Oakland Underfoot

54th Street preserves some very old streetscape to go with its old houses. Both of these water-main lids are on the same block.

The Contra Costa Water Company was Anthony Chabot’s baby, founded in 1866. That was the company that built the two dams at Lake Temescal and Lake Chabot Reservoir. It got involved in Oakland’s nasty “water war” during the 1890s. In short, Chabot’s company turned down William Dingee’s request to extend water service to his properties in Montclair and Piedmont, and in 1893 Dingee formed the Oakland Water Company in response, tapping wells in upper Shepherd Canyon.

The competition grew heated, then ugly. Mutual disparagement escalated to mutual accusations of sabotage. Customers of both companies suffered poor service.

In 1898 the two firms were obliged to merge, with Dingee in charge under his former rival’s name. Less than a decade later, the Peoples Water Company devoured the Contra Costa Water Company. I think this lid used hardware from both Peoples and Oakland water companies, perhaps a fresh cap in an old ring or just mixed inventory in the Peoples warehouse.

Peoples Water Company collapsed within a decade, too, with the short-lived East Bay Water Company springing from its wreckage. Only after the East Bay Municipal Utility District was formed did Oakland get good, reliable water service. Remember the water wars whenever someone tells you private enterprise can do everything better and cheaper.

You don’t often see a brass sidewalk plate placed by a plumbing firm, but the block of Clay Street between 14th and 15th Street was a prestigious address: the new H. C. Capwell store, built between 1910 and 1912 right behind the site of the new City Hall. There are more of these on the 14th Street side.

William S. Snook was a prominent Oaklander in his time, as recorded in Oakwiki. The 1911 directory lists his eldest son Frederick as a plumber, so we can assume that Frederick was the “Son” of the firm. The elder Snook died that same year.

There may be older Snook plates extant, which would read “W. S. Snook & Sons.”

Older parts of Oakland feature gutter strips of brick and cobblestone.

Cobblestones are rough blocks of solid stone that essentially never wear out. The most important thing in keeping cobblestone paving sound is the mortar. You don’t want loose cobblestones knocking around in the street.

The material itself is tough, nondescript basalt or argillite or gneiss. Some of it could have been quarried locally, but I doubt it.

Then there’s good old brick.

It’s easier to work with, but it doesn’t wear as well. I think that paving brick is a different grade of material than your wall-building brick.

People out there know a lot more about this stuff than me — people like Dan Mosier, creator of the California Bricks site.

The East Bay Water Company was a private water provider formed in 1916 from the wreckage of the Peoples Water Company, but it struggled under the high costs for materials during World War I and insufficient water for its customers. Oakland and the East Bay were experiencing a boom at the time, and the company couldn’t expand fast enough despite having some 80 square miles of watershed land in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. It owned Lake Chabot and other reservoirs in Richmond, too. It pumped water from a wellfield in Alvarado. It built the San Pablo Dam in 1919. It ran a long series of informational ads in all the East Bay newspapers in 1920. It took over a competitor, the faltering Union Water Company, in 1921 for $1.1 million. It built the Upper San Leandro Dam in 1926 and the Lafayette Dam in 1928.

Nevertheless, in 1921 fed-up East Bay leaders pushed for the state to enact a law allowing a new type of special government agency — public utilities of regional size. The Municipal Utility District Act having passed, East Bay MUD was established by an overwhelming vote in 1923, and the new utility bought out East Bay Water in 1928 with $26 million in bond money.

That was 12 tumultuous years for this ambitious company. East Bay Water’s excess watershed lands were the core of the East Bay Regional Parks District formed in 1934, also under the state municipal utility district law.

You’ll see plenty of evidence on the street of the East Bay Municipal Utility District. Their 8-inch mains are marked with these ubiquitous caps.

Much rarer are the caps for EBMUD’s predecessor, Peoples Water Company. It served much of Oakland and points north for the first time, an important ally for developers, but went bankrupt more than a century ago.

That one’s from Piedmont, and this one’s from Oakland at the intersection of Fleet Road and Greenwood Avenue.

Here’s another artifact I found up in the hills.

In 2013 it was the subject of a post on my other blog, Oakland Geology.