Oakland Underfoot

1442 Franklin Street

James Graham (1842-1896) was a Canadian immigrant who came to the East Bay in 1874 and started a foundry in Newark eight years later. The James Graham Manufacturing Company grew to become the largest maker of stoves and ranges on the west coast, and the Wedgewood Stove he created is a favorite among collectors.

His life is detailed in an informative biography of uncertain origin. His obituary in the San Francisco Call noted, “Mr. Graham was a public-spirited citizen and was very kind to the poor, performing unostentatiously many acts of charity.”

It isn’t clear to me how old this fixture is or why it says “San Francisco.” The firm established a San Francisco salesroom the year after Graham died, managed by his son George, so that may be a clue.

Probably on Waldo Avenue, Piedmont

The Syndicate Water Company was part of the Realty Syndicate octopus in 1906, but lasted barely one year. Incorporated in February 1906, it started by acquiring the Richmond Water Company’s assets and then asserted water rights in the territory of the Contra Costa Water Company, which promptly took it to court. The aftereffects of the 18 April earthquake led to the litigants merging as the Peoples Water Company just four months later. The purchase was formalized in 1907.

This cap would seem to be quite a rarity. Perhaps all the hard stock of the preceding companies was dumped in a big bin and used by Peoples wherever it was needed until the supply ran out.

1000 block Clarendon Crescent

The Fess System company, founded in San Francisco, existed from 1907 to 1920. Its name came from Milton A. Fesler (1874-1935), who patented the modern oil burner in 1902. The company reorganized in 1920 as the Petroleum Heat & Power Company, which moved east and went on to become the largest heating oil company in the United States. Fesler lived in Oakland for a time, at 5975 Claremont Avenue.

Learn more about the company from fellow maniac Walter Grutchfield.

Telegraph Avenue near 17th Street

Everyone knows Zurn, the venerable firm famed across the nation for its drainage hardware. This fixture must be a hundred years old.

22 Sheridan Road

Seward T. Johnson (1865-1937) was a native Ohioan. His family-owned firm, founded in 1903 in San Francisco, still does business from headquarters in Fresno, focusing on big industrial burners. This residential oil burner must have been installed in the mid-twentieth century for a house that was lost in the 1991 Hills Fire.

Mountain View Cemetery

The dark glass disks on top of this family vault are the lighting technology, common in the days before electricity, known as vault lights. I’ve documented vault lights before in their usual setting: Oakland sidewalks, here and here and here.

Free-standing family vaults tend to use stained-glass windows for illumination, but there’s a row of old vaults that are dug into the hillside where that’s not practical.