Oakland Point, or Gibbons' Point, was a small promontory formerly on the eastern shore of

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water f ...

West Oakland West Oakland is a neighborhood situated in the northwestern corner of Oakland, California, United States, situated west of Downtown Oakland, south of Emeryville, and north of Alameda. The neighborhood is located along the waterfront at the P ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. It was located in the vicinity of what is now the

Port of Oakland The Port of Oakland is a major container ship facility located in Oakland, California, in the San Francisco Bay. It was the first major port on the Pacific Coast of the United States to build terminals for container ships. As of 2011 it was the f ...

shipping terminal.

History

Oakland Point was originally named Gibbons' Point, for an early American settler, Rodman Gibbons, who constructed a small wharf there. The Central Pacific Railroad bought the wharf and adjacent properties in 1868, and subsequently constructed the

Oakland Long Wharf The Oakland Long Wharf was an 11,000-foot railroad wharf and ferry pier along the east shore of San Francisco Bay located at the foot of Seventh Street in West Oakland. The Oakland Long Wharf was built, beginning 1868, by the Central Pacific Railr ...

, a massive terminus for the

Transcontinental Railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

.''Crofutt's New Overland Tourist''
by George A. Crofutt, p 199 (1880), Google Book Search. In the 1880s, the Long Wharf was purchased and re-engineered by the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

as the Oakland Mole, obliterating Oakland Point. In addition to the wharf, the Central Pacific built a huge rail yard in the area, which later became one of the main rail yards of the Southern Pacific. Today, the same rail yard is operated by the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

Neighborhood

The neighborhood near Oakland Point was initially known by the same name, though its identity soon merged with the rest of

, the name it was known by from the early 20th century onward. It was a thriving socially and ethnically mixed neighborhood from the late 19th century through the 1930s. Starting about the time of World War II and up to the present, the area became predominantly African American. African American men who worked as porters on the railroad had long lived in the area together with other ethnic groups, most of whom held other jobs with the railroad. During World War II, thousands of African Americans move into the Bay Area from the southern U.S. to work in the many local war industries, and many of them moved into the established community of African American railroad workers in West Oakland. ;Prescott-Oakland Point The name "Oakland Point" has been recently revived as part of an effort to re-develop West Oakland. It has been adopted by a community group called the ''Prescott-Oakland Point Neighborhood Association''. Part of the redevelopment of the area includes, appropriately, partial restoration of the historic

16th Street Station 16th Street station (Oakland Central) is a former Southern Pacific Railroad station in the Prescott neighborhood of Oakland, California, United States. The Beaux-Arts building was designed by architect Jarvis Hunt, a preeminent railroad stati ...

. The station will however, not be put to any railroad use, but will become the centerpiece of a housing development known as ''Central Station''.

External links

References

Geography of Oakland, California Headlands of California Landforms of Alameda County, California Neighborhoods in Oakland, California {{AlamedaCountyCA-geo-stub

History

Neighborhood

See also

External links

References