Oakland's character grew richer as the city did. The young Jack London prowled its waterfront before he ever wrote a word, and the wharves where he loafed are now Jack London Square. In the 1920s and '30s the city raised two of the finest movie palaces in the West — the Fox Oakland of 1928 and the great Art Deco Paramount of 1931, all gilt and neon. And in 1950, on the shore of Lake Merritt, Oakland opened Children's Fairyland, a storybook park that has enchanted generations of Bay Area kids. The Town had become a place of theaters, parks, and waterfront stories.
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.
