Lake Temescal cottage+dam 1895


Description:
Men, women, and children in front of the cottage above the dam at Lake Temescal, Oakland, Calif. Note the spillway to the right of the trees at center. Handwritten on reverse: "Lake Temescal 1895 / Woods family"". . . Wood was born in 1887. He attended Peralta School from 1895 to 1899. Walter and his seven brothers and sisters lived on a farm next to Lake Temescal, where his stepfather oversaw the filtering plant that provided drinking water for Oakland." [Note from the Peralta Elementary School website: www.peraltaschool.org/history/]

Date of Document:
1895

Document Author:
Unknown

Geographic Location:
Lake Temescal, Oakland, Calif.

Context:
In the 1866, French Canadian-born Anthony Chabot, who earned his reputation as the father of hydraulic mining in the Sierra Nevada during the Gold Rush, founded the Contra Costa Water Company and began construction of an earthen dam in the hills above Oakland. He chose as the site for the dam the confluence of Temescal Creek and one of its main tributaries known today as the Tunnel Branch. Built largely by Chinese laborers, the dam was completed in 1868, creating Lake Temescal (originally named Lake Chabot) and Oakland s first municipal water supply. But even before its completion, Chabot and others understood that the reservoir would be insufficient to meet the fresh water needs of Oakland s growing population. In 1874, Chabot turned his attention to building an even larger reservoir by damming San Leandro Creek. In 1936, Lake Temescal (which straddles the Hayward fault) was among the first three public parks established by the East Bay Regional Park District. Its stone Beach House, built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), was completed in 1940. Erosion resulting from the addition of the third bore to the Caldecott Tunnel in the 1960s and the construction of Highway 24 (the Grove-Shafter Freeway) approach to the Caldecott Tunnel in the early 1970s caused a dramatic increase in sediment in Lake Temescal. In the late 1970s, the reservoir was dredged and other measures were taken to help reduce sedimentation.





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