H75.32.1MMMM

Photograph album. Description: Album of M.V. Lloyd. Oakland home and friends and father's grocery store. Written below the photographs is: 1) Pam Marge Don Dottie; 2) Donnie; 3) Marge; 4) Durant; 5) Pam Marge (D. Coopr, 3/2002) The photograph on this album page labeled "Durant Park" shows two camels in a cage. The location of the park is not indicated. (G.Weininger, 3/2002, from DeWitt Jones, ed., Oakland Parks and Playgrounds, 1935, and Abby Wasserman and Diane Curry, eds., The Spirit of Oakland, 2001:) Durant Park was a project proposed to the city of Oakland numerous times between 1922 and 1935. Every proposal, whether for a public or private park (private development had been suggested in 1934 by Sidney Snow, who proposed to relocate the zoo and add a variety of concessions), was rejected by the city or allowed to lapse. The park would have been comprised of over 500 acres of the Durant Tract in the Elmhurst District northeast of Foothill Blvd. and Stanley Ave. Durant Tract had been the estate of William C. Durant, founder of the Chevrolet Motor Company, which became a subsidiary of General Motors. He had selected Oakland as the site of a sales and distribution center and then an assembly plant, which was built on a 7-acre site at Foothill Blvd. and 69th Ave. In 1920 Durant independently founded the Durant Motor Company and, with his son and Norman deVaux, created Durant Motors of California to produce and distribute Durant, Star and Flint automobiles. This was done at East 14th St. and Durant Ave. and became the largest producer of automobiles in the West, with other manufacturers and distributors locating in the city as well, leading to the Chamber of Commerce proclaiming Oakland the "Detroit of the West." Durant Motors did not survive the Depression and the plant was purchased by General Motors in 1935.