A century ago, the Berkeley Daily Gazette ran a story headlined \u201cSirens Shriek Start of City Safety Drive\u201d on July 8, 1926. Berkeley had organized a big effort \u201cto bring home to every motorist and pedestrian that the campaign to save local lives is underway.\u201d<\/p>\n
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A century ago, this illustration from the July 10, 1926, Berkeley Daily Gazette showed a typical \u201cMediterranean-style\u201d home, a style then popular in new Berkeley housing. (photo courtesy of the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum)\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the mid-1920s, private automobiles had only been around in large numbers for less than a decade, and cities, including Berkeley, were still working out how to accommodate them and address traffic safety. As part of the city\u2019s public campaign, July 9 was designated \u201cBoulevard Stop Day,\u201d referring to now-common red stop signs that were new and unfamiliar in the 1920s.<\/p>\n
There was also a parade led by Berkeley\u2019s mayor and a U.S. Navy band that included \u201cfloats, trucks, automobiles and marchers on foot.\u201d The contingents included wrecked cars being towed, \u201cfollowed by ambulances and a morgue wagon,\u201d showing the consequences of traffic accidents.<\/p>\n
While Berkeley was trying to manage the increase in motor vehicle traffic in 1926, it was also avidly promoting measures that would bring more vehicles to town. One was the effort of East Bay manufacturers to turn certain streets in Oakland, Emeryville, and Berkeley into a thoroughfare to carry heavy truck traffic serving factories near San Francisco Bay.<\/p>\n
Other proposals were to further develop Wildcat Canyon Road and the \u201cFish Canyon\u201d road to make driving into Berkeley easier for people living beyond the hills. All of these efforts would ultimately bring more motor vehicles onto Berkeley streets, where, hopefully, their drivers would respect stop signs.<\/p>\n
New homes: A July 10, 1926, article reported that \u201clarger and more expensive homes\u201d were being built in Berkeley. A \u201cMediterranean-style\u201d house in the 1923 fire area was used as an example of a typical new architectural type \u201cideal for Berkeley\u201d because of its climate.<\/p>\n
Richmond mayor: Nearby Richmond had its first woman mayor in 1926, Mrs. Mattie Chandler, and the Gazette ran a July 8 interview with her. She had been previously elected to Richmond\u2019s City Council for a six-year term and, having recently been appointed mayor, told the interviewer, \u201cmy hopes are centered on bringing new industries, factories and people to Richmond.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reporter then diverted the article to describing her appearance (\u201cwears her hair bobbed, her skirts short, yet long enough to be becoming to her middle years\u201d), her views on smoking (she didn\u2019t smoke but had no problem with other women smoking) and relations between young people (she was in favor of mothers \u201cremain(ing) companions to their daughters\u201d and against \u201cpetting\u201d in parked cars.)<\/p>\n
Young explorer: On July 9, 1926, Owen Sigman Hayes, 13, of Pasadena, was brought to the Berkeley police station by a truck driver whom the boy had asked to give him a ride to Sacramento. Hayes had apparently started out, with a dollar given him by his mother for groceries, to travel around the world. He had arrived in the Bay Area by hitchhiking over three days.<\/p>\n
Early plantings: A UC researcher, Professor G.W. Hendry, of the university\u2019s College of Agriculture, reported in the July 9, 1926, Gazette about research on the arrival of European plants on the West Coast.<\/p>\n
He had explored ruined missions in Baja California to locate organic items (including animal bones, straw and other plant material) that had been used as binders in adobe bricks made before 1700. He brought back \u201cseveral sacks of seeds, straw and refuse found in the bricks\u201d to analyze them and identify the plant species.<\/p>\n
Eclipse: At 3:18 p.m. July 9, 1926, a partial eclipse was visible over Berkeley, with the moon obscuring about a third of the sun.<\/p>\n
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column\u2019s copyright.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A century ago, the Berkeley Daily Gazette ran a story headlined \u201cSirens Shriek Start of City Safety Drive\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-389362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}