Knave - Oakland Tribune - Sunday, February 19, 1961

 

I'm leaving out the first few paragraphs, which deal with current politics, and moving right to the histories and stories. Click the clipping below if you want to read what you missed, here.

Whaling Ships

"The old town has changed," commented Capt. W. T. ("Bill") Murnan this week on his arrival in Oakland to show his "Spain and Portugal" travelogue at the Oakland Auditorium Theater next Friday night, Feb. 24. What Captain Murnan was thinking about was the Oakland of 1911, the year he arrived here as a 15-year-old youth and stowed away on the F. S. Redfield, one of the old whaling ships of the Pacific Steam Whaling Co. The whaling ships in those days anchored well down stream in the Estuary from the Alaska Packers fleet, and Murnan recalls he had been aboard the Redfield pleading for a berth and a chance to sail. "They told me I was too young... go home and tell my mother she wanted me... or something like that," he recounts. While looking wistfully at the ship from ashore he was given more advice by some "old salts" who chanced to be loafing nearby. That night Murnan returned and under the cover of darkness crawled, hand over hand, up the bow line and hid out under the forecastle head on the forward deck. The skipper didn't find him until next day when the ship was out beyond The Heads and it was too late to do anything about it. The skipper, he recalls, was Capt. James McKenna of Berkeley. Murnan thrilled to whaling and trading in Alaska and Siberia. He had never before been at sea, but he was an adventuresome boy. He ran away from his Chicago home in 1909 and made his way to the Alaska-Yukon Exposition at Seattle. Two years later he headed for California and landed in Oakland. The new adventure was to be more exciting than he had bargained for. The Redfield was driven on the point during a storm at Cape Prince of Wales and was pound to pieces. But not before all aboard were rescued by the great old Cutter Bear of Oakland. One of his fondest recollections of his adventure aboard the Redfield was the meeting aboard ship of an equally adventurous young man from Oakland named Bob Dalziel. [Maybe? - MF] Bob came back to Oakland aboard the Bear after the shipwreck, but Murnan returned via Nome and Seattle aboard the coal ship Eureka of Buffalo. "I never saw Bob again," he says.

NEW ROADS OPEN ROUTES FOR AUTOISTS - Oakland Tribune Oakland, California · Sunday, November 20, 1921

The early 20th century meant the development of Oakland for cars and for home building. The bicycle was mostly forgotten, except as a toy or a piece of sports equipment, and neighborhoods were laid out and developed privately, by for-profit corporations rather than a civic body meant to benefit the citizens of Oakland. Public transit was deprecated, except as a vehicle for real estate sales. Auto Row, on Broadway, and the car plants were churning out cars, and debt to the people of Oakland, and the newspaper was a marketing organ for these industries. Mayor Davie was pro-growth, pro-development. Parks were ignored, not built, in favor of private development. Scenic roads like Skyline Boulevard served to open up development, and sell cars. This is all described really well in Mitchell Schwarzer's book Hella Town, which I recommend. I like old maps, knowing how roads came to be, and I've always been curious about the term "Little Skyline," which shows up in articles from this time. This article explains the route, and tells the story...

NEW ROADS OPEN ROUTES TO AUTOISTS

The season of the year having come when short afternoon trips are a popular motoring treas, The TRIBUNE Touring Bureau suggests one within the city limits of Oakland. Berkeley and Piedmont. The one logged by a TRIBUNE-Stephens Salient Six touring car from Brasch & McCorkle's salesroom centers principally in Piedmont and through the Montclair section. In the latter district many new roads have been opened within the past two months about which little is known and they tap new avenues into Piedmont and skirt ridges which give birdseye views of Oakland and the San Francisco Bay that are as beautiful as any obtained from higher summits.