| Laundry Farm Canyon , nestled in the foothills of
central east Oakland, California, has one of the richest histories of any locale in the East Bay Area. Yet, few people are aware of it's
pioneering past, which spans nearly 2 full centuries of Spanish Californio, European, and American settlement and development. |
| Even prior to this modern period, in 1772 and 1776 Spanish Mission explorers passed nearby, and hiked to within a half-mile
of Laundry Farm Canyon. At the time, it was filled with the toe of a towering Redwood forest. Nearby, a native people had established
a village deep in the forest. Those villagers, one mile north of the canyon, undoubtedly admired the beauty of the place, with it's
full-flowing spring-water creek, cascading down from the steep hillsides in the heart of the fog-draped forest of Evergreen giants. Why does the canyon have such an unusual name? It was, in fact, so named after an early laundry business that began there. The Laundry Farm, as it was called. Why am I so interested in it's history? Two-fold: I live in the area, and am intrigued by local history. Second, I am interested in genealogy. Coincidentally, I have a family connection to an early Oakland businessman by the name of Pliny Bartlett. The Laundry Farm business later came partly under the ownership of Pliny Bartlett in west Oakland, California, as Contra Costa Laundry, in competition with the many 19th Century Chinese laundries of the time. |
| Contents: Geology and Location The Red Woods 1841 The Laundry Farm ~ 1851 Mills Seminary 1871 Laundry Farm Picnics ~ 1876 Laundry Farm Railroad 1887 Laundry Farm Hotel 1892 Leona Sulphur Mines 1906 Leona Rock Quarries ~ 1909 Chabot Observatory 1915 Roads and Freeways 1937 |
Source Articles: Pliny Bartlett Obituary, San Francisco Chronicle, 1903 L Is For Leona Heights, Oakland Tribune, 1958 Victorians and the End of the Line in 1936, Oakland Tribune, Knave, 1936 Laundry Farm picnics, Enquirer, 1887 California Railway, Key Note, bef. 1960 Beth Bagwell, Oakland: The Story of a City, Presidio Press, 1982 Sherwood D. Burgess, The Forgotten Redwoods of the East Bay, ___ California Historical Society Quarterly, 30: no. 1, bef. 1955 Leslie Mladinich, Mills president's home, Montclarion, pg. 5, Fri., Oct. 4, 1996 Bill O'Brien, Change Proposed for Oakland Hills: Rock Quarry Out, ___ Shopping Mall In, Eastbay Express, pg. 3, Nov. 3, 1995 |
| Credits: Thanks go to Carole Bartlett MacKay and to Dennis Evanosky, for their volunteer efforts in researching and providing much of the source materials cited above. Thanks also to the Oakland History Room for collecting and preserving these and many other source materials. |
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Laundry Farm Canyon is a steep creek canyon formed by uplifting and erosion on a segment of the Hayward Fault, the main
regional earthquake zone that runs from Hayward to Berkeley. The canyon sits directly atop the fault line, and runs north to south with
the fault. The canyon carries the Horseshoe Creek branch of Leona Creek, which runs year-round and drains down from Merritt College, east of the canyon. The creek enters Laundry Farm Canyon perpendicular to it. This upper branch of the creek reveals that the geological forces shaping the region are quite active, as the creek falls a steep 600 vertical feet in only one mile of length. The creek then follows the canyon for one-half mile south to Leona Creek, where it drains into Lake Aliso on the present Mills College campus. The Laundry Farm Canyon segment of Horseshoe Creek is now underground, beneath Highway 13, between old Chabot Observatory hill and Reinhardt Drive hill. THE RED WOODS 1841Before the 19th Century, the land was populated by the Huchiun Ohlone natives. A native village was located one mile north of Laundry Farm Canyon, on the present campus of Holy Names College. In 1820, all the land was granted by Spain to Luis Peralta, and became part of the San Antonio Rancho owned by the Peralta family of Californios. Before 1840, Laundry Farm Canyon sat within the foot of the ancient forest known as the San Antonio Red Woods. That forest is now part of the residential hills of east Oakland, California. The forest once covered Joaquin Miller Park, and the Bay-facing hillsides to either side and below the Park, extending from Shepherd Canyon to Leona Heights. Begining in 1841, Laundry Farm Canyon and the redwood-covered hills just beyond were the home of the tough logging men of the "Red Woods", who were busy cutting down the giant 20-foot diameter redwood trees there. With 400 men at their peak, in only 20 years, they logged out the entire redwood forest by 1860, when the town of Oakland west of the San Antonio Slough (now Lake Merritt) was only 8 years young. During the 1840's, teams of oxen hauled the hand-cut redwoods down the logging roads to the village of San Antonio, and it's wharf at the foot of 13th Ave. These logs were then shipped to local mills for much of the construction of Yerba Buena (early San Francisco) and the local East Bay towns. Park Blvd. and 14th Ave. were the earliest of these logging roads, and they connected directly with the 13th Ave. wharf. In 1853, Redwood Road above Laundry Farm Canyon was built by Chester Tupper to gain access to his sawmill. That mill was in the second forest, the Middle Redwoods, in the valley to the east behind the Bay-facing San Antonio Redwoods. That second forest later became Redwood Regional Park. A third forest further to the east in the valley beyond the Middle Redwoods was the Moraga Redwoods, which was logged mostly for the building of the town of Martinez on the Sacramento River Delta out to the east. Tupper's Road to the Middle Redwoods was later called the Road to the Redwoods, and ran above the north side of Horseshoe Creek, that flowed into Laundry Farm Canyon. The lower segment of that road in the flatlands later became 35th Ave. At the foot of the hills, it connected to Old County Road, which is now Foothill Blvd., and from there to the 13th Ave. wharf. In the 1850's, rapid cutting began with up to 400 men, and the advent of steam sawmills, which were built alongside the creeks and roads directly in the forests of the hills. Throughout the decade, the logging was the main economic activity of the East Bay. Some of the loggers were gold miners returning from the Gold Rush fields, who saw opportunity in the boom-bust cycles of lumber prices. Their forest settlements exceeded that of the young City of Oakland far below. Even the massive stumps were harvested, by men who would spend a day with hand-axes carving out shingles and shakes one at a time. Today, the second growth forest has sprung back in the redwood parks, along the creeks, and even sparsely in the surrounding residential neighborhoods, revealing the outlines of where the massive ancient forests once stood tall. THE LAUNDRY FARM ~ 1851After the initial logging, the Laundry Farm was the first development in the area in the early 1850's. It was nothing more than a shack on a hillside above the creek. It soon moved to West Oakland and became Contra Costa Laundry. Starting in about 1851, laundry was ferried from San Francisco hotels across the Bay to San Leandro Bay at the southeastern end of Alameda Peninsula. The laundry was then hauled up the hill to the spring water Horseshoe branch of Leona Creek, where it was washed, bleached and dried on the grass. The laundry shack perched on the hillside just above the creek in this canyon, now on Highway 13, just a few hundred yards northwest of the Highway 13 and I-580 interchange. During one rainy winter storm, the laundry shack slid down the hillside to the bottom of the canyon. The laundry concern then moved to west Oakland, where it was renamed Contra Costa Laundry. MILLS SEMINARY 1871During the late 1860's, after the Laundry business was gone, and the logged redwood forests were cleared and forgotten, the hillsides of Laundry Farm Canyon and Leona were sparsely populated. One small isolated cottage alongside Leona Creek, on the 55-acre pasture land of the Thompkins Ranch, was then bought by Mrs. Susan Mills, who operated The Young Ladies Seminary of Benicia. That cottage still stands, now as the home of the Mills College president. In 1871, Mills Seminary was built on Leona Creek, on the Thompkins Ranch site, at the south end of Laundry Farm Canyon. Mills was the first major construction in the Laundry Farm and Leona area. The creek was dammed to form tiny Lake Aliso, as flood control for the school. Mills Seminary was a school for elementary and high school girls. In 1874 it had the first telegraph line in the area, connected to Oakland. The magnificent original main building, Mills Hall, has been restored and still stands today. In 1885, the school became Mills College, as it is known today, a rare pre-eminent women's college. LAUNDRY FARM PICNICS ~ 1876In about 1876, a man named Lane ran 4-horse-drawn canopy sightseeing tour buses up the hill to Laundry Farm, which was by then a popular picnic area with terrific views. The flat hilltop site of the future Chabot Observatory, above the canyon, was a popular picnic spot. A foot trail led high up above the creek to the flat meadow on top of the hill. With a 360 degree view all around, it remained a popular picnic spot through the 1890's. Today, that view is largely blocked by the wild overgrowth of the hillside trees and vegetation introduced by later generations. Dense groves of Monterey Pines, Eucalyptus, and tall brush and weeds such as Scotch Broom now dominate the landscape. Previously, the area was mostly grass-covered hillsides, Oaks, and Redwood groves, before the loggers cleared it. LAUNDRY FARM RAILROAD 1887In 1887 the Laundry Farm Railroad (later the California Railway) was built. The tunnel described in the article below was begun through the Reinhardt Drive hill. But the tunnel construction soon caved in, so the railway instead was re-routed around the hill, across the Mills property, then north into the Laundry Farm Canyon below the Observatory hill. Across the creek from where the laundry shack had stood was built the Car Barn, or station, where the trains were switched and stored. LAUNDRY FARM HOTEL 1892In 1892, the 3-story Laundry Farm Hotel was built one-quarter mile east of the Car Barn, on the opposite side of the Observatory hill, on a 200-acre site. The railway track from the Car Barn was extended to the hotel. The hotel burned down twice in the next 15 years, and was not rebuilt after the second fire. The abandoned track to the hotel was removed in 1902, five years after the first fire, and the track beds became later roadways. The precise location of the hotel is not yet known, but the most current theory from the photographs is that the track ran behind the hotel along what is now Leona Street, and that the hotel site was the large bowl-shaped area at the dead end of Griffin St., between Mountain Blvd. and Leona St., on the south bank of Leona Creek, directly across from the Chabot Observatory Director's house (at the far south end of the hilltop). LEONA SULPHUR MINES 1906In 1906 the Leona Heights sulphur mines were opened east of the Laundry Farm Canyon. A bunker was built at The Car Barn site in the Laundry Farm Canyon, which connected aerial cable tramways to the sulphur mines, and later rock quarries, in the hills above. The mines were the project of Francis Marion 'Borax' Smith, who made a fortune in Oakland, but fell into bankruptcy in 1913. The sulphur mines frequently caught fire, and had to be abandoned. With miles of tunnels, they were played out by 1929. The creeks were forever polluted with sulphur after that. In 1997, the surface asphalt of nearby Redwood Road was badly eaten away by sulphuric acid that bubbled up from the underground springs for a few weeks. No environmental remediation was done in those days, so the sterile mine tailings remain today, piled some 150 feet high at the head of Leona Creek. LEONA ROCK QUARRIES ~ 1909In about 1909, rock quarries were opened a mile up the hill at the present site of Merritt College. Three aerial and cable tramways hauled rock from the quarries, across the Observatory hill, and down into Laundry Farm Canyon to the Car Barn site. From there, the railroad then hauled the rock down from the hills. It was used as macadam for local roadways. Today, the massive ruin of a concrete bunker from this project survives alongside the fire trail leading down from Merritt College above Horseshoe Creek Canyon. Below that bunker, off of Mountain Blvd., just beyond Bermuda Ave., is the ruin of a concrete chute, which was also part of this period of development. The pyrite mines and quarries were played out by the early 1930's. After the early railroad was built to the Leona quarries and mines, a railway extension, known as the Ransome Branch, was built from the Car Barn, far south to the Ransome Quarry, which had opened as early as 1903. Later, it was known as the Leona Rock Quarry, though located far to the south of Leona Heights. Though the rail line is long gone, the quarry is familiar today as the great bowl-shaped 127-acre landmark scar in the hills at the top of Edwards Ave., the now-closed Gallagher and Burk Quarry. CHABOT OBSERVATORY 1915In 1915, the Chabot Observatory moved from downtown Oakland up to the Observatory hill, overlooking the Car Barn and old Laundry Farm on one side, and overlooking the burned out ruins of the old Laundry Farm Hotel on the other side. It was thought that the surrounding walls of Laundry Farm Canyon would forever block the city lights from the Observatory, but the area became heavily residential over the years. In 1999, construction is near complete on the new Observatory, high up on Skyline Blvd. in Redwood Regional Park. The old Chabot Observatory above Laundry Farm Canyon is now closed. ROADS AND FREEWAYS 1937After the rock and pyrite freight-hauling period, the railroad through Mills College to Laundry Farm Canyon became part of the Key System of streetcars, begun under the control of Francis Marion Smith. In 1937, the rail line was abandoned. By the late 1950's or early 1960's the tracks were all removed, the canyon slopes were cut and re-graded, and the freeway was built through it. The creek through Laundry Farm Canyon was completely undergrounded beneath the fill and pavement of Highway 13 below the old Chabot Observatory. Today, thousands of commuters pass through Laundry Farm Canyon daily, and many residents populate it's hillsides, unaware of the two centuries of rich history shaped there by it's pioneers. Some of the streets lay atop the same routes first traced out by those past pioneers. The legacy of mining and railroad entrepreneur Francis Marion 'Borax' Smith is familiar to many as 20-Mule-Team Borax soap, on which he made his fortune. Stauffer Place is the name of a local street, named for the pyrite mines that preceded it. The mine formed part of the foundation of the very successful Stauffer Chemical Company. The early Thompkins Ranch, on which Mills now sits, gave it's name to Tompkins Ave., a street that once led north from the Mills property before I-580 severed it. Seminary Ave. was once the front entrance to Mills Seminary, and retains the name of that period. Many Mills girls would have travelled that route in the 19th Century. The gate off of Seminary Ave. still exists, but is permanently closed. And Redwood Road still carries it's name in memory of the vast forest of giants that once filled the canyons of Laundry Farm. |
| Respected Place in the Business Community, Dies in his Eighty-Fourth Year | |
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| Oakland. July 18. -- Pliny Bartlett, one of the builders of the big Contra Costa Laundry Business and superintendant of that
enterprise for years, died suddenly at noon-time to-day at his home on Franklin St. in this city. Mr. Bartlett was in his eighty-fourth year, but had not been ailing and death is supposed to have occurred from the breaking of a blood vessel in the brain. Mr. Bartlett was born in Springfield, Mass. on October 7, 1819. In 1856 he came to California and after a short business career in San Francisco decided to go into the laundry business and associated himself with George H. Hallett and P. E. Dalton. Their idea was the establishment of a white labor laundry, this line of work at that time being almost exclusively in the hands of Chinese. They organized the Contra Costa Laundry, which was for some years located near Mills College, on what is still know as "The Laundry Farm". |
Later the institution was moved to West Oakland and it was for years the largest laundry in the world. They handled the laundry work
for the Pullman Palace Car Company and many large concerns in San Francisco. In late years other laundries have cut into the work of the Contra Costa and last December the three original partners sold their interests in the big concern and retired in favor of younger men. Mr. Bartlett always took an interest in the affairs of Oakland, though he never held a public office. He was an active member of the Athenian Club and in the last few days had been at the rooms playing his customary game of billiards. Mr. Bartlett leaves a family composed of Mrs. Emma Bartlett, his widow; Mrs. Carroll D. Galvin, Pliny V. S. Bartlett, Ralph G. Bartlett, and Grace E. Bartlett. |
| L is for Leona Heights | |
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| First man to live there was named Davis. He ran a laundry in a small shack, and called it the world's first steam laundry for
commercial use. The shack was on the hillside. One rainy day in 1857 it slid to the bottom of the canyon. |
The story of Leona Heights (called Laundry Farm Canyon in those days) does not end there, however. In 1888 a railroad was organized to carry picnickers in and out, and to haul away the diggings from rock quarries and ore mines. |
| Victorians and the End of the Line in 1936 | |
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| "Several streams flow from the hills and furnish an abundant water supply and it was to utilize this that a laundry association was
organized from which the location [Laundry Farm] takes it's name." In describing Oakland in 1876 for the Tribune's Sunday magazine, The Knave, Harry Butler [who arrived as a child with his family from Lynn, Mass.] remembers Lane's farm on the east side of Lake Merritt. |
"Lane ran sightseeing buses out to the Laundry Farm. The buses were big canopy top affairs drawn by four horses. One bus was named the Belle of Oakland." Lane's buses were replaced by the railroad. |
| "The Laundry Farm tract is one of the most popular picnic resorts in
the locality and from actual count from the last five weeks the average
number of visitors on a Sunday to average 1,200." |
| East Bay Transportation By W. E. Gardiner, Article No. VII California Railway | |
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| The only steam railway in our family of lines is the old California Railway, or the present Leona Line.
The California Railway was built in 1887 from Fruitvale Station to Park Place, near the present Buehla
Station, by W. W. Woodward. It was a standard gauge line, and service was started with a small eight-wheel locomotive borrowed from the Southern Pacific Company, the "J. G. Kellogg" or number 2. This locomotive was built at West Alameda in 1864 for the San Francisco & Alameda Railroad by a Mr. Stevens. Locomotives were named in those days and numbered later as the roads became larger. This number was retained later, after the Central Pacific Railroad had absorbed the small lines around the East Bay, in 1869. There were three coaches for passenger service. There was some opposition on the part of Mrs. Mills to the road crossing her property, but in 1888 Col. Meyers bought the road and made arrangements with Mrs. Mills to cross the north end of the property. |
The track was then extended to a point near the present Mills College Station where a tunnel was started through
the hill, but before the work was completed the tunnel caved in and was never finished. The track was then extended around the hill to a point opposite the north end of the tunnel where the car station was built. Leona was the site of the old Contra Costa Laundry which was located just across the creek from the car station. At that time the road was popularly known as the "Laundry Farm Railroad." A tug from San Francisco came by way of Bay Farm Island to a point at the foot of 51st Avenue from where the laundry was carted to Leona where there was an abundance of clear spring water to be had which made this an ideal location for a laundry, the clothes being dried and bleached on the grass. |