A century ago, the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported on Oct. 26, 1926, that a “spectacular aerial sham battle” was planned that year on Nov. 1 for the skies over Berkeley, where “a battery of anti-aircraft guns, grouped at the Civic Center, will demonstrate how an attack by airplanes would be repulsed.”

Fifteen anti-aircraft guns would be stationed in front of City Hall to fire away (presumably shooting blanks) at six attack aircraft, “the latest type of aerial fighting machines”, flying over the city’s downtown. The whole spectacle was to be staged as part of Berkeley’s efforts to improve traffic safety. What was the result of this battle? We’ll have to wait for next week’s column to find out.

State election: As the November 1926, general election approached, Berkeleyans were lining up in favor of Amendment 10 on the state ballot, a bond that would provide $8.5 million for University of California construction.

Amendment 10 came about, in part, because of the new “Southern Branch” of the university that would later be called the Unitversity of California, Los Angeles. The original UCLA campus had belonged to a state teacher’s college, but the institution was now prepared to develop the city’s current Westwood district site. The $8.5 million would be divided between Northern and Southern California.

It would finance the first permanent buildings at UCLA, as well as replacement buildings on UC Berkeley’s campus. The Berkeley funding would be focused on replacing wooden life sciences and engineering buildings with new, fire-safe masonry structures containing modern laboratories.

On Oct. 26, 1926, Berkeley’s real estate board voted to support the state bond, in part because “should any of these (old) buildings catch fire, a serious conflagration faced the city.” This was, in my view, a conveniently constructed argument. The Berkeley campus had wood buildings that burned before 1926, including the Agriculture Building and old Hearst Hall. Neither of those fires set the city alight.

The next day, a group of “eight old graduates of the institution, including the oldest living alumnus” met at UC Berkeley to support the bond. Lowell Hardy, of the Class of 1866, attended; he had graduated from the College of California, UC’s private predecessor institution.

Civic Center: The city’s real estate board also endorsed a proposal for Berkeley to purchase — through a special, three year tax — the block of land where Civic Center park is today. “A civic center is a dire need in Berkeley,” was the consensus of opinion expressed. Real estate agents said conventions shied clear of the city because of its lack of an auditorium for meetings.

‘We could bring the annual convention of the California Real Estate Association to Berkeley if we only had a place in which to hold meetings and entertain,” board Secretary Eugene E. Stephenson declared.

In a separate article the same day, “Councilman Frank A. Berg pointed out that this is the only available property left for a civic center and that this is the last chance for securing it.

“J.J. Bahill, past president of the Berkeley Manufacturer’s Association, said that such an open square with appropriate public buildings around it, would constitute a center for the expression of public consciousness, which has until recently been rather dormant in Berkeley … .”

Railroad safety: Also on Oct. 27, 1926, the Gazette reported a plan to have a “city-wide ‘flasher’ signal system at all railroad crossings to supplant and augment the wig-wig system now in in use.”

Berkeley had scores of places where railroad tracks crossed city streets in that era because the Santa Fe Railroad ran diagonally across the city. The ‘flashers’ would feature a yellow electric light to warn cross traffic.

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