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Vintage views of El Cerrito Plaza, which opened this month in 1958
The original El Cerrito Plaza shopping center was dedicated this month 58 years ago. The opening came two years after an arson fire destroyed the historic Castro adobe on the site that allowed...
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Vintage images of Richmond’s past as city turns 111 today
A 1907 aerial illustration of the young city. Richmond became a city on Aug. 7 1905 and turns 111 today. Here are some images of the city’s early years and an Oakland Tribune account about the death...
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Pacific Coast League baseball reunion event returns Aug. 20
Opening day ceremony at Oakland Oaks Ball Park in Emeryville during World War II. The late Dick Dobbins, a Berkeley native and later a high school principal in Contra Costa who died in 1999, was among...
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Adeline at Ashby in Berkeley in 1946
This view shows Adeline Street at Ashby in 1946, when Key System streetcars still ran on Adeline and connected to Shattuck Avenue. Click here for the Google Street View of the same intersection today.
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Similar scenario to 1991 Oakland firestorm played out in 1913
An October fire fanned by high winds and fueled by abundant eucalyptus trees and tall grass sweeps through the Oakland-Berkeley hills and threatens the landmark Claremont Hotel. That describes the...
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TBT: The scene of last weekend’s downtown Berkeley fire as it looked in the...
A downtown fire in Berkeley last weekend damaged a city-designated “structure of merit” at 2111-13 University Ave. As the photos above, from 1948, and below, from 1946, show, the building (built in in...
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TBT: Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley in the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s
Vintage views of Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley, when electric rail service was still a common sight. Click the images to see a larger version. A 1930s view of Shattuck at Bancroft, with a...
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Richmond Rosies attending Pearl Harbor anniversary ceremonies in Hawaii
Marian Sousa, Marian Wynn, Kay Morrison (back row) and Agnes Moore (center, front row) are attending the ceremonies marking the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Priscilla Elder (left,...
View ArticleTBT: Vintage and current views of the Heinz Building in Berkeley
The H.J. Heinz Co. Factory at 2900 San Pablo Ave. in Berkeley has been called “Berkeley’s most elegant industrial building” by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. The building was...
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El Cerrito was once a New Year’s Eve destination
This is how El Cerrito looked at its entrance from the county line at Albany in 1954, when the city’s nightclubs were in their waning years. The Club Kona marquee is visible on the left and the sign...
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TBT: Richmond sees new businesses open — including a drive-in — early in 1945
Richmond was consumed with national defense responsibilities during World War II, but even with restrictions and rationing of consumer goods, new businesses were opening in the city in the first...
View ArticleFederal order in 1942 hits the Japanese American community in Richmond and El...
The 75th anniversary of the imprisonment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast during World War II is today, Feb. 19. The initial coverage of the upcoming removal plans from the Richmond Independent...
View ArticlePresidents Day: Harry Truman visits Berkeley in 1948
For Presidents Day we offer these images from the Berkeley Daily Gazette of a visit to the city and UC Berkeley by Harry Truman, who delivered the commencement speech at Memorial Stadium in 1948.
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El Cerrito: Campus tour, concert offered March 15 at Korematsu Middle School
Korematsu Middle School, 7125 Donal Ave. in El Cerrito, is holding a special tour of the new campus from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. March 15 as part of events celebrating the city’s centennial. Following the...
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El Cerrito groups holding centennial walking tour March 18
The historic Rodini house on Elm Street in El Cerrito. The El Cerrito Historical Society and the El Cerrito Trail Trekkers will host “Architecture in the Flatlands,” a free walking tour of...
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Can you help ID this West County/East Bay mystery photo?
At the March 9 centennial talk on El Cerrito’s history of gambling and vice — held at the former Wagon Wheel gambling house and nightclub — a woman brought in the above photo, wondering if anyone...
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Time Travel Tuesday — Easter in El Cerrito in 1945
From the Richmond Independent we present this photo of the winners of the annual Easter Egg Hunt in El Cerrito in 1945. Our thanks to the Richmond Museum of History for access to its archives. Here is...
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TBT: Richmond mourns the death of President Roosevelt this week in 1945
The front page of the Richmond Independent announces the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. Courtesy Richmond Museum of History. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who saw the United States...
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Streetcars and giant urns in North Berkeley
A car, a streetcar and a giant urn, right, co-exist on Arlington Avenue at Thousand Oaks in Berkeley in 1947. It may be hard to believe now, but the neighborhoods around Arlington Avenue in Berkeley...
View ArticleEl Cerrito centennial: When the city was asked to change its name
El Cerrito, which had just turned 30 years old two years earlier, received a slap in the face this month in 1949 when the Southern California city of El Centro suggested that it change its name. (Never...
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