Today Oakland is the anchor of the East Bay — a city of hills and harbor looking across the water at San Francisco. Its port pioneered container shipping in 1962 and remains one of the busiest in the country, and its neighborhoods carry the city's real life: Rockridge and Temescal with their storefronts and cafes, the Fruitvale district and Chinatown with some of the best food in California, Montclair up in the wooded hills. It is a city of neighborhoods, food, murals, and art, proudly diverse and proud of its table. Through every chapter, Oakland has been a crossroads — the western end of the line, where the continent meets the bay.
The hills above town tell an older story about the sea. The East Bay ridges once carried a forest of giant coast redwoods, and two of them stood so tall that ship captains sixteen miles out lined them up with Yerba Buena Island to steer clear of Blossom Rock, a hazard lurking just beneath the bay — Captain F.W. Beechey of the Royal Navy wrote the bearing into his log in 1826. The old giants were felled by about 1855 to build Gold Rush San Francisco, and the redwoods that shade Redwood Regional and Joaquin Miller parks today are their descendants, sprouted from the original stumps. The site of the Navigation Trees is California Historical Landmark No. 962, at the Madrone Picnic Area high in the Oakland hills.
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.
