The Fastest Slow Guy You Know: NEW ROADS OPEN ROUTES FOR AUTOISTS - Oakland Tribune Oakland, California

Monday, July 24, 2023

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.

The TRIBUNE-Stephens Salient Six started out from The TRIBUNE building on its route, drove down Harrison street to Grand avenue, followed along Grand avenue to Excelsior boulevard, (Macarthur Boulevard) thence to Park boulevard and following out this avenue until Moraga road was reached.

This section of Moraga Road is still there, it's the frontage road northwest of Highway 13 in Montclair. Hampton road is now called La Salle Avenue.

At Hampton road a turn left took The TRIBUNE party up Hampton road, which is in the Montclair townsite district, to Liggett drive. The latter road leads into what has been described by someone as "The Little Skyline Boulevard.

Passing along this drive to the point where Estates drive makes a blunt gore with Liggett, the pathfinders come to the first of the most striking scenic points of vantage in the drive.

The motorist comes to this point along a gradual ascent and it is with dramatic suddenness that the panorama breaks on the view. Swinging around the bend, the whole East Oakland district and San Francisco Bay as far south as Mount Hamilton is spread before the the beholder. Dimond canyon, through which the travelers have come, lies below, and to the left is the Smith reserve with a group of Eastbay homes nestling among the trees on the slope that rises finally into the Contra Costa hills.

Here's a google earth map with that view. Try holding down shift and dragging left and right, below the landmark.

Proceeding from here, the motorist goes a short distance up Estates drive, taking the first turn to the left, or the entrance of Pershing drive. Pershing drive contains two more of the view points. The first of these is a place in the drive where it comes out on a point of land before turning partly back on itself. Here a magnificent marine view is provided. In a prominent place in the vista is the romantic Golden Gate. Raising the eyes again, the view extends down the peninsula to where the environs of Palo Alto can be seen.

Further along Pershing drive a point is reached with the same view, but with plenty of room to park the car along the side of the road and enjoy the panorama.

The Little Skyline now follows along Pershing drive past the first entering street on the left, at present a blind street, to the second entering street on the right, or rather where Pershing comes back into Estates drive. Keeping to the left along Estates drive again across the intersection of North Hampton drive (La Salle Avenue} the route continues along Estates drive past the Montclair reservoir of the Eastbay Water Company.

The reservoir is a scenic point in itself, as it has been carefully landscaped by the water company, and gives nothing less than a bright blue and emerald lake below the Little Skyline tucked in among the trees and reflecting them and the sky.

Keeping on Estates drive, the autoist presently comes to a fifth point of scenic vantage on top of a wide ridge, whence can be seen in a complete circle the whole Eastbay country, including a marine view of the San Pablo Bay and the whole country down around the Santa Clara Valley, the Contra Costa hills, where Joaquin Miller's "Hights" hides in the poet's favorite spot among the trees and where the famous Skyline boulevard sweeps around the rim of the world and the college city of Berkeley with its white towering campanile.

The last sweep of the Little Skyline now follows along Estates to its junction with Pacific avenue in Piedmont past the beautiful Piedmont reservoir, which is said to be one of the most lovely bodies of artificial source in the country. Around it are clustered trees of various kinds, acacias, a blaze of gold in the spring. and the rare dwarf Japanese eucalyptus with their own elfish charm.

On entering Piedmont at the end of the Little Skyline after a leisurely, drive, a glance at the watch shows that only a half-hour has gone by since the traveler started. Thus it is found that an ideal "afternoon call drive" is offered to owners of cars who wish to entertain visitors out of doors.

I've seen Little Skyline Road mentioned before, and I've been curious about it. As you'll see from the georeferenced map that was part of this article, naming of the roads that make up "Little Skyline" changed, between 1921 and 2023. As best I can tell, traveling southwest as the author does, Little Skyline is Estates, Pershing, Estates, Harbord, Blair, Scenic, Pacific, Mountain, Highland. I've drawn a route that I believe he describes in red, on the modern map. I had to push and pull the hand-drawn map of Little Skyline to match modern reality. I've driven the route. It's beautiful, but in some spots steep and narrow. It wasn't built for cars to park along its curbs, and in some places it is only wide enough for two TRIBUNE-Stephens Salient Sixes to fit side-by-side. It would make a nice bike ride, except for the steepness of gradient.

map of the driving route from the article georeferenced onto a modern OpenStreetMap layer, and a representation of the route drawn in red on the modern map, available in 300dpi here

Here is the entire map from the article. Some interesting things to note; the original alignment of Tunnel Road was different, before Highway 24 was built and Ashby was aligned to meet it. A motorist (or cyclist) would have traveled Chabot > Uplands > Tunnel. Also note, the "Old Tunnel" in Old Tunnel Road was still open, not far from the modern, first bore of the Caldecott tunnel, but hundreds of feet higher in elevation, exiting onto what is still called Old Tunnel Road (now a dead-end) in Contra Costa county. Also present in this version is a Thorn Hill Road that continues all the way to the ridgeline. This was the original "Moraga Road," which passed over into Moraga, down through Huckleberry Botanical Preserve and Pinehurst road to Canyon road and Moraga. There's just the Sacramento Northern rail road in the center, where Highway 13 is now, but note "MONTCLAIR TOWNSITE" at the base of "Skyline Boulevard," now Snake Road. The version of Skyline Boulevard we know, which reaches Joaquin Miller Road wasn't built for a few more years.