Mt. Eden was an unincorporated agricultural district in Eden Township,

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, United States. It was annexed by the City of Hayward. It lies at an elevation of 43 feet (13 m). Mt. Eden was founded in 1850 by a group of farmers from Mount Eden, Kentucky, drawn to California by the

Gold Rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

. The party disbanded upon reaching the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water from a ...

, but a few settled at a road crossing where they nailed a sign "Mt. Eden" to two trees, and the name stuck. A post office opened in 1860 and was in continuous operation until 1953.

Background

A thriving economic community developed around the site, ranging from the shores of San Francisco Bay eastward to Telegraph Road (now Hesperian Boulevard). Mt. Eden included many farms as well as trans-bay shipping and salt-harvesting industries. The population of Mt. Eden grew with significant immigration from northern

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and

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. The salt companies gradually consolidated, and after the demise of the

Oliver Salt Company Oliver Salt Company was a saltworks located on the San Francisco Bay adjacent to Hayward, California, which produced salt by evaporation from the San Francisco Bay Area. The remains of their facilities are within Eden Landing Ecological Reserve. ...

in 1931 only the

Leslie Salt Company The Leslie Salt Company was a salt-producing company located in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the current locations of Newark, Hayward and other parts of the bay. Background They produced salt using salt evaporation ponds on the shores of the ...

remained. Trans-bay shipping suffered from increasing competition from roads and railroads. The historic center of Mt. Eden, now a freeway interchange, was around Telegraph Road, now Hesperian Boulevard, between Depot Road and Jackson Street. Most of Mt. Eden was annexed by the City of Hayward in the late 1950s. The Mt. Eden post office, however, continued to be used until 1984, when it was decommissioned by the U. S. Postal Service. Between 2003 and 2009 several unincorporated "islands", remaining from the earlier annexation, became part of the City of Hayward. The name "Mt. Eden" survives in the names of some local institutions: Mt. Eden High School, Mt. Eden Cemetery, Mt. Eden Park, and Mt. Eden Mansion.

References

{{coord, 37, 38, 10, N, 122, 06, 00, W, type:city_region:US-CA, display=title Neighborhoods in Hayward, California Populated places established in 1850 1850 establishments in California

Background

See also

References