The great project to build the Oakland harbor in the inlet of San Antonio Creek — the Estuary — began with an act of Congress in 1873. It would rely on redirecting natural processes to serve human needs. The plan the federal engineers came up with, in 1874, depended on harnessing the daily tides to keep the shipping channels clean of the fine suspended mud that would otherwise fill up the harbor in a few decades. It was designed to collect and direct as much water as nature could provide.

The plan was to be carried out in four phases. First the training walls would concentrate the tidal currents flowing in and out of the Estuary. Then deep shipping channels would be dredged eastward past the Oakland waterfront to a large basin — Brooklyn Basin — that would hold more tidal water and make room for shipyards along the shore. Third, a canal cutting across the peninsula holding the city of Alameda would connect the Estuary to the waters of San Leandro Bay. Fourth, San Leandro Bay would be outfitted with a one-way dam, à la Lake Merritt, to hold still more water.

The first two phases went very slowly, because Congress never sent more than a fraction of the money requested each year. There were several years when no money came at all. Fresh mud settled in the new channels and had to be dredged out each time work resumed. As the years went on, the canal felt ever more important because it promised to double the amount of tidal flow keeping the channels clean.

The tidal canal’s route was well determined in the initial plan, as shown in this map from 1876. It would be 8500 feet long and 400 feet wide, 8 feet deep at low tide and lined on both sides with stone.

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The thinly populated land along the canal route wasn’t much to brag about, mostly marsh and mudflat. One railroad and three roads crossed it between Oakland and Alameda: Park Street, Fruit Vale Avenue and High Street. Still, the land was private property and had to be condemned. That proceeding started in 1877, but the landowners fought in court against the whole idea. Everyone else, especially the newspapers and their business allies, thought it a great idea. The case, including appeals and extra hearings, went on for years.

The government won decisively, even after one wealthy landowner, Alfred A. Cohen, appealed. Only about 3 acres of land was at stake, but Cohen’s appeal went forward because he added a new claim for damages based on natural processes: he would lose “the benefit of certain gravel which in the rainy season is deposited on his land through a small creek running through a portion of it; and of the water which stays in said creek for several months in the year and serves to water stock.” This was his land, as shown on an 1878 map superimposed on today’s map of the canal area.

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The precious gravel and seasonal water came from Sausal Creek, the stream whose delta was responsible, over thousands of years, for building up the ground at the base of the Alameda peninsula.

By the time the judge finally denied Cohen’s claim and the land was paid for it was 1884, ten years into the harbor project.

The canal plan called for the three streets across the route to be equipped with new steel bridges as the digging proceeded. The railroad would build its own bridge too. The material to be removed would be spread on the neighboring marsh and create abundant new land for development. Oakland and Alameda both foresaw businesses and residents moving in, and the papers promised the world.

Congress didn’t send enough money to start the canal until 1888, and even then it was only enough for half the work. But it was enough to stir the spirits of real-estate agents. The Tribune on March 30 reported the opinion of Oakland agent W. W. Blow: “The district to be penetrated by the great tidal canal . . . will soon be populated; many lots are being sold, and the construction of dwellings has been commenced all along the line.” Plans for a new streetcar line on Park Street went into motion.

Borings along the canal route penetrated 3 feet of black topsoil, 2½ feet of white clay, 7 feet of gray sandy clay and “yellow sand full of water” beneath to the depth of 25 feet. They’re visible in this photo taken during the dig.

^{Bay Area Electric Railroad Association image}

In 1889 the San Francisco Bridge Company began digging in two places at the north end: a steam-powered dredge chewed its way from the Estuary into the marsh and a great steam shovel cut a landlocked trench toward the Estuary from a point past Park Street. When the two parts were done the trench would be opened to the Estuary and the Park Street bridge erected. Until then, Park Street would be closed starting in March 1889.

The trench took far longer than planned, and Sausal Creek was largely to blame. The new cut quickly filled with water and pumps were installed. A dispute over dumping dirt on nearby pastureland stopped work for two months. Heavy rains the next year sent Sausal Creek itself surging into the hole, which took two months to pump out before the steam shovel could be salvaged and repaired. In 1891 the Morning Times reported, “Water comes into the tidal canal excavation as though the bed was composed of many springs and though the pumps are kept steadily at work progress is slow.”

Meanwhile the Park Street bridge took its time too. The manufacturer, the King Iron Bridge Company of Cleveland Ohio, shipped it in pieces and assembled it across the trench. Checking and certifying it took months, and then the roads approaching it had to be rebuilt by the respective cities. But excitement was extreme after years of complaints. The Enquirer made the new bridge the centerpiece of its New Year graphic, “New Things of the Year.”

People had increasingly chafed at the shutdown of Park Street for three years. Finally the new bridge over the new canal was dedicated, after repeated delays, on the evening of January 24, 1892 in a cathartic ceremony with over 20,000 people watching. Cannons were fired for nearly two hours starting in the afternoon. Bonfires at each end of the bridge illuminated frames of fireworks that spelled out the word “SHAKE” over a depiction of two clasping hands. Delegations from Oakland and Alameda met in the middle, bands played, speeches were made and the fireworks were lit. A speaker from Alameda’s government noted that “while Alameda and Oakland were formerly united with banks of clay we are now bound with bands of steel.”

^{1904 photo from Wikipedia: “The schooner scow Caroline Dixon takes a load of wood to the match factory. In the background is the Park Street Bridge.”}

A week later, the Tribune reported: “No more work can be done on the cut until Congress makes another appropriation.” And there matters stood.

It happens that topographers of the U.S. Geological Survey mapped the area in 1893-94, and the arrested state of the canal at that time appears on the 1897 Concord quadrangle map.

Next: The second half

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