Oakland Underfoot

581 18th Street

The Ingram Hardware Company formed in 1902 to take over the long-established business of E. R. Tutt, who sold it to concentrate on large plumbing contracts in San Francisco. The firm’s founders were William Ingram, William McCaslin and John S. Gallagher and the store was at 511-513 13th Street, where the City Center development is today. They sold lots of stoves, furnaces, household wares, and plumbing, gas and electrical supplies.

After failing to win a contract for part of the construction of the new City Hall, the firm went bankrupt in 1912.

William Ingram, Jr. (1852-1934) had a strange and scandalous story. He was doing business successfully in Sacramento as part of the firm Schaw, Ingram, Batcher & Company when in 1901 he “disappeared one day, and for nearly a year his whereabouts baffled the efforts of shrewd detectives. Voluntarily he came back, but never told his experiences. It was learned, however, that Mr. Ingram had followed the vocation of a common farm laborer and that his contact with nature in the fields had wrought in his mind a calm which restored him completely and which has reinstated him as a useful member of society.”

He spent the time at farms in Hollister, recovering from overwork and intense frustration with his partners’ failure to buy him out. His dream was to run a stock ranch! Nevertheless, he ended up in Oakland running a hardware business. The 1920 census shows that he had divorced and gotten his farm, up by Laytonville. In his last days he returned to Oakland, where he died and was buried at Mountain View Cemetery.

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

Rosa Parks Elementary, Allston Way, Berkeley

Everyone knows Zurn, the venerable firm famed across the nation for its drainage hardware.