Two giant redwoods in the Oakland hills — the Blossom Rock Navigation Trees, California Historical Landmark No. 962 — once guided ships on the bay, a bearing logged by Captain F.W. Beechey in 1826.
The town the railroad found was named for its trees. The flatlands along the East Bay shore were once a forest of coast live oaks — encinal, "oak grove" in Spanish — and the groves gave Oakland both its name and its nickname, "The Town." The land had belonged to the Peralta family, whose vast Rancho San Antonio, granted to Luis Maria Peralta in 1820, covered most of the East Bay. During the Gold Rush the shoreline became the mainland staging point between the bay and the Sierra foothills, and as Americans poured in, the rancho was carved up and a town laid out along the waterfront. On May 4, 1852, the state incorporated the Town of Oakland — then a place of barely a hundred people, two hotels, and a wharf. Within a generation of the railroad's arrival its population had leapt more than twenty-fold, and its harbor deepened into one of the great ports of the West.
Why People Visit Oakland
Visitors come to Oakland for a Bay Area city with its own strong character: a wild lake at its center, redwood groves in the hills, a historic waterfront, and one of the most celebrated food scenes in California. The museums and Jack London Square sit minutes from the lake, and San Francisco is a quick trip across the bay. Equal parts oak-grove heritage and creative energy, Oakland rewards anyone drawn to the heart of the East Bay.
