Lake Temescal is a small

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

in the Oakland hills, in northeastern

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. It is the centerpiece of

Temescal Regional Recreation Area Temescal Regional Recreation Area (TRRA), formerly Lake Temescal Regional Park, is a regional park in the Berkeley Hills, in northeastern Oakland, California, Oakland, California. The TRRA encompasses , abutting SR 24, SR13, and the interchange co ...

, also known as Temescal Regional Park (and originally, Lake Temescal Regional Park). It is a part of the

East Bay Regional Park District The East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) is a special district operating in Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California, within the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area. It maintains and operates a system of regional parks which ...

History

The lake received its name from the stream which is its source, Temescal Creek, which was dammed in 1868 to create a reservoir to provide drinking water for the greater

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa countie ...

area, pumped by the Contra Costa Water Company, owned by

Anthony Chabot Anthony Chabot (August 13, 1813 – January 6, 1888) was a nineteenth-century businessman and entrepreneur, notable for his contribution to developing hydraulic mining and for building water systems, especially in the Bay Area, so much that he ...

. Prior to being dammed, Lake Temescal was a

sag pond A sag pond is a body of fresh water collected in the lowest parts of a depression (geology), depression formed between two sides of an active geologic fault, strike-slip, transtensional or normal fault zone. Formation A sag pond is formed along ...

, a depression caused by the

Hayward Fault The Hayward Fault Zone is a right-lateral strike-slip geologic fault zone capable of generating destructive earthquakes. This fault is about long, situated mainly along the western base of the hills on the east side of San Francisco Bay. It runs ...

. The bulk of the manual labor of removing soil and digging to bedrock was provided by

Chinese immigrants Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, ref ...

, who probably immigrated to build the railroads.Chinese Workers and the East Bay's Early Water Systems
/ref> Herds of wild

mustangs The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticated animals, they ...

were used to compact the tons of dirt that were brought to create the dam. The dam is long and wide and rises above the creek. The shores of the lake were a popular camping spot with bohemian artists and writers in the late 1800s. The British painter J.H.E. Partington lived here in a tent with his family when they arrived in Oakland in 1889.

Pacific Gas and Electric The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is an American investor-owned utility (IOU). The company is headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building, in San Francisco, California. PG&E provides natural gas and electricity to 5.2 milli ...

constructed its Claremont substation directly above Lake Temescal starting in October of 1921. It opened on October 23, 1922 and remains in service to this day. During the first half of the 20th century, the tracks of the

Sacramento Northern The Sacramento Northern Railway (reporting mark SN) was a electric interurban railway that connected Chico in northern California with Oakland via the California capital, Sacramento. In its operation it ran directly on the streets of Oaklan ...

Railroad ran along the eastern side of the lake. Until the mid 1930s, Lake Temescal extended northeastward into Temescal Canyon. This arm of the lake was traversed by a trestle for the Sacramento Northern railway until the inlet was filled in as part of the Broadway Tunnel (

Caldecott Tunnel The Caldecott Tunnel is an east–west highway tunnel through the Berkeley Hills between Oakland and Orinda, California. Its four bores carry California State Route 24. Named after Thomas E. Caldecott, former mayor of Berkeley, it opened in 19 ...

) project. As part of the project, Landvale Road was extended as a connecting viaduct with Mountain Boulevard and the Montclair District to the south. This required the construction of a large concrete retaining wall along the east side of Lake Temescal to support the fill. The railroad trestle was removed and the Sacramento Northern tracks re-laid just below it. Landvale Avenue ran above the wall to an intersection with the new extension of Broadway leading to the tunnel. The retaining wall survives, but the railroad was gone by 1957. Landvale was replaced by the Warren Freeway and Broadway by the Grove-Shafter Freeway in the late 1960s. In 1936, Lake Temescal opened to the public as one of the first three parks established by the

. Its early amenities included a beach-like shore for swimming, a boathouse built by the

WPA WPA may refer to: Computing *Wi-Fi Protected Access, a wireless encryption standard *Windows Product Activation, in Microsoft software licensing * Wireless Public Alerting (Alert Ready), emergency alerts over LTE in Canada * Windows Performance An ...

, a well established trail around the lake, and numerous picnic benches.

Present-day function

The lake currently supports an artificial recreational beach and is stocked periodically with

rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...

, redear sunfish,

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or "copper nose" as is common in Texas, is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and ...

, and

catfish Catfish (or catfishes; order Siluriformes or Nematognathi) are a diverse group of ray-finned fish. Named for their prominent barbels, which resemble a cat's whiskers, catfish range in size and behavior from the three largest species alive, ...

. The park is open to all visitors from 5 am to 10 pm, and receives around 200,000 visitors a year. The

California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment The Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, commonly referred to as OEHHA (pronounced oh-EEE-ha), is a specialized department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency ( CalEPA) with responsibility for evaluatin ...

(OEHHA) has developed a safe eating advisory for Lake Temescal based on levels of mercury or

PCBs Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by t ...

found in fish caught from this water body. The lake is constantly becoming shallower due to sediment runoff and must be periodically dredged. Today it is approximately at its deepest point; previously it was deep. Since the dam crosses the

, there is a possibility of dam failure in the event of an earthquake, which would cause serious flooding in parts of Oakland, Berkeley, and Emeryville. However, due to the additional fill placed between the dam and Highway 24, any hydraulic failure is now unlikely. During the 1991 Oakland firestorm, water-equipped helicopters refilled at Lake Temescal, largely draining it. The beach house is available for event rentals, such as weddings. As of 2014, the park's beach and swim area were periodically closed on and off due to an outbreak of blue green algae, but in 2022, they were reopened to the public.

Notes

External links

EB Parks Information about Lake Temescal
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Temescal Reservoirs in Alameda County, California Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Lake Temescal Reservoirs in California Reservoirs in Northern California 1868 establishments in California

History

Present-day function

See also

Notes

External links