Berkeley, a Look Back: UC stadium readied for its first grad ceremonies
California Memorial Stadium in 1924 had just opened the previous fall. Also, cops raided a suspected opium den on Blake Street.
A century ago, the University of California Memorial Stadium, having just been completed the previous fall, for the first time was about to be used for UC Berkeley graduation ceremonies.
“Many other universities throughout the country are using stadiums for their commencement exercises” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported April 12, 1924. “The use of the Memorial Stadium here will make it possible for all relatives and friends of the graduates to attend the exercises, while heretofore each graduating student is limited to a small number of passes for the use of friends and relatives.
“The ceremonies will be held on the west side of the bowl (the stadium), from where the graduates and visitors will view the beauty of the Berkeley hills in their spring greenery and blossoms.”
Fire water: There was a note in the April 12 Gazette about an aspect of the Memorial Stadium construction that had improved local firefighting ability. Apparently, when the university’s contractors were using hydraulic mining equipment to wash down the slope of Charter Hill to help create the stadium site, they had a 16-inch water main installed from the Summit reservoir to the stadium site to supply the vast amounts of water needed for the hydraulic cannon.
That main was then going to be connected to a new 12-inch main running along Canyon Road, Prospect Street, Hillside Avenue and Dwight Way, in part to serve the California School for the Blind (now the university’s Clark Kerr Campus).
“Fire Chief G. Sidney Rose believes that the 12-inch main connecting with it (the 16-inch main) will provide ample water for any fire emergency in the vicinity.”
Opium raid: “Chopping their way into a Chinese boarding house at 2031-33 Blake Street a squad of local police … last night unearthed the largest opium den discovered in the East Bay district in years,” the Gazette reported. Three men were arrested and held, “and 12 others were taken into custody but later allowed to go.”
Police said nearly 30 men tried to escape the house when the police, armed with a search warrant, broke in. Reportedly, many of the interior doors were barricaded, and hatches led to the roof. A considerable amount of opium and paraphernalia was found along with men using opium and “a secret gambling room dug in the basement in which there were two beautifully hand-carved fan tables and an entire Chinese lottery outlet.”
Traffic havoc: The April 12, 1924, Gazette’s front page included numerous mentions of traffic mishaps in Berkeley. Two boys riding a single bicycle had been thrown in front of a streetcar; fortunately the motorman was able to stop the car before it ran over them.
A 32-year-old Berkeley woman was hit “and hurled 25 feet” by a speeding car in Oakland. The driver fled, and the victim was seriously injured and not expected to survive.
Also, police were searching for a woman driver “whose car is reported to have run down Miss Dorothy Atchison, university student, shortly after midnight … crossing Bancroft Way at Telegraph.” Atchison suffered a broken foot.
Further west, at Hearst and Ninth, a car with four people was hit by an approaching Southern Pacific Electric Train when the vehicle stalled on the tracks. They were “slightly cut and bruised.”
Finally, in traffic court, UC student Patrick Cobb elected to spend five days in the county jail rather than lose his driving license for a year. He had been charged with driving 42 miles an hour on Telegraph Avenue. Other men at that court session were charged with drunken driving, driving “with mufflers open” and speeding.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.