[pull quote: "... a nickel could buy you a daily paper ..."]

by Leona Heights Neighborhood News

By Gordon Laverty

Come along on a Leona trolley ride back in 1900. Hear the clang of the trolley bell operated by the motorman's foot, feel yourself forced against the wicker seat back as the control arm accelerates the electric motor and the car, watch the telephone poles rushing past your window seat the joys of a trolley ride out Courtland Avenue, past Mills College Station, past Lake Aliso, gliding along over a wood trestle, and (of all things) jarring along Leona Street to the Leona Hotel for a week or a weekend stay, with perhaps a side trip to old Mr. Chabot's Observatory at the end of the line.

Simple but delightful pleasures were the lot of Oaklanders then and are all but gone now. But the memories can linger on in old photos, newspaper articles, saved mementos, and old folks' recollections. The old Leona "K" trolley could whisk a person into a relaxing world after a transfer or two from downtown Oakland. In those days, a nickel would buy you a daily paper and a car token from the same paperboy at the stop where you got on. By 1936 the price had climbed to a dime!

The Leona trolley ran over the original tracks of the old Leona Heights Railroad, an operation in itself of no miniature proportions. Its trestles spanned broad canyons, and its coaches were roomy. Originally powered by steam locomotives, the trains were later electrified.

During the mining days (about 1896 to 1934), the trains also carried ore from the four Leona-area mines to the Southern Pacific tracks near San Leandro Boulevard, thence to the Richmond operations of Stauffer Chemical Company, where the ore was crushed and made into sulfuric acid.

But picnickers rode some trolleys, along with people going to the Leona Hotel and many students and visitors headed for Mills College.

We will continue this walk down memory lane in the May Metro.