Alameda History Walking Tours
As part of our commitment to educate and inform about local history, we have been presenting series of walking tours around Alameda since 2022. Join award-winning Historian Dennis Evanosky for leisurely walks that will leave you with a greater appreciation and understanding of Alameda’s history. We explore a wide range of topics including early residents, architecture, the environment, transportation, cultures, and other topics of historical significance. View information from our previous tours.
Each tour meets at the time, date, and location stated and will end where it started. Each walk will cover 90–100 minutes over 1–2 miles. We suggest you wear comfortable shoes as well as sunblock, and bring water. Mobility devices, strollers (kids under 6 are FREE!), and well-behaved (or especially cute) dogs are always welcome.
The money raised from ticket sales goes to support our expenses incurred running a nonprofit news and information source to serve Alameda. We hope you will join us and have some fun learning about Alameda’s history!
Upcoming Tours
In 2025, our schedule of tours will take place from March to October. Each tour will be presented twice, once each on a Saturday and Sunday, except for the Park Street and Webster Street business district tours which are held only on Sundays due to local congestion.
To prepare you for each tour Dennis will present a short—one hour or less—illustrated lecture before each set of tours to provide additional context. This lecture is optional, and you will enjoy and learn from each tour even without viewing the introductory presentation. The link to watch each lecture will be sent to ticket holders before the tour they signed up for.
Admission to each tour is $20 per person and meets at the indicated date and time at 10 a.m.
If you’ve never joined one of our tours, take a moment to watch our library of Dennis’ presentations for the 2024 tours, available on YouTube, and a selection of other videos shot during the tours.
2025 Tour Schedule
March 8 & 9, 2025 – Gold Coast: Franklin Park to Bay Street
Let’s discover how Franklin Park developed from the site of Charles and Eliza Baum’s home and see how the coming of the electric streetcar opened the area to development. We’ll have a look at all the interesting architectural styles of the homes around the park. Let’s see how many of those styles we can identify and learn how to distinguish between them. Dennis will discuss many of the details of these styles, including Gothic Revival, Italianate, “Stick,” Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman. He’ll also share the story of the bungalow. We’ll take a stroll where the streetcar once ran down San Antonio Avenue to Bay Street. Did you know that there are no Victorian-era homes on the east side of Bay Street south of Central Avenue? Dennis will explain the interesting reason why.
Read More
Join Us for a Jaunt through the Gold Coast
Lecture
Sent to ticket holders.
Tickets
Meet
Franklin Park, San Antonio Avenue & Morton Street
March 23 & 29, 2025 – Gold Coast: St. Charles to Caroline
We will show off the Gold Coast’s “West End” this month. Caroline Dwinelle and Emile Kower developed this area as “Encinal Park.” We’ll check out some magnificent homes on Caroline, Weber, and Hawthorne streets. We’ll also visit Weber Street, where Dennis will present a live and in-person then-and-now moment with a large photograph of Caroline Dwinelle’s impressive home and gardens that stood here until the 1960s.
And, yes, Caroline Street bears Caroline’s name. Kower named the street for her. She was the widow of both the town founder William Worthington Chipman and prominent attorney and California Assembly Member John J. Dwinelle when she built her home there. Kower named Hawthorne Street “Christina” and Fair Oaks “Louisa.” Why did the names change? Perhaps Kower backpedaled when his wife, Johanna, wondered just who Christina and Louisa were, and why didn’t he name a street for her.
We will cover the history and architecture of the neighborhood and learn about the notable architects who designed and built homes here, including Marcuse & Remmel, Delanoy & Randlett, Wasson & Pattiani, and Ernest Coxhead. Builders George W. Scott, David S. Brehaut, and Peter Christensen also plied their trades in the neighborhood. We will also uncover some personal details about some of the people who lived in these historic homes.
Read More
The Gold Coast’s Caroline Street
Gold Coast is a Microcosm of Early Alameda History
Lecture
Tickets
Meet
St. Charles Street & Fair Oaks Avenue
April 6 & 12, 2025 – Bay Farm Part 1
Join us for an imaginary walk through the farmlands that once covered Bay Farm Island. We’ll peel back the homes with our time machine to meet the people who made their living from farming the “Uplands” rich soil that produced, at first, asparagus and hops as cash crops.
Dennis will share stories of many Bay Farm families throughout history, including the Rattos, the Silvas, the McDonells, the Benedicts, and Leas. Our look back to the past will include tales of the oyster farmers, oyster pirates and the oyster patrols the likes of which even included author Jack London. “I wanted to be where the winds of adventure blew. And the winds of adventure blew the oyster pirate sloops up and down San Francisco Bay,” London wrote in his semi-autobiographical novel John Barleycorn. Join us as we visit the farms of Jack London’s “Asparagus Island,” and seek London’s “winds of adventure.”
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Bay Farm Island B. C. – Before Cowan
Oysters Once Dominated Bay Farm’s Economy
Lecture
Link
Tickets
Meet
Harrington Park, Oleander Avenue & Holly Street
April 19 & 27, 2025 – Bay Farm Part 2 (April 19 postponed to May 3) CANCELED
Get to know how—with the voters’ approval—Utah Construction Company converted all the marshland across Mecartney Road from the farms into “made land,” and how Ron Cowan and Doric Construction stepped in to build the neighborhoods that we know today as “Harbor Bay Isle.” Stroll with us along the lagoon that Utah Construction created and enjoy neighborhoods distinctly different from those on Bay Farm Island.
Cowan invented the name “Harbor Bay Isle” and had much to do with developing Utah Construction’s finished product. We’ll see the spot that Amos Mecartney and his family called home. We’ll learn how the promised 1922 coming of the Navy created a false alarm and how eager speculators brought the hulks of seven World War I destroyers into play. These ships were meant to act as breakwater for a development they hoped to call “Alameda Acres.” All that failed when the Navy changed its mind. The marshland then lay fallow for 46 years when Utah Construction came on the scene.
Read More
Building Out Bay Farm Island
Bay Farm Island History
Lecture
Link
Tickets
Sat. April 19
Sun. April 27 Sat. May 3
Meet
Bay Farm Library, 3321 Mecartney Road
May 18 & 25, 2025 – Park Street Commercial Buildings
Park Street has been the center of Alameda’s business district since the railroad came to town in 1864. Join us for a walk to discuss the history of many of the vintage commercial buildings that are still in use today. We’ll learn what is hiding behind some of the modern facades, and what buildings are no longer standing. Highlights will include the Artesian Water Works, the Masonic Temple, and the original Bureau of Electricity building that stood at the corner of what is now Otis Drive.
We will also visit the Alameda Museum to see a colorized photograph of Park Street taken from the tower of the long-gone Artesian Water Works in 1893 and an early 20th century photo of the “Green Star” line streetcar trundling past buildings still dressed in their Victorian-era finery.
Read More
Railroads, Streetcars Shaped Park Street in the 19th Century
Did You Know? Artesian Water Works Building
Lecture
Tickets
Meet
Alameda Museum, 2324 Alameda Avenue
June 7 & 8, 2025 – Marcuse and Remmel around Bay & Eagle
Meet us at the community gardens at Bay Street and Eagle Avenue. Before we walk into the neighborhood, they will tell the interesting story behind the creation of these gardens. Then we’ll meet Felix Marcuse and Julius Remmel and see the homes their company built on Eagle and Pacific avenues in the 1890s. Folks who lived these homes in the late 19th and early 20th century enjoyed the peace and quiet of their rural neighborhood, until a series of “improvements” north of their homes changed everything.
We’ll see five Marcuse & Remmel 1891 creations on the north side of the 1200 block of Eagle Avenue, all designed by their in-house architects, Cary and Johnson, and all purchased by a one investor, Mrs. E. A. S. Page. The firm also purchased property on the north side of the 1200 block of Pacific Avenue. We’ll walk two blocks up Bay Street and have a look at the eight homes the partners built there in 1895. Their firm built six homes on the 1300 block of Pacific as well—also in 1895.
We’ll also look at the advancements in transportation that shaped the area including the airport known as Sunset Field whose planes “buzzed the neighborhood day and night. Dennis will also discuss the impact dredging the Estuary to make Government Island had on the airport, the rise and fall of the Alameda Belt Line railroad (with its yards once busy in nearby Jean Sweeney Space Park, and Calpak, later better known as Del Monte that transported their products by rail and sea from their warehouse on Buena Vista Avenue.
Read More
There Goes the Neighborhood
Marcuse & Remmel: Up Close and Personal
Lecture
Link
Tickets
Meet
Bay-Eagle Community Garden
June 21 & 22, 2025 – Queen Anne-style blossoms on Mozart & Verdi
This time we offer a textbook adventure into the Queen Anne, “Stick,” and Colonial Revival styles along streets that Caroline Dwinelle named for two of her favorite composers. Mozart and Verdi streets together boast 30 examples of Victorian and Edwardian-era homes. We will see homes built by Marcuse and Remmel, Denis Straub, and A. R. Denke. Dennis will explain all this and show—first-hand—details that set Queen Anne style apart from “Stick” (also called Eastlake) and Colonial Revival. We will also present one of the Alameda Post’s famed “No, It’s Not” moments as Adam asks Dennis if some say Caroline Dwinelle named Chapin Street across Lincoln Avenue for the composer Frederick Chopin and the City spelled the name wrong.
Read More
link
Lecture
Link
Tickets
Meet
Lincoln Avenue & Verdi Street
July 19 & 20, 2025 – Neptune Beach and the baths
Trace what little remains of the Coney Island of the West on this walking tour. The resort opened its doors as Newport Swimming Baths in 1877, 40 years before the Strehlow family invited bathers to Neptune Beach. Visitors in 1878 would be served by 200 dressing rooms stock full of 1,200 bathing suits available for rent, as well as a conservatory with glass sides and seating capacity for 300 persons. We’ll take a first-hand look at Neptune Beach that entertained thousands from 1917 to 1939. When it closed, The Merchant Marines stepped in and carved Mackay Avenue on the footprint of the “Whoopie” roller coaster. We’ll see how the street’s name heralded the arrival of the Merchant Marines.
Read More
Explore Alameda’s Lost Baths and Beaches
West End Once Served As Magnet for Bathers – Part 1
West End Once Served As Magnet for Bathers – Part 2
Lecture
Tickets
Meet
McKay Avenue and Central Avenue
August 9 & 10, 2025 – Burbank & Portola, Scheutzen Park & Washington Park
We will take a walk through “Craftsman-style heaven” along palm-tree-lined Portola Avenue, Burbank Street and Eighth Street. Caroline Dwinelle’s son from her first marriage, Willie Chipman, was behind developing these streets. The tract was once home to Schuetzen Park and a velodrome. Dennis will explain the interesting meaning of “Schuetzen” and why many found the park loud, raucous, and even dangerous. We’ll share an interesting “then-and-now” moment with a lithograph of the park. We’ll stand right where the artist made the sketch when the park was thriving. Skippy peanut butter was born here, and the homes coincided with the automobile’s growing popularity. This led to some of these homes sporting garages, some of the first in Alameda.
Read More
German Marksmen Create Unique Alameda Park
Rifle Range Becomes a Neighborhood
Lecture
Link
Tickets
Meet
Portola Sea Wall, Portola Avenue & Burbank Street
August 24 & 30, 2025 – Mastick Park
Join us on a walk through Mastick Park’s “bungalow heaven. “In 1864, Edwin Mastick settled here with his family in a gracious home along the San Francisco & Alameda’s railroad tracks on a street that become Lincoln Avenue. Prospect Street, today’s Eighth Street, bordered his property to the west. When Edwin passed way, his son, George took down his parent’s home and subdivided the family’s 22-acre estate into 186 lots. He kept his own home intact on Pacific Avenue just outside the tract. Well have a look at George’s home. George then hired C. C. Adams to develop “Mastick Park.” (We’ll meet Mr. Adams next month again when we tour Waterside Terrace.} Surveyors stretched Eighth and Ninth streets and Eagle Avenue through the estate and laid out Nason and Wood streets. As we stroll through the development, Dennis will explain how American builders made the India-inspired, British-born bungalow—not a style, but a type of a home—their own.
Read More
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Lecture
Link
Tickets
Meet
Pacific Avenue & 8th Street
September 13 & 14, 2025 – Waterside Terrace
In 1858, Henry Gibbons Jr., M.D., purchased the property that became Waterside Terrace. The good doctor’s investment, defined roughly by today’s High Street, Fairview Avenue and Fernside Boulevard—was mostly marshland that bordered San Leandro Bay. In 1902, when the Corps of Engineers shaped the Tidal Canal, their dredges created “made land” here. Beginning in 1909, the Southern Pacific Railroad stepped in and built Fernside Boulevard as a right-of-way for its Big Red trains. The city gave its permission with the condition that the Southern Pacific added a paved road along the tracks. The arrival of the trains and the new road attracted speculators who purchased this property with eyes on development. The trains began running on June 1, 1911.
The following year, developers stepped in with plans to build 160 homes on a tract that featured a pair of ideas new and radical in their day: terraced lots and curving streets. And the homes! C. C. Adams (remember him from Mastick Park?) hired builders who put up homes in the impressive new Prairie style inspired by creations at Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio in Oak Park, Illinois. On this walk we’ll learn to distinguish this new style from the bungalows in the neighborhood. It will be easy: Look for the homes with those horizontal lines.
Read More
link
Lecture
Link
Tickets
Sat. September 13
Sun. September 14
Meet
Fernside Boulevard & Fairview Avenue
October 4 & 5, 2025 – The North Shore
We will take a stroll along the City’s northern waterfront, home to major shipbuilding sites for most of the first half of the 20th Century. As we walk, Dennis and Adam will untangle a complicated story that involves United Engineering Works in 1900, James Dickie in 1901, Union Iron Works in 1905, and the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company in 1916. We’ll see the sites where these massive ships were built and launched. We’ll also discuss what became of the area since the shipbuilding industry waned and how Measure A played a role in the destruction of a City Monument.
This walk takes us along Brooklyn Basin’s shoreline. Dennis and Adam will discuss the history of the basin, how it got its name, and the role it played in history that stretches back to the Ohlone presence here. The Alaska Packers and Encinal Terminal both called the basin’s shoreline home and played significant roles in the West Coast’s maritime history. We’ll stroll past the sites of these former seafaring giants and learn more about them when we see the historical plaques on the Wind River property. Three yacht clubs call this shoreline home, two of them transplants, one a homebody to the estuary. We’ll visit Shoreline Park, where we can appreciate the transformation of this area from industrial to residential.
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Shipbuilding on Alameda’s North Shore
Packing Companies Shaped Alameda’s North Shore
Canner, Ships, Railroad Shaped Alameda’s North Shore
Lecture
Tickets
Meet
2431 Mariner Square Drive next to Pasta Pelican
October 12 & 19, 2025 – Webster Street Commercial Buildings
Take an informative stroll down Webster Street with us. We will describe how the byway—originally called Euclid Street—grew, largely thanks to baths that thrived on Alameda’s Bay shore. Learn about how the Britt family sold their farmland and used the money to build their impressive hotel. See what happened when the Croll family arrived. Learn how the street grew thanks, in large part to the arrival of A. A. Cohen’s 1864 railroad and the coming of the South Pacific Coast Railroad 14 years later. Dennis will talk about the Bureau of Electricity’s that became a bank. Learn about the subtle, but amazing message the bank carved into the entrance way when it arrived. Experience not one, but two, of the Alameda Post’s more amusing “No It’s Not” moments as Dennis talks about the year that is lit up in neon on the Croll’s Building and the “history” plaque on Lincoln Avenue and Webster that contains more fantasy that fact.
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Webster Street in the Nineteenth Century
Lecture
Tickets
Sun. October 12
Sun. October 19
Meet
Webster Street & Buena Vista Avenue