Codornices Creek
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Codornices Creek is one of the principal creeks which runs out of the Berkeley Hills in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In its upper stretch, it passes entirely within the city limits of Berkeley, and marks the city limit with the adjacent city of Albany in its lower section. It enters San Francisco Bay in a slough adjacent to Albany Hill.
The name derives from the Spanish plural form of "codorniz", meaning "quail". California valley quail were once common in the area. The name was given by one of the Peraltas, owners of the vast Rancho San Antonio. One of the Peralta brothers was allotted a portion of the larger ranch for his own, making his home near the banks of Codornices Creek. The first of his dwellings was an adobe which was destroyed in a large earthquake in 1868. He replaced it with a wooden structure which was razed in the 1930s for an apartment building. Both were located on the high banks of Codornices Creek across from the site of what today is St. Mary's College High School (Roman Catholic) near the Westbrae district of Berkeley.
In the 19th century, a quarry was opened at the head of Codornices Creek in the La Loma district. It was replaced by a city park in the late 1960s. At the confluence of two forks, just above today's Euclid Avenue, a reservoir was created by one of Berkeley's earliest American residents, Napoleon Byrne. The reservoir, since enlarged and modernized, still exists. Adjacent to it, a city park was established in 1915, Codornices Park. Across Euclid from this park, the WPA constructed the Berkeley Rose Garden during the 1930's. Both continue to this day. A wooden streetcar and road trestle once spanned Codornices Creek here along Euclid Avenue which was later filled during the work associated with the establishment of the rose garden.
At the foot of the hills, Codornices Creek flows through another city park, Live Oak Park, which lies a block north of Rose Street on Shattuck Avenue. West of here, the creek enters a culvert. This culvert was installed to carry the creek under the extensive fill which was emplaced by the Southern Pacific when it extended the Berkeley Branch steam line for its new East Bay Electric Lines. Much of the material used for the fill came from the excavation of the nearby Northbrae Tunnel (constructed 1910 by the Southern Pacific). A steel bridge spanned a gap in the fill over Eunice Street. The overcrossing was removed when the Key System ceased running its F-train here in 1958, and more fill was added to bring the uphill portion of Eunice up to the level of Henry Street. The lower portion of Eunice now deadends at a retaining wall below Henry.
Codornices Creek flows in and out of culverts in various places below Live Oak Park, notably where Martin Luther King Jr. Way becomes The Alameda, and again, through the backyards of several residences north of Hopkins. It also runs open further west in the Westbrae area near Santa Fe Avenue, and again, adjacent to the University Village located in Albany. It runs into a culvert at the frontage road east of I-80, and exits on the other side into a restored slough which was its original mouth into San Francisco Bay.
