects in the Jack London District, where Brown purchased and later sold an industrial warehouse which he used as a personal residence, in the Lakeside Apartments District near Lake Merritt, where two infill projects were proposed and approved, one of which is in it's 5th year of construction. The 10K plan has touched the historic Old Oakland district, the Chinatown district, the Uptown district, and Downtown.
The "10K" plan and other redevelopment projects have been controversial with many Oaklanders who believe these projects have lead to rent intensification and gentrification which continues to displace lower-income residents from downtown Oakland into outlying neighborhoods and cities. Additional controversy over development proposals have arisen from the weakening of the Bay Area and national economy in 2000, 2001, 2007, and the credit crunch and the recession of 2008. These downturns have resulted in low occupancy of the new housing and slower growth and economic recovery than expected.
The Oakland Athletics have long been searching for a site to build a new baseball stadium. The A's never showed interest in building a ballpark in Downtown Oakland. Finally in 2006, the A's announced a deal to build a new stadium in Fremont, California, to be called Cisco Field.
In 2001, the Oakland Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church proposed a replacement for the St. Francis de Sales Cathedral (1891), which was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and subsequently demolished. The Diocese proposed situating a Grand Cathedral, rising to a height of 15 stories, directly in front of the Kaiser Convention Center and surrounding it with a "grand plaza," which would have extended all the way to the edge of the lake. Coalition of Advocates for Lake Merritt (CALM), an Oakland group, proposed an alternative plan involving a remake of the 12th Street Dam, halving the number of traffic lanes. The underpasses and overpasses were proposed to be eliminated, with stoplights installed where the road intersects with 12th Street and 1st Avenue. The beach was proposed to be widened, with a gently sloping lawn leading up to the roadway, new walking and bike paths in each direction. Crosswalks with pedestrian-activated stoplights were proposed to replace the tunnels under the freeway.
In February 2006, the Oakland Ballet closed due to financial problems and the closure of their performance facility, the Calvin Simmons Theater at the Kaiser Convention Center. The Oakland Ballet had been performing in Oakland since 1965. In 2007, however, founder Ronn Guidi announced the revival of the Ballet.
A new use for the Kaiser Convention Center at the South end of Lake Merritt was proposed in 2006: a redevelopment designed to nucleate a cultural and educational district with the neighboring Oakland Museum of California and Laney College. In July 2006, the Oakland City Council approved a bond measure to expand the city's library system and convert the closed Center into a replacement for the city's aging main library, but Oakland voters defeated the library bond measure in the November 2006 election.
In recent years, several skyscrapers have been proposed for various neighborhoods within the Central Business District. Of note is the 530 foot, 42 story,"Emerald Views/222 19th Street" luxury condominium tower which was proposed in 2006. This skyscraper has been proposed to be constructed on the historic Schilling Gardens parcel at the Lake's edge in the Lakeside Apartments District. Also, a 395 foot, 37 story "1439 Alice Street" has been proposed for a parcel directly across the street from the Malonga Casquelord Arts Center also in the Lakeside Apartments District.
Four blocks away from the vicinity of the Schilling Gardens parcel where the 'Emerald Views' tower was proposed, another skyscraper project was proposed in 2008: the 715 ft Encinal Tower, a mixed-use office and luxury residential skyscraper proposed for a parcel on Broadway above the 19th Street BART station, which has been designed by the major architecture firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. If approved and constructed, it would become the tallest building in the city with 56 levels, which could defy developers' assertions that luxury condominium residences are infeasible at the edge of Broadway.