CC SA-BY Our Oakland
Vantage Point Park is a tiny park between three major streets in East Peralta. Its main feature, as you may guess from the name, is a single bench on a slight hill that looks south out over the railroad tracks, highway, estuary, and Alameda. I guess if you get bored you can go to the Burger King across the street or Pho Huynh Hiep kitty corner.
It's worth noting that the Burger King is at the approximate location where the Peralta ranch did its slaughtering of cattle, though primarily for leather hides and tallow, not meat.
The vantage point park also overlooked Embarcadero de San Antonio, the landing place or small port for the area. In the years just before the Gold Rush, commercial logging began in the Oakland hills and one route used to haul logs down from the hills was Park Blvd. to 13th Ave., ending at Embarcadeo de San Antonio. In 1847 the price of redwood lumber was $30 per thousand board feet, but in 1849 it was $350-$600 per thousand board feet. By 1860 the hills were completely logged. (Burgess, "The Forgotten Redwoods of the East Bay," California Historical Quarterly, vol. xxx no. 1.)
1198 13th Avenue, Oakland, CA.
CC SA-BY Our Oakland
CC SA-BY Our Oakland
Links and References
- Oakland Parks and Recreation website parks listing
