The San Leandro Bay in Alameda County California was once the home of one of the world's most remarkable natural wonderlands. Fresh water that ran down creeks from the Oakland Hills and into the San Francisco Bay, mixed, helped by tidal action, with the salt water there, and created a very rich salt and fresh water marshland. This marshland supported an immensely rich and diverse population of wildlife. However, almost immediately following the non-native migration of people into the area, especially following the California gold rush of 1849 -- and then again after the arrival of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, a major assault on the San Leandro Bay's land and wildlife began.

Where once one of the world's most bio-diverse marshlands in the world housed an almost unimaginable quantity and variety of wildlife -- today is an international airport, a coliseum complex, a 36-hole golf course, an industrial park, and an old city dump. The creeks that once supplied the area with fresh water, have been dammed, diverted, cemented-over, and buried. The area where the creeks once flowed, into the San Francisco Bay, is now landfill.

A small amount of marshland remains in the San Leandro Bay, called Arrowhead Marsh, however even this is believed to be "second nature" -- its outcome mainly a result of human intervention, largely believed to have been created around 1874 when an earthen dam on the San Leandro Creek, up in the Oakland Hills, failed and washed vast amounts of soil down and into the San Leandro Bay.

While most of the San Leandro Bay area's present day uses serve the "public good", with some serving literally millions of people annually, it is debatable if the loss of this natural wonderland truly served the “public good” as early laws dictated.

Just as we are born into and inherit our physical world, and we inherit those physical changes made to it by others who came before us, so too we inherit our beliefs and views about the world, and then build upon, adapt and change them and make them our own. A look at the history of the dramatic changes that were made to the San Leandro Bay, over such a short period of time, and the decisions made by those who so dramatically transformed it, may help us better understand some of our own current beliefs, ideas and values.
 

Native Americans, Spanish Era, Human Migration

First Known Human Inhabitants: circa 1200 b.c. to 1800 a.d.
 

The first known Native Americans to inhabit the East Bay area arrived approximately 3,000 years ago. These people, known as the Ohlone Indians, enjoyed the natural abundance of the area. They hunted and fished in the marshlands, in the bay, and along the creeks. With no need to roam or move around in search of new sources of food or to fight neighbors for scarce resources, these were believed to be a peaceful people who remained in the same village locations over many generations living off the bounty of the land.

Over 400 Indian burial mounds were found around the San Francisco Bay area. One, with the remains of about 450 people was found in Alameda near Santa Clara Ave and Mound Street. It also contained "stone implements and shell ornaments." The natives decorated themselves with shells and feathers and they used stones, shells, and bones for tools, some of which can be seen in the pictures above, which were taken at the Alameda City Museum. The mound and its contents was "removed" in 1908. A plaque commemorating the burial mound can be found in Lincoln Park in Alameda City today (see picture above).

European Discovery of the San Francisco Bay area in 1772

The San Francisco Bay area lay hidden from non-native discovery until 1772. The late discovery can likely be attributed to the small opening from the Pacific Ocean to the San Francisco Bay at the Golden Gate, combined with the area being often shrouded in fog and the natural camouflage provided by the East Bay hills seen in the background of the entrance to the San Francisco Bay. In fact, the Bay Area was first seen by Europeans who were on a land expedition. They quickly claimed the land was owned by Spain.

Mission San Jose Established 1797

Just seven years later, in 1797, the Spanish established Mission San Jose in the East Bay (The San Jose mission is located at 43300 Mission Blvd in what is Fremont, California today). Ohlone Indians lived in the area. Between 1825 and 1830 there were approximately 2,000 California natives living on the mission grounds. The mission raised cattle and sheep. In 1832 the mission had 12,000 cattle, 13,000 horses and 12,000 sheep which grazed between the area of the mission and Oakland. The mission was very productive and had the second highest agriculture output and the highest olive oil production of all of the California missions.  In 1833 the mission had thousands of acres of crops and grazing land stretching from San Jose to Oakland to Livermore.

In 1834 control of the missions shifted from the Spanish to the Mexicans and the Spanish Padres left. Within three years, by 1837, the San Jose Mission's land was divided into Ranchos and the mission buildings were abandoned. The natives that had been living there suddenly no longer had the support of the Mission and its way of life; finding it very difficult to adjust back to their previous ways, many of them died. ¹

Spanish Rancho Era circa 1820-1850

In 1820 the King of Spain granted Luis Maria Peralta, a Spanish Army officer, a 44,800 acre, 35 mile land grant (known as a "rancho"). The land was given to him in recognition for his service in the Spanish Army. The land included what are today are the cities of: El Cerito, Berkeley, Albany, Oakland, Piedmont, and Alameda.

In 1842, Luis Peralta divided his land up among his four surviving sons. Antonio Peralta, his third son, received what today includes the cities of Alameda and most of Oakland.

The image at the left  is from a close-up of a map that was made in 1844  -  five years before the gold rush (click on it for a bigger picture). The San Leandro label on the map is not identifying a city, but refers to the water (Sand Leandro Bay and San Leandro Creek, which at this point are not too indistinguishable, they are more like one body). S. Antonio is where the entrance to the estuary between Alameda and Oakland (the inner harbor) is today. Lake Merritt hasn't been "made" yet . Lake Merritt was made in 1869 from 155 acres of "dammed tidal water" from the headwaters of Indian Slough. The land was donated by Dr. Samuel Merritt in 1867. Lake Merritt was first known as "Merritt's Lake" (map info)

Alameda can be clearly seen as a peninsula in this map of 1844. The map is over 50 years before the "estuary" and "tidal canal"  was completed in 1902, which separated Alameda from Oakland and made it an Island. Notice the "Pins Rouge" (redwood trees) in the Oakland Hills, within just ten years these would all be cut down, creating a major change in the eco-system of the area.

Other than maps there are very few visual references (such as photographs or drawings) during this early period. However, there are some early visual descriptions of what the environment was like at this time. In an address during the "Pioneers Picnic at Dry Creek" Judge Crane provided a first hand account of what the land in the area of Alameda County was like in the 1850s, when the ownership of the land was still largely controlled by a handful of large Spanish and Mexican land grants, with some squatters also beginning to gain some control of the land. During this period Judge Crane observes, "Nearly all of this land was still in a state of nature, unenclosed, uncultivated, and unoccupied, except as a range for herds of half a wild cattle." ²

Oakland Hills Old Growth Redwood Trees are Cut Down ca. 1842-1853

An early and major environmental impact caused by human activity started in 1842, the same year Don Peralta divided his land among his four sons and the same year that full-scale logging of the Oakland hills began. The Redwoods in the Oakland Hills were in an old growth redwood forest called the San Antonio Forest. Visual accounts from the time indicate that the Oakland Hills may have had some of the oldest and biggest redwood trees in the world. William P. Gibbons, who in 1855 was the curator of geology and mineralogy at the California Academy of Sciences, in 1893 published “The Redwoods in the Oakland Hills”, a survey that he had made 40 years earlier describing a “sea of stumps” in the Oakland Hills (when he was there in 1855). He found one redwood tree stump that measured “over 31 feet across at a height of four feet from the ground." ³

The "Blossom Rock Trees"

Two trees in the Oakland Hills were so tall that Sea Captains could see them as they entered the Golden Gate of the San Francisco Bay. Known as the “Blossom Rock” trees, the Sea Captains used them as a visual marker to help navigate safely away from the “Blossom Rock”, an underwater rock near Yerba Buena Island.⁴

In 1826, Captain F. Beechey, of the British Royal Navy, noted in his ship’s log (the H.M.S. Blossom) "dangerous rock lay roughly between Alcatraz and Yerba Buena islands in about a fathom of water.   In order to miss the “Blossom” rock, one should line up the northern tip of Yerba Buena Island with two towering trees on the ridge of the Oakland Hills." ^4A  On the first official map of the San Francisco Bay,  published by Navy Captain Cadwalader Ringgold in 1851, it clearly explains how ships should sight on the two “Navigation Trees” to avoid Blossom Rock. ^4B 

After the trees were cut down, in the early 1850s a lighthouse was built on Yerba Buena Island to help guide the Ship Captains. Although many of the redwood trees in the forest were likely over 2,000 years old, in just about ten years the entire Redwood Tree forest in the Oakland Hills, called the San Antonio Redwood Forest, was virtually completely cut down. The trees were milled at saws in the Oakland Hills and the lumber was sold largely to people building the first buildings in San Francisco.

After the San Francisco earthquake and fire in 1906, once again there was a tremendous demand for wood in San Francisco. And once again, the San Antonio Redwood Forest was logged to provide lumber to build the city. This time however, not only the trees, which were now only second growth trees that had been growing for only about 50 years taken, but even the stumps were cut up and sold. This is especially unfortunate because redwood trees often grow new trees from their old stumps and their removal made it virtually impossible for the forest to ever recover. This area today, which includes two regional parks, is vastly different from the original old growth forest that existed pre 1840s; although today there are a relatively small amount of third growth redwood trees which are now up to about 100 years old.

Undoubtedly, the elimination of the trees in the Oakland Hills had a very severe impact on the surrounding ecosystem -- including causing a vast amount of soil erosion, which washed large amounts of soil down the creeks and into the San Leandro Bay. It is also highly likely that the removal of the trees had a devastating cascading impact on a variety of plant and animal life, whose existence was intertwined and dependent on the trees.

Berkeley, California
from top of City Hall