Lake Temescal
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Lake Temescal is a small
reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
in the Oakland hills, in northeastern
Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...
. It is the centerpiece of Temescal Regional Recreational Area, also known as Temescal Regional Park (and originally, Lake Temescal Regional Park). It is a part of the East Bay Regional Park District.


History

The lake received its name from the stream which is its source, Temescal Creek, which was dammed in 1868 to create a reservoir to provide drinking water for the greater
East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Wi ...
area, pumped by the Contra Costa Water Company, owned by Anthony Chabot. Prior to being dammed, Lake Temescal was a sag pond, a depression caused by the Hayward Fault. The bulk of the manual labor of removing soil and digging to bedrock was provided by Chinese immigrants, who probably immigrated to build the railroads.Chinese Workers and the East Bay's Early Water Systems
/ref> Herds of wild mustangs were used to compact the tons of dirt that were brought to create the dam. The dam is long and wide and rises above the creek. The shores of the lake were a popular camping spot with bohemian artists and writers in the late 1800s. The British painter J.H.E. Partington lived here in a tent with his family when they arrived in Oakland in 1889. At a campout here in the summer of 1892, Partington's son Richard Partington and the future poet and playwright George Sterling were introduced by Carleton Bierce to Carleton's uncle Ambrose Bierce, who became Sterling's mentor, changing his life. Pacific Gas and Electric constructed its Claremont substation directly above Lake Temescal starting in October of 1921. It opened on October 23, 1922 and remains in service to this day. During the first half of the 20th century, the tracks of the Sacramento Northern Railroad ran along the eastern side of the lake. Until the mid 1930s, Lake Temescal extended northeastward into Temescal Canyon. This arm of the lake was traversed by a trestle for the Sacramento Northern railway until the inlet was filled in as part of the Broadway Tunnel ( Caldecott Tunnel) project. As part of the project, Landvale Road was extended as a connecting viaduct with Mountain Boulevard and the Montclair District to the south. This required the construction of a large concrete retaining wall along the east side of Lake Temescal to support the fill. The railroad trestle was removed and the Sacramento Northern tracks re-laid just below it. Landvale Avenue ran above the wall to an intersection with the new extension of Broadway leading to the tunnel. The retaining wall survives, but the railroad was gone by 1957. Landvale was replaced by the Warren Freeway and Broadway by the Grove-Shafter Freeway in the late 1960s. In 1936, Lake Temescal opened to the public as one of the first three parks established by the East Bay Regional Park District. Its early amenities included a beach-like shore for swimming, a boathouse built by the WPA, a well established trail around the lake, and numerous picnic benches.


Present-day function

The lake currently supports an artificial recreational beach and is stocked periodically with
rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...
, largemouth bass, redear sunfish,
bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or, in Texas, "copper nose", is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands ea ...
, and
catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order (biology), order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Catfish are common name, named for their prominent barbel (anatomy), barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, though not ...
. The park is open to all visitors from 5 am to 10 pm, and receives around 200,000 visitors a year. The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has developed a safe eating advisory for Lake Temescal based on levels of mercury or PCBs found in fish caught from this water body. The lake is constantly becoming shallower due to sediment runoff and must be periodically dredged. Today it is approximately at its deepest point; previously it was deep. Since the dam crosses the Hayward Fault, there is a possibility of dam failure in the event of an earthquake, which would cause serious flooding in parts of Oakland, Berkeley, and Emeryville. However, due to the additional fill placed between the dam and Highway 24, any hydraulic failure is now unlikely. During the 1991 Oakland firestorm, water-equipped helicopters refilled at Lake Temescal, largely draining it. The beach house is available for event rentals, such as weddings. The park's beach and swim area have periodically closed on and off due to an outbreaks of toxic blue-green algae that is hazardous to humans and pets.


See also

* List of lakes in the San Francisco Bay Area * Index: East Bay Regional Park District


Notes


External links


EB Parks Information about Lake Temescal
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Temescal Reservoirs in Alameda County, California Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Reservoirs in California Reservoirs in Northern California 1868 establishments in California