San Leandro Portals to Past History for Fun

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...

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....