Elmhurst is a residential neighborhood in the southernmost part of

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

. Originally a separate unincorporated town, it was

annexed Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...

by Oakland in 1909, and today is considered part of

East Oakland East Oakland is a geographical region of Oakland, California, United States, that stretches between Lake Merritt in the northwest and San Leandro in the southeast. As the southeastern portion of the city, East Oakland takes up the largest porti ...

. It lies at an elevation of 39 feet (12 m).

History

Elmhurst began in 1865, when a railroad station was constructed by the

San Francisco and Alameda Railroad The San Francisco and Alameda Railroad (SF&A) was a short-lived railroad company in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area. The railroad line opened 1864–1865 from Alameda Terminal on Alameda Island to Hayward, California, with ferry s ...

.California's Geographic Names: A Gazetteer of Historic and Modern Names of the State
/ref> Originally named "Jones", the station was renamed "Elmhurst" in 1869. The town's first post office was established in 1892. The town of Elmhurst was primarily an agricultural community. After the

1906 San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity ...

, East Bay communities grew in population, and the City of Oakland

several surrounding communities in 1909, including Elmhurst. The neighborhood grew into a manufacturing center in the years that followed, with automobile manufacturing playing a significant role.Elmhurst Branch: Changing with the Neighborhood
- Friends of the Oakland Public Library

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ou ...

opened an auto assembly plant in Elmhurst in 1915, called

Oakland Assembly Oakland Assembly was a former Chevrolet manufacturing facility located in Elmhurst, Oakland, California. It was the first automobile plant established in Northern California to build Chevrolet vehicles. In 1916, Chevrolet opened the auto industr ...

which shut down in the 1960s. Elmhurst was the site of one of the large carbarns for the

Key System The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, California, Oakland, Berkeley, California, Berkeley, Alameda, California, Alameda, Emeryville, California, Emeryville, Piedmont, Ca ...

's streetcars, the Elmhurst Carhouse. The carhouse was located on East 14th (International Blvd.), on the southern half of the block bounded by 94th and 96th Avenues, and Holly Street.Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Oakland, California, 1925, Volume 6, page 664 (Image 65), Library of Congress
/ref> It was closed on June 29, 1932, its operations being consolidated at the Key System's Central Carhouse near Lake Merritt. Although it was historically a white working-class neighborhood, it became predominantly Black after World War II, and today, Latinos now form about half of Elmhurst's population.

References

* Neighborhoods in Oakland, California Streetcar suburbs Populated places established in 1865 {{AlamedaCountyCA-geo-stub

History

See also

References