Mystery Package
Reverse side:
On the far right is my late father-in-law receiving (or giving?) a package at a Chinatown association in Oakland or San Francisco (probably the Ying On Labor & Merchant Association, 英端工商會).
The unsolved mystery: WHAT WAS IN THE PACKAGE?
The Indian Gulch Trestle Alignment
The nearby Trestle Glen neighborhood is named after a large rail trolley trestle that stood there approx. 1893 – 1906. It was somewhere in the vicinity of the present Grosvenor Ave. but the exact alignment has curiously eluded local history buffs, this despite several surviving photographs and some period maps. You can catch up with the debate here. Where was the actual alignment?
Who Bombed Judi Bari?
On May 24, 1990 in front of Oakland High School (my alma mater, and right down the street from my house) Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney were severely injured when a pipe bomb exploded in their car under Bari’s seat. The FBI arrived oddly quickly on the scene and arrested the two on suspicion of knowingly transporting the bomb themselves, as eco-terrorists (the two had been leaders in the Earth First! movement and involved in redwood forest conservation activism).
However, the Alameda County District Attorney declined to press charges against Bari and Cherney, claiming insufficient evidence. Bari and Cherney brought a civil suit against the FBI and Oakland Police and eventually won a $4.4-million judgment in 2002. (They were represented by the famous civil rights lawyer, Dennis Cunningham.) However, Bari’s share went to her estate, as she herself had died of breast cancer in 1997.
The case remains unsolved.
On May 24 sometimes I place redwood branches and flowers near that corner to remember.
Where’s Jack’s Autograph?
The 1969 rediscovery and verification of Jack London’s Yukon gold rush cabin hinged on Jack’s autograph on a log in the back wall of the cabin. The autograph slab had been cut out by a local woodsman in the 1940s, but was located and matched to the log on site in 1969. But what happened to the autograph slab after that? It’s not in the relocated cabin(s), though the cut log is (circled below). Was it ever reattached? Has anyone seen it anywhere?
Circled spot is where the slab was cut from. (Pictures taken in Oakland in 2024.) Red arrow points to the upper courses, which match those in the 1969 picture above, looking above the head of the tallest man, on the left.
BTW, here’s the other Jack London Cabin, in Dawson, Yukon, Canada, which has the original lower courses:
What Did the Monterey Redwoods Suspension Footbridge Look Like?
As reported in this 1998 guide to the Sausal Creek watershed, in 1977, a substantial pedestrian suspension bridge was built across Sausal Creek, just below Monterey Blvd, in the lovely grove of redwoods there. It didn’t last long and today only the concrete and steel suspension cable anchors remain. There must be pictures of the suspension bridge somewhere but I have been unable to find one.
Undated City of Oakland brochure with the “SUSPENSION FOOTBRIDGE” included:
BTW this grove features the only surviving native patches of redwood sorrel (Oxalis oregana) I’ve seen in the area, as well as parts of virgin redwood stumps.
This September 3, 1975 Oakland Tribune article on local trails describes the “Dimond Canyon Regional Biking Trail” being developed by the East Bay Regional Parks District and the City of Oakland. Something must have derailed this project because most of it never got developed as described.
Solved Mysteries
Street Name Change (solved 2025)
At some point our street changed from Division St. to La Cresta Ave. When and why?
The Oakland History Room has a binder of street name changes. It lists the change of Division to La Cresta as happening in 1907. Since homes here were not built until the 1920s, it looks like the name change happened before anyone actually lived here in the present houses. But the exact timing and reasoning remain to be elucidated, especially since there is no notable topological “crest” along La Cresta (though there is one on the far side of the adjacent Everett Ave.).
Who was Mark David Lee? (solved July 2025)
In Oakland’s Joaquin Miller Park, at the western end of the central Meadow, there is a grove of redwoods dedicated to Mark David Lee. Who was he? No one seems to know.
Sadly, it turns out Mark David Lee was a local teenager who died in a 1986 motorcycle accident nearby on Highway 13. Many thanks to Oakland Librarian Menghsin Horng and Facebook contact Kevin Becraft for the confirming details.
As of August, 2025:
Russell Yee 