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.
As the city grew, one of its mayors gave it a treasure. Samuel Merritt, mayor from 1867 to 1869, proposed and funded a dam across a tidal slough at the heart of downtown, turning brackish marsh into a clean saltwater lake. In 1870 the state legislature declared it a refuge for the migrating birds of the Pacific Flyway that crowded its shores — the first official wildlife refuge in the United States. Lake Merritt has been the jewel of Oakland ever since: 155 acres and three and a half miles around, ringed by parkland and five little bird islands, still alive with herons, pelicans, and the great autumn flights, and a National Historic Landmark since 1963. A wild lake in the middle of a working city is a very Oakland kind of idea.
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.
