Features

Back in 1853, just half a decade after the Gold Rush overran Spanish/Mexican California, American settlers came to the western shore of the future Berkeley and established the little settlement of Ocean View on the fringe of Jose Domingo Peralta’s land grant ranchero. 

In that same year Alameda County was formally created and county officials had the future Berkeley’s first street, the Contra Costa Road—later San Pablo Avenue—surveyed.  

Down in Oakland, the beginnings of the private College of California—later to become part of the University of California—were also being organized in the momentous year of 1853. 

Pull these and other strands of local heritage together and you’ll find the beginnings of Berkeley.  

This fall, there are several free or inexpensive events—lectures, walking tours, classes, exhibits—to help you explore that history, and other aspects of local heritage. 

Ocean View’s 150th Anniversary 

The first week in October starts an ambitious schedule of no less than eight special lectures and events organized by Stephanie Manning and Barbara Gates to celebrate and explain the history of Ocean View. 

Ocean View was founded in 1853 when Captain James Jacobs brought his family to the undeveloped waterfront and built a dock for his freight-shipping sloop at the foot of what is now Delaware Street. 

Nearby that same year another former sea captain, William Bowen, built a small inn and stagecoach stop on the shoreline road, inland from the Jacobs wharf. 

According to Manning, these two establishments marked “the beginning of a new era characterized by large pioneer families and entrepreneurial spirit brought to California by the Gold Rush.”  

Factories, churches, a school, and substantial and modest Victorian homes soon dotted the Bay shore. In 1878, the area became part of the new town of Berkeley. 

The Ocean View events, which begin today and continue weekly through Nov. 20, include lectures, tours, and panel discussions that discuss the environment of the Berkeley area before urban development, the natural history of San Francisco Bay, and the heritage of the native Ohlone who left one of their largest shellmound/settlement sites in Berkeley. 

Also explored are the various ethnic migrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that shaped the character of Ocean View/West Berkeley, the 1970s neighborhood struggle to save Ocean View from becoming an industrial park, the coming of artists live-work studios, and future planning. 

Scheduled presenters include Professor of Anthropology Kent Lightfoot from UC Berkeley, retired USGS engineer and San Francisco Bay expert Ken LaJoie, local creeks advocate Carole Schemmerling-Selz, naturalist Beverly Ortiz, native Ohlone Lisa Carrier, landscape ecologist and historian Robin Grossinger, and program organizers Manning and Gates. 

Several of the events will be held in historic buildings, including: Workingman’s Hall (used as the first town hall after Berkeley incorporated in 1878); one of Berkeley’s oldest houses of worship, the Church of the Good Shepherd; Spenger’s Fish Grotto; and Finn Hall, one of two community centers built by Berkeley’s large and vigorous Finnish immigrant community in the early 20th century. 

Tickets are $10 per event, or $45 for the series. However, Manning emphasizes that no one will be turned away for lack of money. The lecture series is co-sponsored by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association and Berkeley Historical Society.  

Berkeley History Class 

Professor Charles Wollenberg of Vista Community College is reprising his “Berkeley: A City in History” course this Fall.  

It “puts the present into a historical perspective,” says Wollenberg. “You begin to understand Berkeley in the context of its past.” 

The one-credit course started Wednesday, Oct. 1, and includes seven Wednesday evening lectures (7-9 p.m.) at the Central Berkeley Library. 

Wollenberg, a Berkeley native, whose family once had Bernard and Annie Maybeck as neighbors, is the author of several books about local and California history.  

Each week there’s a different guest speaker, including publisher and author Malcolm Margolin, Peralta Community College District Trustee Darryl Moore, Bob Schildgren, former editor of the Berkeley Co-op News, and Marty Schiffenbauer, one of the authors of Berkeley’s Rent Control Ordinance. 

Although Vista College policy frowns on regular class attendance by those not formally enrolled, this course is held at Berkeley’s Central Library community room, where the public is welcome at events. Translation: If you want to be a regular at the lectures, it’s best to sign up for the class through Vista; if you want to drop in for a lecture or two, no one is likely to ask you to leave. 

Historical Society Walking Tours 

Two or three times each year, the non-profit Berkeley Historical Society organizes Saturday morning walking tours. The fall schedule is already underway, but you still have time to catch coming attractions. Don’t wait to make reservations, though; one tour is already sold out. 

Tours include a walk through the UC campus highlighting buildings and programs created by and for university women, an unusual tour of the Gilman Street Industrial Area, visiting several old buildings and sites reborn in recent years as a custom woodworking factory, a social services center, and Berkeley’s newly minted Municipal Skate Park and adjacent playing fields.  

Later in October, historian Paul Grunland who has led several tours in the north Berkeley Hills, guides a “Boundary Walk” tour along the 1853 border between Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.  

The tour schedule finishes with a “bonus tour” visiting housing projects recently constructed in downtown Berkeley by Panoramic Interests; participation is limited to those subscribing to at least three of the earlier tours. 

Most (but not all) tours start at 10 a.m. and last approximately two hours, led by volunteer guides. Tours cost $8 each for BHS members, and $10 each for the general public; the number of participants is limited. Information on starting points and other details is available to those making reservations. 

BHS members can purchase “season tickets” for $30; membership is $20 individual, $25 for family.  

Greene & Greene Houses 

“Evening on Piedmont Avenue,” a benefit organized by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, offers a rare opportunity to explore a magnificent Arts and Craft home. 

The architects Greene & Greene designed better known “ultimate bungalows” in Southern California, but Berkeley has one of their best in the Thorsen House, built in 1909, and now owned and cared for by the Sigma Phi fraternity. 

On the evening of Friday, Oct. 17, you have a chance to see the superb interior of the house, with its intricate hand-crafted wood finishes and stained glass. The event includes a dessert reception at the house and a documentary film about the architects. 

(Steven Finacom is a local resident and historian. He is a volunteer board member of the Berkeley Historical Society and Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, organizational sponsors of some of the events described in this article, and will be a guest speaker at the Vista College Berkeley history course.)