Exactly a century after its imminent construction was announced in 1926, the deteriorated Berkeley Pier sits closed today, awaiting renovation funding. Originally built for a car ferry, the pier later became a popular fishing and sightseeing spot. (Steven Finacom for Bay Area News Group)

“Actual work on the $800,000 Golden Gate Ferry pier at the foot of University Avenue will be started at once,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported a century ago on Aug. 4, 1926.

Ferry officials and Berkeley’s city manager met that day “regarding the positioning of a sewer at the foot of University Avenue, preliminary to starting a fill over which the land end of the three-mile pier will rest. … Contracts for the pier are to be awarded in the near-future so that work can be well underway by the middle of September.”

The pier would parallel Berkeley’s municipal pier for the first 1,700 feet and then “take a more southernly (sic) course” pointed toward San Francisco. The pier was meant to be 29 feet wide on its first section to “allow for three lanes of traffic … the roadway will be asphalt as will also be the floor of the municipal dock.”

Ferry representatives “said that the company intends to operate four ferry boats from the start and that the headquarters for the Berkeley-San Francisco line will be on the new Berkeley pier. This will mean that the company will probably purchase much of its supplies in Berkeley and the boats when not in use will be tied up on this side of the bay. There will have to be done considerable more dredging than was first planned.”

The initial fill at the base of University Avenue “will be stated as soon as material for such a fill can be obtained, a matter of a few days according to the ferry men.”

Building permits: “Berkeley was one of the few cities in America where the total number of permits for the fiscal year of 1925-26 exceeded the banner building year of 1924-26” the Gazette reported on Aug. 2, 1926.

“A total of 11,389 permits were issued … fees totaling $33,240.55 were collected, or within $1,300 of the building department’s (income) the year before. The total estimated cost of building was $9,200,238.”

The city’s Building Department also noted in its annual report that “during the past year this office enacted the renumbering of houses in Cragmont, Thousand Oaks and the ‘Burned Area’ and also the renumbering or adjustment of numbers in various parts of the city.”

Students visit: A century ago 55 students from Japan and their instructors were in Berkeley.

“They are to spend this evening in homes in the city, and tomorrow morning they will meet at Stiles Hall and will take a hike to Grizzly Peak,” the Gazette reported Aug. 2. They were the luncheon guests of the local Kiwanis Club at Ennors (restaurant), “and at 2 o’clock the local Boy Scouts (will escort them) through the University of California campus.”

“The party is being conducted by K. Nakamura, a member of the Japanese Diet, and the students are to spend 55 days visiting California and Washington.”

Election campaign: A local club promoting Gov. Friend Richardson’s re-election opened a Berkeley office at 2146 Shattuck on Aug. 4, 1926.

“Berkeley is the home city of Governor Richardson,” the Gazette editorialized. “It is here that he is known best as editor of the Gazette, which position he occupied for many years before going to Sacramento. … Among his many friends and great number of acquaintances in this city, Governor Richardson is known as a plain, frank, man who cannot be stampeded.”

Officer shot: Berkeley police Officer Gene Woods “was shot and seriously wounded” on the morning of Aug. 5, 1926, when he came across a burglar trying to “force an entrance” into a business on Shattuck Avenue. There was a struggle, and the burglar shot Woods in the right arm and escaped.

Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.