The lake earned its jewelry in 1925, when the Necklace of Lights — 126 lampposts strung with 3,400 pearly bulbs — was lit around the shore. Switched off for the wartime blackout in 1941, it stayed dark for nearly half a century until a citizens' campaign relit it in 1987, and it marked its hundredth birthday in 2025. The lake's most famous residents got their honor more recently: black-crowned night herons, stocky and red-eyed, have nested around Lake Merritt and the downtown trees for generations, and in 2019 — after a two-year campaign begun by a class of Oakland third-graders — the City Council voted unanimously to make the night heron the city's first official bird.
Oakland became the western terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad on November 8, 1869; the Long Wharf opened in 1871 and the Oakland Mole in 1882.
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.
