Temescal Park 1868 2

Description:
Real estate advertisement map of the Temescal Park subdivision in Temescal, Oakland, Calif., at the time an unincorporated area of Alameda County just north of the city of Oakland. Temescal Park was the first subdivision created by local landowner, Solomon E. Alden, who owned about 600 acres in Temescal. The area shown in the map is bounded by Linden's Lane (45th Street) on the south, Vernon Avenue (51st Street) on the north, Telegraph Avenue on the west, and slightly east of Cherry Street (Webster Street) on the east. Temescal Creek is shown in the upper left.

Date of Document:
1868 ("Copied from the map filed in the Recorder's Office of Alameda County August 12th 1868 at 10 minutes past 8 o'c A.M.")

Document Author:
Towne & Bacon / Olney & Co.

Geographic Location:
Clarke Street and 49th Street, Oakland, Calif.

Context:
Beginning in the 1850s, Solomon E. Alden purchased what eventually amounted to 600 acres in Temescal. In 1868, he platted his first residential subdivision, Temescal Park, just east of the Telegraph road (today's Telegraph Avenue), between preset-day 49th Street and 51st Street, Oakland Calif. The Alden Reading Room, and then the Alden Branch Library (today s Temescal Branch Library), and the Alden Hotel were named after him. His daughter, Elsie, and her husband, John Edgar McElrath (1844-1907), split apart the original Alden mansion, creating three separate residences. In 1914, one of the residences was sold to the newly formed Baby Hospital Association, which in 1930 became Children s Hospital Oakland. Children s Hospital Oakland affiliated with UCSF in 2014 to become UCSF Benioff Children s Hospital Oakland.