Montclair, Oakland, California

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For the city in San Bernardino County, California, see Montclair, California. For other uses, see Montclair.

A view of Montclair Village in Montclair.

Location of Montclair in the City of Oakland.

Montclair (also known as the Montclair District) is a neighborhood of Oakland, California. Montclair is located in the hills east of Piedmont in a valley formed by the Hayward Fault. Although there is no formal definition of the neighborhood, the general boundaries are Thornhill Drive to the north, Highway 13 to the west, Skyline Boulevard to the east, and Ascot Drive to the south. The center of the neighborhood is a compact shopping district known as Montclair Village, which is located next to Highway 13 in the bottom of the valley. The hills of Montclair are heavily forested, and generally characterized by winding streets and large single-family houses. The neighborhood has some of the best public schools in Oakland - Montclair Elementary, Thornhill Elementary and Montera Middle School.

[edit] History

Prior to the Spanish Mission era, native Huchiun and Jalquin tribes of Ohlone Indians populated the general area.

In 1820, Montclair and Dimond Canyon were part of the land from El Cerrito to San Leandro, which was granted to Luis Maria Peralta. In 1842, Peralta divided his land among his sons and the San Antonio section including Montclair and Dimond Canyon went to his son Antonio Maria Peralta.

Prior to modern development, Montclair was geographically demarcated by two creek valleys, one on the northwest, and one on the southeast end of the Hayward Fault rift. The upper reaches of Temescal Creek ran through the northwest valley, and remains visible above ground today in the upper sections along Pinehaven Road. From there, the creek flowed down along Thornhill Dr., and then down Mountain Blvd. to Broadway Terrace, before draining into Lake Temescal.

In the northern creek valley, Thornhill Road dates back to some of the earliest development history of Montclair. This was an old 19th century logging road built by and named after Hiram Thorn. Thorn's road brought redwood logs to Oakland out of the vast forest known as the Moraga Redwoods, where he ran a lumber mill at Pinehurst Road near Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve, west of the community of Canyon. Thornhill later became a toll road to Contra Costa County.

On the southeast end of Montclair, Shephard Creek still runs down the lower section of Shepherd Canyon, where it joins the short stretch of Cobbledick Creek along Scout Road. At the freeway, near the parking lot of the Montclair Golf Course, these creeks are joined by Palo Seco Creek from the eastern hills (now Joaquin Miller Park) to form Sausal Creek which then runs down through Dimond Canyon.

From Shepherd Canyon extending toward the southeast, the Bayside hills were covered in a vast redwood forest known as the San Antonio Redwoods. Around 1847, Europeans started logging the San Antonio redwood forest. In 1850, the area's first steam sawmill was built on the edge of Montclair, at Palo Seco Creek in the head of Dimond Canyon ^[1]. A logging road to the mill was built high up along the side of Dimond Canyon, and later became Park Boulevard. This logging road connected to a wharf at the foot of 13th Avenue and was used to transport the logs down Dimond Canyon to the Bay. By 1860, the San Antonio forest was logged completely.

After the logging period, Caspar Hopkins, an early settler of the Fruitvale District, formed the Sausal Creek Water Company and built a dam and reservoir at the upper end of Dimond Canyon near the current Highway 13 at Montclair. The reservoir later became part of the East Bay Water Company and remained until the early 1920s. Early maps show a road passing the reservoir along the current Waterhouse Road, and extending up toward the dam in the direction of Bridgeview Drive along what is currently the Upper Dimond Canyon Trail. In 1867, Hugh Dimond purchased the canyon. ^[2]

In the first half of the 20th century, the main line of the Sacramento Northern Railroad ran through Montclair. The tracks ran southward from Lake Temescal and crossed into Montclair over a trestle at Moraga Ave. and Thornhill Dr., then ran along a high berm between Montclair Recreation Center and Montclair Elementary School, before crossing Mountain Blvd. and Snake Road via trestle, and continuing up Shepherd Canyon to a tunnel, the west portal of which was located immediately below Saroni Drive. Today, much of the old right-of-way above the village and in Shepherd Canyon is a pedestrian and bicycle path. Although the old railroad trestles throughout Montclair were all removed decades ago, in recent years a pedestrial bridge was built in the same location of one of them, across Snake Road, to connect the two major sections of the pedestrian pathway. The trail was paved as well at the same time.

One of the first schools located in Montclair was at the current site of the now-closed Moraga Avenue firehouse, and was named in honor of John Coffee Hays, one of the founders of the city of Oakland. The Hays school was closed in 1913.

Though already sparsely populated since the logging days, major residential subdivision of the village and hills began in the 1920s.

The 1927 ^[3] Montclair firehouse was designed in the Hansel and Gretel style ^[4] by famed regional architecht Julia Morgan. Following the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the Oakland Fire Department built a new station house on Shepherd Canyon Road, and upon completion, vacated the 1927 structure.

In March 1930, the Montclair branch of the Oakland Public Library was opened on Mountain Blvd. near Thornhill Dr. to serve the growing village. The small building was built in the English cottage-style, and remains in use today. After 1965, additions were completed for the children's room and patio at the rear of the original building. ^[5]

[edit] References

^ photo in The Montclarion, February 3, 1998
^ A Short History of Dimond Canyon and Sausal Creek, Sausal Creek.org, by Eleanor Dunn Acting Treasurer, from The Montclarion, March 24, 1998
^ Great Oakland Neighborhoods, There's No Place Like Home, Keri Hayes Troutman
^ Hobbit Habitats, Montclair Storybook houses loom large in Oakland writer's memory, San Francisco Chronicle, Sam Whiting, Sunday, March 6, 2005
^ Montclair Branch: History in the Hills, Friends of the Oakland Public Library, Originally appeared in the 03/96 issue of Off the Shelf