Historical Evolution of the Fruitvale District

The space surrounding and home to Peralta Hacienda has been inhabited by the Ohlone people for over 10,000 years. The multiple bands of Ohlone people occupied the entirety of the Bay Area extending inland from the Carquinez Strait south to Soledad, and from the Golden Gate to Big Sur on the Pacific Coast. Specifically, the East Bay area was home to the Xučyun-Ohlone Chochenyo speaking people. As legend goes, they were the children of Coyote, who lived at Reed’s Peak, and Eagle, who lived on Mount Diablo. They were placed on the shores of the bay after a great flood receded. (Akins & Bauer, 2021) This story may coincide with the establishment of the first fishing village, a community surrounding the later named, Strawberry Creek, in modern day Berkeley around 5,000 years ago. These settlements are believed to have been similar to the first image on the left. During this period, the 50 or so bands of Ohlone people lived within their own networks, largely undistributed, until the proliferation of the mission systems. Despite the tribulations they have endured, Ohlone people and their culture still remain vibrant, shown by the last three photos on the left.

Although there were most likely many brief moments of contact with Europeans before, contact was inevitable with the establishment of missions. The first missions in the San Francisco Bay were established shortly after 1796 by Junípero Serra and his Franciscans. (Panich, 2020)The colonial project played out through the design of mission institutions that had three intended purposes: to promote religious conversions to Roman Catholic Christianity, provide cost-effective means for securing the frontier by herding tribal members into a small number of proximate settlements, and create a framework for governance. (Panich, 2020) A list of all of the Spanish missions that were established in Alta California is shown by the first image on the right.

Spanish colonialists recruited nearby native communities to become the backbone of a new agricultural economy based on the introduction of animals and principal crops to the “New Spain”. The establishment of Mission San José in 1797 marked the encroachment of Spanish colonialists on Xučyun-Ohlone lands. (Panich, 2020). Although some indigenous people remained in their homelands and others joined the mission settlements, the profound impact of Spanish expansion on tribal communities and their ways of life is undeniable. Remnants of this occupation is shown by the recent pictures of the Mission San Jose and Dolores (the 5th and 6th photos on the right).

In the 1830s, following Mexican independence from Spain (1821) and the secularization of missions, the mission system was dismantled, allowing large numbers of Native people to detach themselves from missions. (Panich, 2020) However, secularization also allowed mission-aligned colonists to secure twelve to thirteen million acres of land within Alta California, with similar land grabs occurring in Baja California, Native inhabitants were unable to reclaim their homelands. (Panich, 2020) Generally speaking, around half of the mission lands were allocated to clergy and the military, and the other half to the government officials. Ultimately, land grants were made to two hundred families, the Peraltas being one of them. Luis Peralta worked for thirty-five years as a soldier and commissioner, and therefore was instrumental to the establishment of various missions in the Bay Area. As a token of appreciation, the Spanish Governor, Pablo Vicente de Sola, granted him a 44,700-acre cattle ranch, Rancho San Antonio, in 1820. (Gonzales, 2019)

To establish their claim of the land, the Peraltas built the first permanent adobe house with branches caked together with mud. In 1821, they replaced it with a more permanent house of adobe. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, signed at the end of the Mexican American War in 1848, made Californians prove their land titles in court. Since the land was forcefully taken from indigenous tribes there were no land deeds, creating some issues for the Peralta family. However, the family eventually got their title from the U.S. Supreme Court in 1856. Shortly after, internal disputes erupted between the family members over property rights to certain sections of the land. The brothers of the family won the litigation battle but not without a cost. Struggling to pay litigation fees, new property taxes, and poachers, most of the brothers sold their land, leaving Antionio, the final son, with his Italianate Victorian two-story frame house (1870) and 23 acres of land. Antonio’s daughter, Inez Peralta sold the land to Henry Z. Jones, a developer, in 1897. The Peralta's reign had ended. (Peralta Hacienda)

Originally, the area of Fruitvale was first settled by Portuguese and German immigrants who found industry-related jobs in the area. As Oakland grew, so did the number of middle class white families, who found a haven in a Fruitvale lined with eucalyptus trees and row houses that were fit for family life. Accompanying that growth, the economy of Fruitvale boomed, providing the opportunity for a variety of activity centers: movie theaters, commercial businesses and retail stores opened. After WWII and the rise of manufacturing in Oakland, Fruitvale became home to a fruit cannery, a GM/Chevy plant, a cotton mill, and a bleach plant. These industrial workplaces that scattered through the district of Fruitvale welcomed migrant workers to the area, diversifying the local population. (Schwarzer, 2021) In response, middle class white families headed to the hills in the Eastern portion of Oakland, leaving the flatlands to minority, mostly black industry workers. This relocation led to the Fruitvale area having a “C’ designation in HOLC redlining maps, marking the area with a “downward” desirability index due to “detrimental influences”. This labelling, similar to many communities in the U.S., shaped Fruitvale for years to come.

The early identity of Oakland as a family-oriented "bedroom city" also had an impact on its conservation of open spaces. Depending on local politics, parks were viewed as either a detriment or a benefit to real estate opportunities and their related tax revenues. Early on, efforts to secure park funding was unsuccessful; in the 1890s, voters turned down park bond issues twice and by 1905, the City of Oakland only had 38 ½ park acres. In 1907, the city's first park bond issue was passed and was used for the establishment of Lake Merritt and a few other parks across Oakland. Still, by 1914, Oakland had only one-tenth of the dedicated park acreage compared to what was considered standard for American cities at the time. Most of that park area was accounted for by Lake Merritt and the surrounding area. The pictures on the right show Lake Merritt throughout the years. Still, struggles for park funding continued with opposition from various mayors who claimed that citizens did not want more parks and that small parks did not provide scenic value. (Schwarzer, 2021)

When the City of Oakland decided to secure a reliable water source for the city, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) acquired lands to the East of Oakland. As white families started to inhabitant spaces close to these large swaths of open space and a reliable funding source was secured, there were political pressures for EBMUD lands to be repurposed. Since these communities had a strong influence on Oakland politics due to their tax contributions and the fact that EBMUD did not have the capacity to maintain the lands, community members were able to purchase the lands and revitalize them as park spaces. These proposed land allotments are shown in the last two pictures on the right. This transition was facilitated by the creation of the East Bay Regional Park District, a representative body that oversees the network of large parks and open spaces in the East Oakland Hills, that still operates today. These relationships protected critical watersheds and habitat but also contributed to the park inequities seen between the Oakland flatland districts, such as Fruitvale, and the Oakland Hills.