From Pines to Playfields: The Story of Hampton Park

It was a mild, overcast, end-of-July morning for our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group’s last week, and a good turnout of 47 walkers and three K-9 best friends were at the Exedra for our weekly walk.

The prior week Piedmont Scout Sammy R had given us a special tour of two new batting cages at Coaches Field he built in partnership with the City for his Eagle Scout project. Hampton Park is another city park with its Piedmont Sports Field, also known as Hampton Field, that has a historical connection to Scouting. Going to Hampton would complement our Coaches Field visit, so we made it our morning’s destination. We could also go through Crocker/Bear Park, another Piedmont treasure, on the way and enjoy its beauty and history.

We went up Highland Avenue to Sheridan and Wildwood Avenues, through the Hall Fenway to Crocker Avenue and into Crocker Park. We stopped in front of a newly planted, fenced garden where a large pine tree once stood and a page from Meghan Bennett’s History of Piedmont website was shared. There is a picture of an April 1, 1917 Oakland Tribune article with a headline that proclaimed, “Piedmont Improves Park.” The article reported, “Work had begun for the improvement of a city park at Union avenue (Hampton Road was originally named Union), opposite the residence of Wallace M. Alexander. The ground is a triangular lot … adjoining the residence property of Frederick Hall. This lot was purchased by Alexander and some of his neighbors … and presented to the city of Piedmont for park purposes.”

We went through the park past the composite granite sculpture of a Bear and Her Two Cubs by noted, local area sculptor Beniamino “Benny” Bufano in the park's center. We exited the park and went up Hampton Road to Hampton Park. On the park’s front steps more history was shared.

From Piedmont Historical Society research we learned that Hampton Park was once part of 50 acres purchased in 1911 by Louis Titus, a Berkeley real estate developer. He intended to build a mansion on this large tract of land, but in 1912 the new city of Piedmont raised property taxes significantly. Titus dropped his plans and left Piedmont.

In 1914 James Tyson, a lumber and shipping businessman bought 30 acres of the land for his home.  Tyson was a strong supporter of Piedmont Boy Scouts, which began in 1910, and in 1921 he made a portion of his land available to the Piedmont Scouts for their use as an outdoor camp. During the Great Depression in 1938 Tyson also make this land available to the Piedmont schools. A WPA project leveled it with the intention that it would be the site of a future “East Piedmont” school. However, it was never built. In the 1950s and 60s the land was a dusty, sometimes muddy little league baseball field. Later, when grass was planted, youth soccer matches were often played there on a soggy field because an underground water flow was an on-going problem.

Hampton Park has evolved greatly over the years. It is much different today than what Piedmonters experienced 100, 50, and even 25 years ago. A building was constructed in 2000, towards its back, to house children's programs that is used by both the Piedmont Cooperative Playschool and the Recreation Department.

Dramatic improvements were made to the field and park during 2017 in a $2 million public/private partnership that the Piedmont community generously supported. Drainage and artificial turf were installed that made the field more serviceable during the year. In 2019 the baseball backstop was dedicated and named in honor of Oakland Police Officer John Raymond Hege. The 41-year-old Piedmont native was one of four officers fatally shot following a traffic stop in East Oakland on March 21, 2009. He was the only one who remained alive long enough to enable his organs to be donated to people in need of transplants.

The field is used today for organized baseball, children¹s football, and soccer. The park also has two tennis courts, a backboard, a volleyball court, and six basketball hoops. There is a children's play structure and sand area that are conveniently located a few feet from the tennis courts.

We took the attached group photo at the front of the park. We then went down La Salle Avenue to where it and Indian Road seem to overlap for about one hundred feet. We stayed on LaSalle and went up to Oakland’s Mandana Avenue. A few steps up the street Mandana turned into Crocker Avenue and we were back in Piedmont. We went up Crocker for our return to the Exedra via the Hall Fenway, Wildwood, Sheridan, and Highland Avenues.

It was noted that the Hall Fenway is named to honor Herbert Hall, a descendant of the Frederick Hall named in the 1917 Oakland Tribune park article. In the early 1960s Herbert Hall convinced the City to accept this property that was previously a Key System 10 Line Train right-of-way, and he worked with neighbors and the Piedmont Beautification Foundation to raise funds for its acquisition. It seems Piedmont history has a lot of connections and is everywhere you look when you walk the streets of Piedmont.