Alameda County, California Points of Interest

This church, founded under authority of Bishop Kip, first Episcopal Bishop for California, has given uninterrupted service to this community since Jun... [click for more]

Lightships were floating lighthouses anchored in areas where it was too deep, expensive, or impractical to construct a lighthouse.  Lightship WLV... [click for more]

Designed in 1889 by Walter J. Mathews, this solid masonry Romanesque church departed radically from California's traditional Gothic wood frame constru... [click for more]

On June 9, 1797, troops under Sergeant Pedro Amador, accompanied by Father Fermín Lasuén, set out from Santa Clara for the spot that the... [click for more]

The University of California, chartered March 23, 1868, used buildings of the former College of California between Franklin and Harrison and 12th and ... [click for more]

This site was part of the original Don Castro Land Grant. In 1866 pioneer settler Josiah Grover Brickell donated it for 'educational purposes only' an... [click for more]

Site of Saint Mary's College, 'The Old Brick Pile,' 1899-1928. Plaque placed by Saint Mary's College Alumni, April 25, 1959.... [click for more]

These landmarks form the historic core of the first University of California campus, opened in 1873: Founders' Rock, University House, Faculty Club an... [click for more]

This is the site of Alameda County's first courthouse where county government began on June 6, 1853. Officials met in a two-story wooden building erec... [click for more]

The Camino of Rancho San Antonio ran from Mission San Jose to Fruitvale, and later to San Pablo by way of Oakland and El Cerrito. The word camino mean... [click for more]

Site of the last home, built about 1850, of José Joaquín Estudillo, grantee of Rancho San Leandro, and his wife, Juana Martínez d... [click for more]

This building, erected in 1844-46 by Francisco Solano Alviso, was the first adobe house to be built in the Pleasanton Valley. It was originally called... [click for more]

Joaquin Miller, 'Poet of the Sierras,' resided on these acres, which he called 'The Hights,' from 1886 to 1913. In this building, The Abby, he wrote C... [click for more]

The property was built by prominent Oakland pioneer Enoch Pardee, who was a state senator and representative to the Assembly. He was also mayor of Oak... [click for more]

The first brick house built in Alameda County, the Peralta home was constructed in 1860 by W. P. Toler for Ignacio Peralta, early San Leandro Spanish ... [click for more]

Governor Pablo de Sola, last Spanish governor of California, recognized the forty years' service of Don Luís María Peralta by awarding h... [click for more]

With the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 authorizing construction of a railroad and telegraph line, the first concentration of activity was east of Sacra... [click for more]

The Berkeley City Club was organized by women in 1927, to contribute to social, civic, and cultural progress. The building, constructed in 1929, is on... [click for more]

Here, in 1883, James Concannon founded the Concannon Vineyard. The quality it achieved in sacramental and commercial wines helped establish Livermore ... [click for more]

Here Charles A. Wetmore planted his vineyard in 1882. The Cresta Blanca wine he made from its fruit won for California the first International Award, ... [click for more]

This building is closely associated with sporting events significant to the history of the City of Alameda, the San Francisco Bay area and the State o... [click for more]

This winery was founded in 1869 by Leland Stanford -- railroad builder, Governor of California, United States Senator, and founder of Stanford Univers... [click for more]

Robert Livermore, first settler of Livermore Valley, was born in England in 1799. He arrived in Monterey in 1822 and married Josefa Higuera y Fuentes ... [click for more]

When Mills Seminary, forerunner of Hue college, transferred its operations to Oakland from Benicia in 1871, it moved into a long, four-story building ... [click for more]

This is the 'Art Deco,' or 'Moderne' style of movie palace built during the rise of the motion picture industry. The Paramount, which opened on Decemb... [click for more]

One of California's original Spanish colonists, Luís Peralta received the first and largest Mexican land grant. His hacienda was the nucleus of... [click for more]

Piedmont Way was conceived in 1865 by Frederick Law Olmsted, America's foremost landscape architect. As the centerpiece of a gracious residential comm... [click for more]

The naming of the Rainbow Trout species was based on fish taken from the San Leandro Creek drainage. In 1855, Dr. W. P. Gibbons, founder of the Califo... [click for more]

During the 1890s the oyster industry thrived until it became the single most important fishery in the state. Moses Wicks is supposed to have been the ... [click for more]

Until at least 1851, redwood trees on this site were used as landmarks to avoid striking the treacherous submerged Blossom Rock, in San Francisco Bay,... [click for more]

E. H. Dyer, 'father of the American beet sugar industry,' built the factory in 1870 on a corner of his farm. It began to process sugar beets on Novemb... [click for more]

It is said that the Indians who came to this site camped just above the shoreline. The shells they threw aside from their catches of shellfish eventua... [click for more]

Pan American World Airways' fabled China Clipper (Martin M/130 Flying Boat) left Alameda Marina on November 22, 1935. Under the command of Captain Edw... [click for more]

In 1991 the Hornet was designated a National Historic Landmark both for its service in the Pacific in World War II and as the recovery ship for the Ap... [click for more]

“Ukraina” is the site of the farm and burial place of the Ukrainian patriot and exiled orthodox priest Agapius Honcharenko (1832-1916) and... [click for more]

In 1856, José de Jesús Vallejo, brother of General M. G. Vallejo, built a flour mill here, on his Rancho Arroyo de la Alameda. Niles was... [click for more]

Here the first Wente vineyard of 47 acres was established by C. H. Wente in 1883. In 1935 his sons, Ernest and Herman, introduced California's first v... [click for more]