ALAMEDA COUNTY Transcribed by: Linda Jackson 5/20/2008
The Ideal Place for Your California Home
by Henry Anderson Lafler
THE
FAMOUS GREEK THEATRE AT BERKELEY
It is in such an atmosphere of beauty, where Art and Nature join hands to the end of loveliness, that the Home Ideal may find its resting place.
Quite different, yet no less unusual and alluring in their own way, are the homes in the third of the three large cities that form one community in the northwestern extremity of Alameda County. Alameda has no hills. It is a level island bounded on the north by the busy waters of Oakland harbor; on the east by San Leandro Bay; on the west and south by the waters of the great Bay of San Francisco. Alameda is the home of the bungalow, containing perhaps the most beautiful streets of bungalows in the bay region of California. The lawns of many houses slope down almost to the waters' edge. Long, white, sandy beaches attract thousands of pleasure-seekers to enjoy swimming and
IN THE ISLAND CITY OF ALAMEDA, THE LAWNS OF MANY
HOMES SLOPE DOWN TO THE BEACH, OR THEIR WINDOWS
LOOK ACROSS A SHORE BOULEVARD TO THE
WATER AS IN THIS PICTURE
bathing through nearly every month of the year. Hundreds of row boats and yachts gathered along the beaches or in the quiet waters of San Leandro Bay testify to the interest in sailing and rowing. It was of Alameda that the poet wrote:
There waits a dear island where many are happy,
And sea-weary ships lie a-resting.
Where the breezes are mild and the gardens are sweet,
And where birds in the trees are a-nesting.
You may seek you a dwelling o'er furrow or foam,
In city or wilderness fair;
But you never will know all the meaning of home,
Until you have made you one there.
Beautiful as are the cities of Alameda County and alluring as they are to all peoples in other and less favored climates, their charm is no greater than that of the rural districts of the county.
SATHER
TOWER, A SHAFT OF WHITE GRANITE IN THE GROUNDS
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
ALAMEDA
COUNTY IS THE HOME OF THE BUNGALOW --
COMFORTABLE, BEAUTIFUL AND INEXPENSIVE
Imagine yourself in a motor bound from the East Bay Cities east and southward toward toward the southern boundary of Alameda County. Leaving Oakland behind, the State Highway, asphalt on a cement base, and smooth as a ballroom floor, swings along high, bold hills, wooded here and there with oak and eucalyptus. These hills are north and east of the road. To the south and west you look away across a level and enormously fertile plain, covered with orchards, with here and there a tall eucalyptus rearing its green head eighty feet in the air. Among the blossoms of the almond and cherry trees you see half-hidden, cozy bungalows on orchard farms of five and ten acres, whose products support a family in comfort. Beyond the plain, looking from the Foothill Boulevard, you catch a glimpse of the silver waters of the Bay and here and there close to the shore are ribbon-like sloughs, amid marshes, where, in winter, thousands of wild duck gather and furnish the finest sport to the gunner. Successively, you pass San Leandro, with its cherry orchards, its shade trees and tasteful business blocks; Hayward, with its great canneries. A little further on is Decoto, a village with
A TYPICAL BUNGALOW STREET IN ALAMEDA WITH SAN
FRANCISCO BAY IN THE BACKGROUND
fertile lands all about it and next comes Niles, set at the mouth of the canyon of the same name, and lying in the hollow of a great circle made by the waters of Alameda Creek. Still to the north and east is a bold range of hills, to the south and west level, orchard-dotted country, and always beyond at every rise in the road a glimpse of the wide-spreading waters of the arm of the sea.
A few miles southerly from Niles you enter a domain of picturesqueness and romance. For here is Mission San Jose, where one hundred and eighteen years ago a few Franciscan fathers, sent up by Junipero Serra, planted a cross of wood and gathered the Indians from hills and plain to listen to the teachings of the church and learn of agriculture and the primitive arts of building and weaving. The Mission was founded June 11, 1797, by Padre Firmin de Lasuen. Pear trees planted by him still blossom and bear fruit.