2005.52.90A

The photograph is mounted on two cardboard mats, it shows a landscape with trees, and two fences containing a horse. The mat has a stamp identifying the area as Adams Point.

An affluent Connecticut merchant named Edson Adams carved himself a piece out of once was the old Peralta turf in 1850s. The ranch was in the shape of an 400-acre arrowhead, its "point" of land poking into San Antonio slough, whose waters reached as far up as where the Grand Lake Theater is now. Adams slowly sold off the furthest reaches of his grazing land to other wealthy families. Ten years later, after Dr. Meritt dammed the slough, more Victorian homes began to dot the sloped cow pasture. To protect the waterfowl from over-hunting (many lakeside residents shot their dinners down from the sky without leaving their front porches) the lake was declared a nature preserve, thus making it the first wildlife sanctuary in continental North America (predating the establishment of Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks.) (East Bay Express, Nov 25, 1994, Vol 17, No 7)The Victorian homes were later joined by small mansions and Craftsman-style bungalows. Many notable architects built in Adams Point - Julia Morgan, J C Newsom, Blakewell and Brown, William Knowles, among others. Until the 1940s, the nearby neighborhood tracts of Trestle Glen, Lakeshore, and the newly formed, wealthy community of Piedmont (formerly a part of Oakland) all had restrictive racial covenants against Jewish, Asian, Black, and "southern Mediterranean" peoples. Adams Point became a community in which wealthy minorities could live. For recreation, Oaklanders from all over traveled by cable car (!) to swim in the heated saltwater of the Piedmont Baths (later known as the "Lakeside Plunge") at Bay Place and Vernon Streets (located next to what now is the Cox Cadillac building). The beautiful, turreted, wood and stained glass building boasted a high ceilinged "aquatic theater" with an artificial waterfall, private bathing rooms, a cafe, barbershop and smoking rooms. Much like the once lavish, ocean-side Sutro Baths of San Francisco, The Piedmont Baths were eventually torn down after the depression.Following the 1906 earthquake and fire, many San Francsican refugees, particularly Chinese, were temporarily housed at Adams Point.Info taken from the North Lake Merritt Neighborhood Group website.