Did you know about the town whose name survives today on the water shuttle that carries passengers across the Oakland Estuary?
Alfred A. Cohen and his partner J. D. Farwell created the town of Woodstock in 1864 as a home to the San Francisco & Alameda Railroad. Cohen was in charge of the railroad that carried trains on tracks from Woodstock along today’s Pacific Avenue and our Marshall Way to what is now Lincoln Avenue. His trains began running through the peninsula of Alameda on August 25, 1864. As time went on, a soap factory, a borax plant, and an oil refinery dotted the shoreline.
[1]Take a walk with us along the old train route to Fourth Avenue where we’ll see the Gothic Revival house [2] that Abram and Catherine Rich called home with their daughters Mary Helen, Rebecca, Margaret, and Lucy.
We’ll talk about a nearby school that Jack London attended when he was a small boy. We’ll also have a look at a location not far from the Rich home and Jack’s school where Nehemiah Clark and his sons ran a business that turned out bricks and decorative tiles too numerous to count. And we’ll hear about the factory’s interesting fate.
We’ll also stop by the spot where William Worthington Chipman and Gideon Aughinbaugh’s ferry Ellen Craig carried passengers to and from San Francisco. We’ll then walk along the route that carried Southern Pacific Railroad “Big Reds” to and from its wharf, now buried beneath the Alameda Naval Air Station’s runway.
We will wrap up our 2026 walking season next month in October with a tour through Alameda Point [3], where we will learn the history and the fate of the Naval Air Station.
Want to know more? Read about the history of the area in my earlier article, Let’s Go Back in Time [4].
September 19 & 20: Cohen’s Railroad and the Town of Woodstock.
Meet at the San Francisco & Alameda Railroad 1864 railyard, Pacific Avenue and Main Street, at 10 a.m.
Purchase tickets online for $20 each: Saturday, September 19 [5], or Sunday, September 20 [6].
The Town of Woodstock was the 1864 creation of A. A. Cohen and his partner J. D. Farwell. Cohen had tracks laid across Alameda on what is now Lincoln Avenue, and the San Francisco & Alameda Railroad began running through the peninsula of Alameda on August 25, 1864.
Join us for walks through the Town of Woodstock along the old railbed—today’s Pacific Avenue. Cohen’s railroad station and wharf stood at the foot of Pacific Avenue. We’ll stroll up Fourth Street and see some interesting architecture along the way including a Gothic Revival home from the 1860s, a pottery factory, and some beautiful Queen Anne designs. Learn more about this and other tours at https://alamedapost.com/tours [7].
Dennis Evanosky is the award-winning Historian of the Alameda Post [8]. Reach him at [email protected] [9]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Dennis-Evanosky [10].