H97.3.356

This is a photo of the SP depot in downtown Oakland at 7th and Broadway in 1869. A notation on the back of the photo reads "Old depot at 7th [&] Broadway up to 1880." It is a busy scene; the station, a long narrow building with peaked roof and arched entrance at the end closest to the camera, is at left center. Passengers are awaiting the arrival of a train nowhere in sight) on the platform; some are even sitting on the edge of the platform. Behind the station is a row of two-storey commercial buidlings, and the same is true of the buildings at the left side of the photo, across the single track that divides 7th street. Men are standing at the intersection on the left corner, underneath an unlit gas lamp. A horse and carraige has just crossed the track heading toward 8th St., and numerous carriages line the north side of the track alongside the raised freight platform behind the station. The center background is tree-covered. ____________________________________________________________________________ Shortly after the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), acquired the Western Pacific Railroad (WP) as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The acquisition included the WP's rail line from Sacramento to Alameda, and the first train from Sacramento arrived in Oakland in September, 1869. The passengers on that train boarded the ferryboat, Alameda, to complete their trip to San Francisco, "a patttern that was to continue with minor variations for the next 89 years." (Ford, p. 36). The trains on this run and on the streetcar lines, which followed, into Berkeley (1876) (Ford, p. 49), Oakland, (1881) (Ford p.59), and Alameda (1884) (Ford. p.59) were steam driven. The lines were operated by several different railroad companies, including the Central Pacific, until mergers in 1885 consolidated the smaller lines into the SP (See Ford p.69) Piers and Ferry terminals, to connect the East Bay with San Francisco, were built in 1874 in Oakland (see photo in Ford. p.65 top) and in Alameda in 1884 (See photo in Ford, p. 57). SP's East Bay service continued through 1934, and it used its fleet of ferries to transpaort streetcars and passengers between the East Bay and San Francisco. In 1934, SP formed a wholly-owned subsidiary, the Interurban Electric Railway, which was set up solely as a passenger line to operate on the Bay Bridge, already in the construction phase. IER operated the lines until 1941, when declining patronage after the Worlds Fair on Treasure Island, and competition from automobile traffic, forced it to suspend operations, after which the Key System took over the operation of many of its lines, replacing some of the lines with buses. (See Ford, pp.239-281). References: Demoro, Harre W. "The Key System," Interurban Press, Glendale, CA, 1985, 2 vols, photos, maps, drawings. Ford, Robert S. "Red Trains in the East Bay," Interurban Publications, Glendale, CA, 1977, photos, maps, drawings.