Temescal Creek: Temescal Neighborhood and 51st Street

The Temescal neighborhood has seen huge ecological and social transformations. Once a Huichin Ohlone village site of great beauty along a wide and flowing Temescal Creek, it became the homestead of European settler Luis Peralta's youngest son, Vicente, who built his home along the creek only to be supplanted by a Connecticut settler, Solomon Alden, a descendent from a Mayflower pilgrim.

Over time, Temescal progressed from an unincorporated village largely inhabited by Italians (the Chinese laborers who worked there were not allowed to live there) into a flourishing neighborhood of Oakland. In this section of the tour you'll see how the creek was transformed from a state of beauty, well-used by humans, to becoming completely invisible, the creek and its ecosystem buried underground.

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