Solomon E Alden c1850 detail

Description:
Detail of an oil painting of Solomon Ellsworth Alden.

Date of Document:
circa 1850

Document Author:
Unknown

Geographic Location:
52nd Street and Dover 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.