San Leandro Portals to Past History for Fun

“It was in the year 1892 that the first trolley cars began to operate throughout San Leandro from Oakland to Hayward, known as the Oakland-San Leandro and Hayward Electric Railway.  It consisted of a one line track with wooden posts and cast iron extensions projecting out to hold the trolley wire. A year or two later, one bright sunny day, a gang of construction workers began to tear up our main street.  On inquiry, it was learned that they were about to install a double track system through town.  This the citizenry did not desire, claiming the street too narrow for a two-track line.  Quite a crowd gathered ordering the construction crew to cease work.   This they refused to do, and a battle took place right there – even throwing a rope over one of the trolley posts with the intention of a lynching party.                 The construction boss was put in the old town jail a...

IF YOU LIVE HERE YOU PRONOUNCE ESTUDILLO “ESTA-DILLO”.  Sorry Spanish speakers… As I tell you this story you will recognize some of our street names with origins in our founding families. The 1 st  settler was Don  Jose Joaquin  and this wife Dona  Juana .   Don Joaquin, as he was referred to, was friends with the new governor, Don Juan  Alvarado . Alvarado was put to the task of was dividing up grazing lands between friends.  Some of the  Estudillo   land was redistributed to Guillermo  Castro , who was related to the governor by marriage.  The hills of Castro Valley to Eastern Hayward was appropriated and Estudillo was left with all the grazing land below that. Castro Valley was part of the original 28,000 acre (110 km²) land grant given to Castro, called Rancho San Lorenzo. This land grant included Hayward, San Lorenzo, and Castro Valley, including Crow Canyon, Cull Canyon, and Palomares Canyons. Cas...

The Broadmoor Neighborhood in San Leandro is just one of the many neighborhoods in our Bay Area that graced with the California Bungalow/Craftsman homes.  This booklet is the building plans that were available to build your home for as little as $2500. See if you can find a familiar style home you live in, grew up in or know of. Let's see what styles are the most identified.   Post a comment and the style # you remember and where.  This should be fun. As you look at the plans you will notice all of them have sleeping porches.  Here is a link to the history of the sleeping porch. Here is the link to the Broadmoor Bungalow Book.   Be sure to follow me so you don't miss other fun posts. Brought to you by Joy Elliott, Re/Max Accord.  Please consider contacting me for your real estate needs.  RE/MAX #1 - 510-326-2716  joy@joyelliott.com  Search for classic homes at joyelliott.com

"Then and Now Dinner" ​ Saturday, October 15 at 6:00 p.m. San Leandro Main Library , 300 Estudillo Ave., San Leandro TICKET SALES CLOSE OCTOBER 8 — No tickets at the door $40 Members / $50 Non-Members Click to buy tickets online with a credit card or PayPal Click to download a ticket purchase form to mail with a check Download a Sponsor/Donor form Download a flyer ​ The first ever "Then and Now Dinner" is coming to town! What used to be where Bay Fair Mall is?  What did Dutton Avenue look like in the 1800s?  Has city hall always been where it is now?  Join friends for a great dinner catered by Cuisine Catering (your choice of NY York Strip Roast, Chicken Chardonnay, or vegetarian Stuffed Acorn Squash), enjoy a slide show and stories of old and new San Leandro, win raffle items, and help the San Leandro Historical Society raise funds to enrich the future by preserving the past. Monetary donations from sponsors and raffle item donations from donors ...

Castro Valley sold for $400,000 worth of gambling debts! Castro Valley was part of the original 28,000 acre (110 km²) land grant given to Don Guillermo Castro, called  Rancho San Lorenzo . This land grant included  Hayward ,  San Lorenzo , and Castro Valley, including Crow Canyon, Cull Canyon, and Palomares Canyons.  Don Guillermo Castro - The San Lorenzo Land Grant Don Guillermo was born in California, then a Mexican possession in 1810. The son of Don Carlos Castro of Las Lagas Rancho. His birthplace was located near the village of Coyote in Santa Clara County along what is now highway 101.A career soldier, he served in the Mexican army as a lieutenant of militia at the pueblo of San Jose. In 1838, he was listed as a surveyor of government lands in San Jose, and it is about this time he acquired his land grant, roughly 28,000 acres, then known as Rancho San Lorenzo. This land included those areas we...

Saturday, June 4, 2016 Parade (1 0-11 am) &  Festival  (11am-6 pm) Downtown San Leandro #SLCHERRYFEST It was a lovely time to be alive and the most spectacular sight of all was the cherry trees in blossom, thousands of cherry trees as far as the eye could see...There were little villas hidden in the valleys of blossoms." June 5, 1902 San Leandro hosted the 1st Cherry Festival.  Bessie  Best....was considered on the San Leandro's fairest maidens was chosen queen of the Cherry Festival.  The festival was opened with parades, flag raising and a 21 gun salute. An estimated 25,000 people attended and 15 tons of cherrys were given away!  This year on June 4, 2016, the 107th Cherry Festival will again celebrate the tradition. Come visit the San Leandro Historical Society Booth.  I'll be there between 1-3pm. Download the app on Google Play or Itunes

Daniel Best was San Leandros' original industrialist.  He is best know for the invention of the steamplow which eventually evolved into the Caterpiller Tractor earth moving machine.  Caterpillar was a large employer in SL.  The San Leandro Agricultural Plant was located on Davis just below the railroad tracts where the Gateway Apartments now sit.  The original entrance arch is still preserved there. San Leandro Agricultural Plant on Davis Daniel Best Bldg Estudillo Ave @ E.14th After Daniel died, his daughters sold land below Hayward Blvd (E.14th) where Dutton turns into  Best Ave.  Streets incorporated into this area are Best Ave, Cherrywood, Leo, Lafayette, Lorraine,  Great Starter neighborhood with 2-3 Bedroom Homes, 900-1400 Sf, $400,000 to $500,000.  Built between 1925 - 1938.  Lots of character and nice size lots.  Check out the currenty inventory or homes for sale in this area click this link  Best Manor, Farre...

There are many fine historic homes in historic San Leandro that I will cover in a later blog.  This home, however, was the first of the grand residences. The Estudillo Home "In 1850 Señor Estudillo saw the completion of a fine family home, the Estudillo Home. Lavish champagne parties costing thousands of dollars were held in the stately home.  Eventually the home became part of St. Leander's Church and remained standing for almost one hundred years before it was torn down in 1949 to make way for the construction of St. Leander's rectory."* " Jose Joaquin Estudillo died at this residence on June 7, 1852.  Upon transfer of the county seat to San Leandro in 1854 the Estudillo home was offered for temporary use to the county.  During that period a fire broke out and forced evacuation of the court then in session.  To avoid any objection to the transfer to another location, Judge Hester is said to have reconvened the court as close to the origina...

I.H. Begier reported that one cherry tree on the Rindespacher place on Estudillo Avenue yielded 1100 lbs of fruit. In 1900 agriculture was still the mainstay of the San Leandro communiity. Cherry and apricot orchards furnished both local and eastern markets. The shipments to San Francisco in July 1901 were reported at 100 tons per day.....some fruit averaged but four to the pound. Mr. Begier planted rhubarb in 1902 and a year later shipped 40,000 rhubarb plants to Jersey Island on the Sacramento River. A 40-lb box of aspargus sold for 40 cents a pound and the first box of cherries shipped to Phildephia that year brought $22 for 10 pounds. Another crop of some importance was "horse beans" or "favas". At the end of th 1901 season M.M. Avelas reported having shipped 18 carloads of this crop to the east. Some 240,000 pounds also was reported as having been shipped to Cuba. In addition to the fruits mentionsed, currants, raspberries were raised in cons...

San Leandro Creamery Truck KANAKA ROW of San Leandro boundaries were: Pacific Street to the west, Alvarado Street to the east, Davis Street to the north, and Williams Street to the south. Kanaka Row derived its name from the nickname established Portuguese gave to Portuguese settlers from Hawaii. The other Portuguese enclave in San Leandro, Dutton Avenue, also known as Chicken Lane, is pictured c. 1890. Portuguese immigrants along Chicken Lane thriving chicken farms. Portuguese women often served their own chickens for dinner and crocheted to let down at night. Their hobby was also practical; many Portuguese women made tablecloths and other lace items to give as presents.  #KanakaRow #KanakaLane #ChickenLane #LittlePortugal Andrade standing on Dutton Ave (Chicken Lane ) 1890 Dutton Ave Area 1890 258 Dabner - Old Lamplighters House 1871 "The historical-architectural value of these properties lies in their combination as a "perio...

"THE BROADMOOR" Located in the famed garden belt, San Leandro was a great center of floriculture in the 1800's. Flowers grown here in orchards and hothouses were sweet peas, camellias, gardenias, orchids as well as cherry and apricot trees.  At one time it was a $10,000,000 industry supplying flora to places and events such as the Pasadena Parade.  The Oakland firm of Breed and Bancroft had been developing a tract, north of Dutton Ave, which they named "Broadmoor".  After a struggle to get all the land north of the creek annexed into the school district they formally opened the development in 1908. Street Names Breed 1908 Broadmoor 1908  Beverly 1908  Warwick 1908  Dowling Blvd 1908  Sunnyside 1920 Cambridge 1911 SAMPLES OF HOME STYLES IN the broadmoor   TO CHECK OUT ACTIVE/SOLD LISTINGS PLEASE CLICK HERE Broadmoor Manor Homes and Surrounding Areas Most of the homes were built in ...

In 1870 flourishing poultry farms along the road leading to Jane Dutton's farm northeast of San Leandro's town center caused it to be described as 'Chicken Lane".  Jane was a pioneer and a widow who had large poultry farms on the land we know today as Dutton Manor. Originally mapped as part of the San Antonio/Ygnacio Peralta land grant, it was then mapped as the Moorlands and then in the 1920's as Dutton Manor.  This development was bordered on the east by Hollywood Blvd (MacArthur Blvd), Bancroft Ave (Santa Clara Blvd), Durant Ave (Stanley Rd) and Dutton Blvd (Chicken Lane).  The area has separate tracts inside of it such as LeBon and Cherry City. Some Street Names Dates Deeded to City Dutton Ave 1899 Dowling 1908 Durant 1908  (Stanley Rd) Kenilworth 1908 Helen Ave 1912 Lewis Ave 1912 Mitchell Ave 1912 W. Merle 1912 Westbay 1915 Victoria Ave 1915 Broadmoor Near Macarthur was Mathey 1915 Fortuna Ave 1926 Superior Ave 1926 Samples of H...

March 20, 2015 Robert S. Farrelly’s home was built in 1869 at Farrelly Drive & Oakland Road (E.14 th  St) Another Gold Rush squatter, Farrelly was a farmer from Pennsylvania who purchased a tract of land and began to develop it as a cherry orchard. & flower gardens.   He was one of the early shippers of fruit in 1891.  In addition to being located on a main route, there was a shipping station on the San Leandro Creek at Toler Road. The Farrelly home and orchard became one of the show places of the county  Mrs. Farrelly helped establish Broadmoor Mother’s Club in 1915.  The original site was at the corner of Breed @ Broadmoor. It is now located on the grounds of Roosevelt School.  The school property also host the Farrelly Swimming Pool and Farrelly Building which is on Dutton Ave (formally Chicken Lane) Mrs. Farrelly owned a property at the corner of Washington & Ward.  She donated it to the Masonic Lodge aka. Legion Hall....

In the last post we covered the spilt of the land grant between Castro and Estudillo but there was a 3 rd area left alone to the Native Americans, the Costanoan, who lived in the hills above Fairmont Hospital.  Archeologists have found the remains of shellmounds and burial grounds.  (When I was growing up the area was off limits but we would sneak up there to look at the area.)  Studies have revealed at least ten archeological sites between the north fork of San Leandro Creek and San Lorenzo Creek.  Three of these were on the banks of the inlets in the Marina Area, one at Oakland Airport, four along the north side of the reek and one on San Lorenzo Creek.   The largest was Fairmont. Since the “Indian lands” exempted from Castro and Estudillo grants the borders and other lands on the fringe of Estudillo lands were not clearly defined they provided an excuse for squatters to encroach upon both grants disregarding the rights of any Indians still in the ...

.   IF YOU LIVE HERE YOU PRONOUNCE ESTUDILLO “ESTA-DILLO”.  Sorry Spanish speakers… As I tell you this story you will recognize some of our street names with origins in our founding families. The 1 st settler was Don Jose Joaquin and this wife Dona Juana .   Don Joaquin, as he was referred to, was friends with the new governor, Don Juan Alvarado . Alvarado was put to the task of was dividing up grazing lands between friends.  Some of the Estudillo land was redistributed to Guillermo Castro , who was related to the governor by marriage.  The hills of Castro Valley to Eastern Hayward was appropriated and Estudillo was left with all the grazing land below that.  Estudillo Home Corner of W. Estudillo & Carpentier Now San Leanders Church Castro Valley was part of the original 28,000 acre (110 km²) land grant given to Castro, called Rancho San Lorenzo. This land grant included Hayward, San Lorenzo, and Castro Valley, including Cro...

  "Come, my sons, I would show you your inheritance. In such a manner Don Luis Peralta of Mexico,  might have gathered his four sons and journeyed to the high points of Oakland and Berkeley hills, from which could be seen the vast stretches of Rancho San Antonio. "To you, Ignacio, my oldest son, shall fall the southern plain from El Arroyo de San Leandro (river/creek) to this point, where tradition says that El Capitan Fages and Padre Crespi made camp 70 years ago.  Antonio, yours shall be the fertile land from here to El Arroya de San Antonio and down to the estuary (Oakland).   Vincente shall have the temescal the wooded peninsula, and all the land to the line bearing from the island of the Pelicans (Alcatraz) to the arroyo yonder and.... To you, Domingo, shall own all from that line to the little bald hill called San Antonio (El Cerrito)". Original Plat Map of San Antonio Land Grant Who was this man that could give away more than 43,000 acres of th...