Leona Heights Neighborhood News

by Gordon Laverty

I spent a pleasant hour or so recently reading through old articles given to me by Marie Perry O'Connor, whom I interviewed for much of the material for last month's Leona News. It was like a mind trip through the Oakland of the past 140 years, a joyful, exciting adventure!

Last month's reliving of a ride on the Leona Trolley of the 1930s between Lake Merritt and the Laundry Farm car barn recreated history. Our children periodically find old railroad spikes from the period. Marie's information further filled out the story.

Marie's father started and owned a food market at 51st Avenue and E. 12th Street for many years. The old wharf once located where 51st Street intersected the Estuary handled much traffic coming from San Francisco, which explains why there was plenty of business at the market as long as the ferries ran. This traffic involved pedestrians, who then caught streetcars to go to their home neighborhoods. Marie was one of many who rode the trolleys, especially when she wanted to go on nature hikes to see the butterflies up near the Observatory.

Marie touched one strong recollection for me when she said, "You know, before most people owned a car for transportation, we went from one theater/local store cluster to the other by walking or by trolley." In fact, as Oakland grew in the first half of the 1900s, land developers saw to it that new or extended trolley lines made population gathering points reachable. Now most of the old theaters are gone or have been reused as large stores, apartments, or churches. And the stores are mostly mom-and-pop stores here and there.

In Marie's clipping collection was one wonderful article by our good friend Bill Sturm (of Oakland Library History Room fame) about a close link to the Leona Trolley, The Highland Park and Fruitvale Railway. The article quotes an 1893 enthusiast: "Every visitor to Oakland should take a trip over The Highland Park and Fruitvale Railway. The ride is one of the most picturesque in the country. Up hill and down, through canyons and around the curves, the (double deck) cars glide with wonderful smoothness."

Beginning at 13th Avenue and E. 11th street, jogging over east on E. 22nd, the tracks proceeded north on 14th Avenue, thence along Hopkins (now MacArthur Blvd.) to Fruitvale, where passengers could get good German beer at places like Tepper's Garden. This E.C. Sessions trolley line was gobbled up by "Borax" Smith's Oakland Transit Company in 1898, which later became the Key System, and on to AC Transit.

Hope you have a great summer walking, riding, and reading.