Berkeley: A City of Growth

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Francis Kittredge Shattuck, along with partners William Hillegass, George Blake, and James Leonard filed claims on the land that would become central Berkeley. As one of the winners of legal claims to the land once owned by the Peraltas, people like Shattuck would become rich. One of the schemes to help this along was the extension of the Berkeley Branch Line of the Central Pacific Rail service from Oakland and its ferry terminal. Shattuck and others resided in Oakland at the time – where he was once mayor. He moved to Berkeley somewhere around 1868-1870 and would live in Berkeley off and on through the 1890s, (building a home at the location of the current Shattuck Hotel).[1] He and partner J.L Barker worked to get the Central Pacific to extend their line through Berkeley, offering free right-of-way and acreage for a station and yard. The line would eventually expand north to Shattuck and Vine – but by then Shattuck Avenue was established as the center of Berkeley. Francis Shattuck was instrumental in much of the real estate development at the end of the 19th century, the president of Berkeley’s first bank, and co-founder (with his wife Rosa) of Berkeley’s first library.[2]

 

Another factor in the development of the area as a suburban getaway was the Realty Syndicate. Focusing on transit (such as ferries and electric rail), then expanding to land development. They created a pattern of setting up infrastructure that expedited land and home sales for their own profit, as well as other land developers. Developers like Mason-McDuffie would tout the great transit options as just one of the many benefits of moving to Berkeley. 

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Below, you will find a short video clip on the Realty Syndicate and its impact on the East Bay:

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Realty Syndicate (you can also read a very little more here)

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By 1906, Berkeley was home to university students, professors, factory workers, supportive services industries, and wealthy business owners from the surrounding areas. Those that ran businesses elsewhere commuted via the Key Route to Oakland or the ferry to San Francisco. The April 1906 earthquake changed all that. Many refugees fled San Francisco, making their way to the East Bay: “Trains teaming with traumatized men, women, and children, weighed down by the possessions, hurriedly left San Francisco from the southern Pacific terminal at Third and Townsend Street.”[3] Trains headed out of the city to San Jose and north to Oakland. From there many continued to Berkeley Station at Center and Shattuck. San Francisco businesses would temporarily relocate to Oakland and Berkeley. Among the many enclaves, West Berkeley had a thriving French Quarter, though no traces of it seem to exist today. Only a few businesses, “among them were French Americans Jack Jaymot and Pauline Mirandette, who promptly set about establishing the Berkeley French Laundry at 2578 Shattuck Avenue.”[4] This is important in that it made a distinction in the businesses approved by the community. Where Chinese and Japanese laundries were considered nuisances and health hazards, forced to move or close, other businesses thrived.  While many businesses would eventually return to San Francisco, there was a surge in the population that needed assistance. 

 

Berkeley after the 1906 Earthquake:

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With the great influx “Berkeley’s population doubled in 1906-07, and by the end of the decade the city boasted a population of 40,434.”[5] Those who made their home in Berkeley created a residential housing boom. With so much rural farmland, there was plenty of room to build. The new Key Route electric railway system made areas accessible which had previously been left undeveloped because they were too far from the center of things.[6] The community saw the rise of the sub-division, ushered in by realtor developers. Urban Planner Marc Weiss in a case study of Berkeley argued that “…broker-sub-dividers who specialized in subdivision development were the most planning-oriented of the realtors.”[7] Developers like Berkeley’s Duncan McDuffie were a clear example of this all-around developer: purchasing and subdividing land into lots and then selling (as well assisting in the building and financing) of property. Property sold to high-income purchasers used deed restrictions as a way of protecting investments. However, these restrictions were often limited in scope and expired after a few years. By getting involved in local governance or boards, developers like McDuffie were able to influence city policy. 

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An Oakland Tribune advertisement decades later promoted Mason-McDuffie as a company that opened a considerable amount of this land. Stretching the truth slightly: “...in 1887 when the hills were grassy and homeless, Mason-McDuffie opened in Berkeley.”[8] Joseph Mason (of realtors Mason-McDuffie) had written that in 1887, Berkeley was all a wheat field from the southern edge to Derby Street, then northward to market garden.[9] The market garden Mason referred to could be the greenhouses that housed the Berkeley Flower Depot that once existed near Shattuck and Addison. Mason-McDuffie would later purchase that lot and build what is called “The Studio Building” for their offices in 1905.[10] The building was the work of architect Clarence Dakin. To give a sense of place, below is a Juxtapose image of the Studio Building (the angle not quite matching --) then, and now:

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Many spaces of historic Berkeley still remain, even cloaked in new awnings.

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[1] Ferrier, 83.

[2] Wollenburg, 41.

[3] Richard Schwartz, Earthquake Exodus, 1906: Berkeley Responds to the San Francisco Refugees. (Berkeley: RSB Books, 2006), 47.

[4] Stephanie Manning, “Shattuck’s Evolution as Downtown” from Exactly Opposite the Golden Gate: Essays on Berkeley's History, 1845-1945, edited by Phil McArdle. (Berkeley: Berkeley Historical Society, 1983) 209.

[5] Weiss, 12.

[6] Trish Hawthorne, “The Northbrae Subdivision” from Exactly Opposite the Golden Gate: Essays on Berkeley's History, 1845-1945, edited by Phil McArdle. (Berkeley: Berkeley Historical Society, 1983), 259.

[7] Weiss, 7.

[8] Mason-McDuffie “Mobilized” Advertisement, (Oakland Tribune, 27 January 1974). Berkeley History Room, Mason-McDuffie (Mason-McDuffie Clipping Files).

[9] Joseph J. Mason, “Memories of Berkeley’s Growth” (The Courier, 26 July 1921), 14.

[10] Mark Wilson, “Berkeley’s Architectural Heritage” (Berkeley Daily Gazette, 21 January 1976), 4.​​

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