Nate is an East Bay community papers editor for the East Bay Times and Bay Area News Group.
Berkeley’s old Kellogg School on Allston Way appears in this illustration in one of William Warren Ferrier’s early-20th century books on the city’s history. Berkeley’s school district decided to sell the building in 1926.
A century ago, the Berkeley school board hired a professor from Stanford in January 1926 to “conduct a through investigation of the physical needs of the public school system” in town, the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported that month.Berkeley, a Look Back: UC ‘Wonder Teams’ football coach Smith dies at 42A Berkeley public school era was coming to an end that same month when the school board voted to sell Berkeley’s original school building, a two-story wooden structure located on Allston Way between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street. The school had been built in 1879, financed with a loan from five Berkeley businessmen. It was called the Kellogg School, honoring Martin Kellogg, an early University of California president and Berkeley school board member. The property use was soon expanded to include Berkeley High School, which eventually relocated to its current site two blocks west on Allston. The old school site continued in district ownership, and the building served several uses, including a home for the California School of Arts & Crafts. However, the school district was finally willing to let the property go in 1926.On Jan. 25, 1926, the state Railroad Commission unanimously denied an application from the Golden Gate Ferry Co. to establish a car ferry between the Berkeley waterfront and San Francisco. The commissioners said that existing transit companies already provided adequate service between the two bayside cities. The ferry company asked for another hearing, with the support of Berkeley “civic organizations and leaders.”The location of a new spur track to temporarily park railroad mail and baggage cars using Shattuck Avenue was being hotly debated a century ago in Berkeley. Express cars had previously been parked by the Southern Pacific railroad north of its station at Center Street and Shattuck. Since the northern block of the station site had been sold for development that was beginning in 1926, the railroad was planning to relocate its spur line on Shattuck south of Center. Downtown merchants objected to having the railcars parked in the heart of the business district, so the railroad next proposed moving the new spur line to Shattuck and Ward Street, several blocks south. That area’s residents objected, though, pointing out that the freight yards at Ward and Shattuck could be relocated and that the neighborhood didn’t want trains parked in their area any more than downtown merchants did.Not long before midnight on Jan. 18, 1926, Berkeley Fire Chief G. Sidney Rose “was painfully injured when a streetcar plugged into his automobile directly in front of his house at Bancroft Way and Grove Street,” the Gazette reported the next day. The chief was on his way to the site of a chimney fire on McGee Street, and his Fire Department driver had parked partially on the streetcar track while picking him up from his home on that corner. The streetcar ran into the chief’s vehicle “and carried it several feet. Rose was dragged with it. He sustained injuries to his right knee.” “This is the second time city owned motor vehicles have been rammed by streetcars operated by motormen who’re alleged to have paid no attention to sirens and have failed to yield the right-of-way,” the Gazette further reported. “Witnesses said the streetcar narrowly missed ploughing into the hook-and-ladder truck . “Two weeks ago a streetcar crashed into the rear of the new police ambulance which was going to the scene of an automobile accident.” The city asked the Key System to pay for the ambulance damage and reprimand the motorman whose train hit Rose.After secret investigation, Oakley cuts off councilman’s City Hall accessMan attacked in San Francisco dies 6 days later Bay Area attorney honored for landmark verdict, record $8.25 million jury award in ‘Parking while Black’ civil rights caseFormer Sonoma County winemaker saves historic East Bay vineyard from destructionTwo suspects arrested in late-night shooting near East Bay elementary school
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