Berkeley

Address 2180 Milvia Street Berkeley, CA 94704
Phone (510) 981-CITY
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The site of today's City of Berkeley was the territory of the Chochen/Huichin band of the Ohlone people when the first Europeans arrived. Remnants of their existence in the area include pits in various rock formations which were used to grind acorns from native oak trees, and a shellmound now mostly leveled and covered up along the shoreline of San Francisco Bay at the mouth of Strawberry Creek. Other artifacts were discovered in the 1950s in the downtown area during the remodeling of a commercial building, near the course of the same Strawberry Creek.

The first people of European ancestry (most of whom were actually of mixed ancestry and born in America) arrived with the De Anza Expedition of 1776, which is today noted by signage on U.S. Interstate 80 which runs along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of Berkeley. The De Anza Expedition resulted in the establishment of the Spanish Presidio of San Francisco at the entrance to San Francisco Bay (the "Golden Gate") which is due west of Berkeley. Among the soldiers serving at the Presidio was one Luís Peralta. For his services to the King of Spain, he was granted a vast extent of land on the east shore of San Francisco Bay (the "contra costa") for a ranch, including that portion which now comprises the City of Berkeley.

Luis Peralta named his holding "Rancho San Antonio". The primary activity of the ranch was the raising of cattle for meat and hides, but hunting and farming were also pursued. Eventually, he gave portions of his ranch to each of his four sons. Most of the portion that is now Berkeley was the domain of his son Domingo, the rest being held by his son Vicente. No artifact survives of the ranches of Domingo or Vicente, although their names have been preserved in the naming of Berkeley streets (Vicente, Domingo, and Peralta). However, the legal title to all land in the City of Berkeley remains based on the original Peralta land grant.

The Peraltas' Rancho San Antonio continued after Alta California passed from Spanish to Mexican sovereignty as a result of the Mexican War of Independence. However, the advent of U.S. sovereignty as a result of the Mexican War, and especially, the Gold Rush, saw the Peralta's lands quickly encroached on by squatters and diminished by dubious legal proceedings. The lands of the brothers Domingo and Vicente were quickly reduced to reservations close to their respective ranch homes. The rest of the land was surveyed and parceled out to various American claimants.

Politically, the area that became Berkeley was initially part of a vast Contra Costa County, but shortly, Alameda County was created by division of Contra Costa County.

The area of Berkeley was at this period mostly a mix of open land, farms and ranches, with a small though busy wharf by the Bay. It was not yet "Berkeley", but merely the northern part of the "Oakland Township" subdivision of Alameda County.

In 1866, the private College of California located in the city of Oakland sought out a new site. They picked a location north of Oakland along the foot of the Contra Costa Hills (later called the Berkeley Hills) astride Strawberry Creek, and at about an elevation of 500 feet above the Bay, commanding a fantastic view of the Bay Area and the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate.

According to the Centennial Record of the University of California, "In 1866…at Founders' Rock, a group of College of California men were watching two ships standing out to sea through the Golden Gate. One of them, Frederick Billings, was reminded of the lines of Bishop Berkeley, 'westward the course of empire takes its way,' and suggested that the town and college site be named for the eighteenth-century British philosopher and poet."

The College of California's "College Homestead Association" laid out a plat and street grid which became the basis of Berkeley's modern street plan. Their plans to raise funds though fell far short of their desires, and collaboration was then begun with the State of California, culminating in 1868 with the creation of the public University of California.

As construction began on the new site, more residences began to be constructed in the vicinity of the new campus. At the same time, a settlement of residences, saloons, and various industries had also been growing up around the wharf on the bayshore called "Ocean View".

By the 1870s the Transcontinental Railroad had reached its terminus in Oakland. In 1876, a branch line of the Central Pacific Railroad, the Berkeley Branch Railroad, was laid from Oakland into what is now downtown Berkeley. That same year, the main line of the transcontinental railroad into Oakland was re-routed, putting the right-of-way along the bayshore through Ocean View.

In 1878, the people of Ocean View and the area around the University campus, together with the local farmers incorporated themselves as the Town of Berkeley. The first elected trustees of the Town were the slate of Dennis Kearney's Workingman's Party who were particularly favored in the working class area of the former Ocean View, now called "West Berkeley". The area near the University became known as "East Berkeley".

The modern age came quickly to Berkeley, no doubt due to the influence of the University. Electric lights were in use by 1888. The telephone had already come to town. Electric streetcars soon replaced the horsecar. A silent film of one of these early streetcars in Berkeley can be seen at the Library of Congress website: "A Trip To Berkeley, California"

Berkeley's slow growth ended abruptly with the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The town and other parts of the East Bay somehow managed to escape even moderate damage from the massive temblor, and hundreds if not thousands of refugees flowed across the Bay. In 1909, the citizens of Berkeley adopted a new charter, and the Town of Berkeley became the City of Berkeley. Rapid growth continued right up to the Crash of 1929. The Great Depression hit Berkeley hard, but not as hard as many other places in the U.S. thanks in part to the University.

The next big growth occurred with the advent of World War II when large numbers of people moved into the Bay Area to work in the many war industries. One who moved out, but played a big role in the outcome of the War was U.C. Professor and Berkeley resident J. Robert Oppenheimer.

The postwar years saw moderate growth of the City, but events on the U.C. campus began to build up to the recognizable activism of the sixties. In the 1950s, McCarthyism induced the University to demand a loyalty oath from its professors, many of whom refused to sign any such oath on the principle of freedom of thought. In 1960, a U.S. House committee (HUAC) came to San Francisco to investigate the influence of communists in the Bay Area. Their inquisition was met by protestors, including many from the University. Meanwhile, a number of U.C. students became active in support of the Civil Rights Movement. Finally, the University in 1964 provoked a massive student protest by banning the distribution of political literature on campus. This protest became known as the Free Speech Movement. As the Vietnam War rapidly escalated in the ensuing years, so did student activism at the University.

Perhaps the crowning event of the Berkeley Sixties scene was the conflict over a parcel of University property south of the contiguous campus site which came to be called "People's Park".

The battle over the disposition of People's Park resulted in a month-long occupation of Berkeley by the National Guard on orders of then-Governor Ronald Reagan. In the end, the park remained undeveloped, and remains so today. A spin-off "People's Park Annex" was established at the same time by activist citizens of Berkeley on a strip of land above the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway construction along Hearst Avenue northwest of the U.C. campus. The land had also been intended for development, but was peacefully turned over to the City and is now Ohlone Park.

The era of large public protest in Berkeley waned considerably with the end of the Vietnam War in 1974. But activist politics continue. One person who rose in prominence during the late sixties and into the seventies was Ron Dellums, nephew of C.L. Dellums, an African American labor leader. He first served on the Berkeley City Council, and later became a Congressman for the district which includes Berkeley.

The seventies saw a decline in the population of Berkeley. People left for various reasons, some moving to the suburbs, some because of the rising cost of living throughout the Bay Area, and others because of the decline and disappearance of many industries in West Berkeley.

The period from the 1980s right up to the present has been marked by a continuation of rising costs, particularly with respect to housing, especially since the mid-1990s. In 2005–2006, sales of homes appear to finally be slowing, but the price of an average home is still among the highest in the nation.

Although many think of the 1960s as the heyday of Liberalism in Berkeley, it remains one of the most overwhelmingly liberal cities in the United States, with its 2004 presidential vote going more than 90% for John Kerry (54,419 votes) versus only 6.7% for George W. Bush (4,010 votes).

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