Ten Votes from Oakland: How Piedmont Stayed Independent and Incorporation, Controversy, and a House on the Move.

There was a good turnout of about 36 walkers and four K-9 best friends at the Exedra last Wednesday for our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesday walk.

The Wednesday before last Wednesday Nancy D took us on a historical tour of her neighborhood above Oakland Avenue that included seeing the house on Blair Avenue in which Jack London wrote The Call of the Wild in 1902-03. In about 1910 the house was moved two lots up the street so that the Sutro Mansion could be built on the site.

In those days it was not unusual for homes to be placed atop round logs and for teams of horses, mules, or oxen pulled the house to a new site. The house was rolled across the logs and then the free log was reset from the back to the front. In case you’re wondering, moving a house on logs for a relocation in Piedmont would not be permitted under current city and state regulations.

There is another home in the central part of Piedmont that was moved on logs long ago to its current location. It is the former home of Hugh Craig at 55 Craig Avenue just up Mountain Avenue. This 1879 “Craig House” is the second oldest house in Piedmont. We could go the short distance from the Exedra to it and Craig’s history, as well as that of the City of Piedmont’s early years, could be revisited.

Hugh Craig was a central figure in the City of Piedmont’s first years. In the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake many people moved to Oakland and Piedmont. Oakland was looking for property taxes to pay for the additional services it needed to provide. It wanted to annex Piedmont, but some Piedmont residents wanted to incorporate it as a separate city. It was a race and those who favored incorporation had to move quickly. They needed a map to file incorporation papers in Sacramento, so they used a map from the Piedmont Sanitary District. This explains why some Piedmont homes are partially in Oakland.

On January 7, 1907 Craig and another Piedmonter raced to Sacramento to file the incorporation papers. This incorporation had to be approved by the voters, and on January 26, 1907, 79 Piedmont men voted for incorporation and 38 voted against it. It was all men because women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920. On January 31, 1907 the State approved Piedmont’s incorporation.

However, immediately there were problems and some Piedmonters wanted to vote again about being a separate city. On September 5, 1907, a vote on disincorporating and becoming part of Oakland was held. Approval required a 2/3 vote. Ninety-two men voted to disincorporate and 62 voted to stay a separate city. The vote to disincorporate Piedmont failed by only 10 votes.

We crossed Highland Avenue and went up Mountain Avenue to 55 Craig for a look. We stopped in front of the house, and more history was shared. Hugh Craig was one of the city’s first mayors and one of the first five Piedmont settlers. He was also a San Francisco insurance man and twice president of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. He was born in Sydney, Australia in 1841 to Scottish parents, and grew up in New Zealand before moving to Oakland in 1874 to work in San Francisco for the New Zealand Insurance Company. He bought five acres and built a house in 1879 on Vernal (now Highland) Avenue.

Craig is known as the "First Mayor of Piedmont," but there were one or two men who held the position before him. Varney Gaskill was elected mayor by the Piedmont Board of Trustees on February 8, 1907, and Craig was later elected in 1907 and served until 1914.

To fund the new city, Craig instituted a new property tax based on the size of the home’s parcel. Prior to incorporation, all residents paid the same, small tax to the County. Meghan Bennett’s History of Piedmont website, https://www.historyofpiedmont.com/craig, provides newspaper articles from the time that provide a fun understanding of what was happening. On January 28, 1914, the Sacramento Star proclaimed, “Single Tax Successful in City of Millionaires – Mayor of Plutocrat Principality Forces Rich Men to Bear Just Share of Taxes - Imagine the storm of protest … when Craig, ‘a nut on the subject of taxation,’ … raised the assessments of the rich men of Piedmont.” Land assessed at $150/acre was raised to $3,000 when its market value was $8,000 to $16,000/acre.

Because of the increased property tax, Craig was forced to subdivide his property in 1912, and he created Craig Avenue with lots on both sides of the street. Additionally, in 1912 Highland Avenue was widened, so Craig had his home put on log rollers and pulled by horses 200 feet to its current location.

Many people were not happy with the new taxes, the Oakland Tribune reported on April 21, 1914, “Hugh E. Craig … was not reelected to the chairmanship of the trustees and quit his place on the board.” Craig died on November 11, 1920 at his home at the age of 79 years.

This original Craig house is a beautiful Stick Italianate Victorian, and surprisingly large with five bedrooms and four and a half baths in a total of 4,359 square feet and now has solar panels. On our first walk in 2018, nearly 20 Wednesday walkers posed for a group photo in front of the house and our larger group did it again last Wednesday.

We then went up Craig to Highland Avenue for a longer walk. Highland took us to Moraga and Monticello Avenues, and then to Ronada Avenue, which we hadn’t walked this year. We appreciated the lovely Ronada-Ramona Triangle that was dedicated in 2014 and made possible through the support of nearby residents, the City, and the Piedmont Beautification Society. Further down Ronada we also admired one of the newest homes in Piedmont, a modern infill, at 26 Ronada.

At Ronada’s end, we went south on Grand Avenue a short distance to Arroyo Avenue and another short distance to Manor Drive. We hadn’t walked Manor this year either. We went up Manor to Holly Place and up a path over a sewer pipe below to Ricardo and Arroyo Avenues and Dracena Park. Then it was up Blair Avenue for our return to the Exedra via Hillside and Magnolia Avenues. For one last sight on a sight-filled morning, we checked out the water-filled pools of the new, soon-to-be-finally-opened aquatics center.