Emeryville’s Incorporation
In the early 1890s, the territory between Oakland and Berkeley consisted of unincorporated communities and miscellaneous tracts of land. The Emery Tract, subdivided by Joseph Emery, had developed into a prosperous community by this time. Oakland Trotting Park, a horse racetrack that stretched from Park Avenue to Stanford Avenue, occupied a large area north of the Emery Tract; the Golden Gate district, a residential neighborhood flourished east of Oakland Trotting Park, and the Temescal district, bisected by Telegraph Avenue, emerged southeast of the Golden Gate neighborhood. Klinknerville, a housing development built by Charles Klinkner, was situated in the vicinity of San Pablo Avenue and the Stanford Avenue intersection. The Butchertown district, located along the shore of San Francisco Bay, consisted of slaughterhouses and meat packing plants. These unincorporated communities formed the northern portion of Oakland Township and were under the jurisdiction of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
Temescal Petition
In the fall of 1896, the residents of the Temescal district circulated a petition proposing a town which included both the Temescal community and the Emeryville district. The petition worried Emeryville businessmen, who did not want to be part of a municipality they could not control. In response to the Temescal petition, a movement developed to incorporate the territory north of Oakland into the town of Emeryville. Naturally, the major businesses that operated within the confines of the proposed town actively supported incorporation. “Incorporation of the town was affected…mainly through the combined interests of capitalists interested in racing thoroughbred horses and those controlling the abattoirs at what is known as the Stockyards but was formerly plain Butchertown. Both the racing people and the Stockyards owners had from time to time been more or less annoyed by legislation, State or local, which they deemed inimical to their interests. Hence, they combined to organize a town government they could control, and which would not harass either the racing game or the slaughterhouse interests.”
A Push for Incorporation
The race track directors (Major Frank McLaughlin, M. A. Gunst, Colonel Dan Burns, Henry Ach, and Thomas H. Williams Jr.) pushed for incorporation in order to protect their investments. The Oakland Trotting Park had been rebuilt and upgraded in 1896 at great expense. A work force of 2,000 men toiled through the summer to finish the project. The old barns and sheds were tom down and replaced with new structures, and a magnificent grandstand was built which accommodated 3,000 spectators. The new racetrack was renamed the California Jockey Club, and reopened in October of 1896, the same month the Emeryville petition began to circulate.
Not everyone considered the California Jockey Club to be an asset to the East Bay community. Conservative residents in the adjacent neighborhoods opposed horse racing, because gambling was an integral part of the sport. The Club directors realized that they would be in a stronger position to fight the anti-betting sentiment (and possible legislation) if they created a town in which they controlled the municipal government.
The proprietors of Butchertown also supported incorporation. The slaughterhouses and meat packing plants in the Stockyards district produced, in addition to meat, offal and odors that were offensive to the nearby Golden Gate community. The formation of a town dominated by the racetrack owners and Butchertown proprietors would enable the latter group to protect itself against charges that the Stockyards district was a public nuisance. The management of two other major Emeryville businesses. Judson Iron Works and Shell Mound Park, approved of the plan to form the town of Emeryville.
The Emeryville Petition
The Emeryville petition proposed a town with boundaries that included all of the area between Oakland and Berkeley, with San Pablo Avenue as the eastern line. Residents of the Golden Gate district objected to these boundaries because the proposed town would split the Golden Gate community in half. They also objected to the name “Emeryville” because the Golden Gate district had its own identity. Because of opposition from Golden Gate residents, the original Emeryville petition was modified so that the Golden Gate community east of San Pablo was no longer included in the proposed town. The eastern boundary was shifted so that it followed Temescal Creek westward to a point 730 feet west of San Pablo and then continued north parallel to San Pablo Avenue, extending to the Berkeley line. The boundaries defined in the amended petition created the Emeryville that exists today.
The Emeryville petition collected about 300 names before it was submitted to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. On November 2, the Alameda County Board voted three to two to hold an election allowing residents living within the boundaries of Emeryville to vote on incorporation. The election was scheduled for December 2, 1896, leaving a campaign period of only one month.
In addition to the issue of incorporation, the ballot offered voters two slates of candidates for the Emeryville Board of Trustees. If incorporation carried, the new town would have an elected government. G. Peladeau, H. Remillard, H. A. Randlett. John T. Doyle, and F. J. Stoer comprised one slate, while the other consisted of J. S. Emery, W. H. Christie. J. T. Doyle, F. J. Stoer, and W. Fieldwick. Doyle and Stoer could hardly lose, since they appeared on both tickets. These men. the leading citizens of the Emeryville community, were businessmen, land holders, pioneers, and hotel proprietors.
Arguing Factions
During the campaign period, several factions emerged. Racetrack owners and the Butchertown proprietors actively supported incorporation. Also, many shop keepers favored incorporation because in the past their delivery wagons had been charged high license fees while operating in Oakland or Berkeley. They believed that incorporation would help them retaliate against outside businessmen by “shutting them out of the new town.” A large percentage of Emeryville residents assumed that incorporation would contribute to the formation of a prosperous community, and that the cost of municipal government would be paid for with fees extracted from the California Jockey Club.
However, there were also many groups living both inside and outside of Emeryville that opposed incorporation. The Temescal petition had collected numerous names, including the signature of Joseph Emery, the pioneer settler of the Emery tract. Emery later joined the Emeryville promoters, but the Temescal petition continued to attract supporters. One large faction, consisting of ministers and their congregations, argued that incorporated Emeryville would be a “tough town” dominated by hoodlums. gamblers, and turfmen. The Oakland Enquirer published an article expressing the fears of the pious element.
“The straight out fighters against the incorporation are the members of the churches and people who take the same view that they do. These persons believe the incorporation would make a very tough town; that it would be dominated by the off-color class of people who, they say, a great racecourse always gathers around itself that there would be several hundred voters of this kind attached to the track, and that they would run the town to suit themselves. They argue that if the racetrack should pay all the revenue to support the government it would expect to dictate everything. They fear the place would be full of deadfalls and that saloons, gambling houses and worse places would be run wide open, and that it would become the favorite stamping ground for the hoodlums of San Francisco.”
Since there were at the time no churches in Emeryville, most of the religious folk lived in adjacent communities.
Bonfires in the Street
The election was held on December 2, 1896 as scheduled. The proponents of incorporation won an impressive victory, gathering 150 votes to only 27 for the opposition. According to the Oakland Enquirer, pro-incorporation forces made sure that all eligible voters cast their vote: “…they took no chances and took care that every voter available was taken to the polls. Many of the track employees who are at present working over at Ingleside, crossed the bay to cast their ballots;” When the results of the election became known, the citizens of Emeryville celebrated the emergence of their new town by lighting bonfires in the street and by holding “impromptu jollification meetings.”
The candidates with the most votes, W. H. Christie, J. T. Doyle, J. S. Emery, W. Fieldwick, and F. J. Stoer, were declared the Trustees of the new town. W. H. Christie received the greatest number of votes, and he was later appointed Mayor, a position he held for over three decades. Emeryville became the only suburb north of Oakland to incorporate as a town. Golden Gate and Temescal were annexed to Oakland in 1887.
This story originally published in 1996 for the Emeryville Centennial Celebration and compiled into the ‘Early Emeryville Remembered’ historical essays book.
