96 Fun Facts About Oakland

Oakland is the seat of which California county?

Alameda County's seat left San Leandro in 1872, the same year Oakland absorbed its neighbour, a town called Brooklyn.

Which Native people were the earliest known inhabitants of the Oakland area?

The Ohlone lived in independent villages, among them the Huchiun of the East Bay, until Spanish missionaries drew them into missions.

Which family received the 1820 Spanish land grant that covered the future Oakland and Berkeley?

The Peraltas lost most of Rancho San Antonio after the Gold Rush, as squatters and speculators settled the land that became Oakland.

Oakland's first mayor, Horace Carpentier, was ousted in 1855 after gaining exclusive rights to what?

The town's waterfront: the deal handed him its wharf and dock fees for decades, and citizens who found out forced him from office.

What kind of trees in the Oakland hills did sailors once line up to avoid a hidden rock in San Francisco Bay?

Coast redwoods: two tall ones on the ridge guided ships past submerged Blossom Rock, until loggers felled the forest to build the Gold Rush towns.

Which university began in Oakland and stayed there until moving to its permanent campus in the 1870s?

The University of California grew out of the private College of California in Oakland, using its buildings while the new campus was built.

Oakland was chosen in 1869 as the western terminal of what?

The Transcontinental Railroad's first trains to the bay, in September 1869, ended at a pier in a neighbouring town, and Oakland's Long Wharf took over that November.

Lake Merritt holds what national distinction, dating from 1870?

First official wildlife refuge in the US: Mayor Samuel Merritt pushed for the 1870 state law that banned hunting there to protect the lake's birds.

What happened to Oakland's population after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake?

It doubled with refugees, and many stayed: the census counted 66,960 people in Oakland in 1900 and 150,174 by 1910.

Businessman Francis 'Borax' Smith consolidated Oakland's streetcar companies into what?

The Key System was partly a real estate play: its streetcar lines opened new East Bay tracts that Smith's Realty Syndicate sold to buyers.

Which fruit and vegetable brand was started by Oakland's Oakland Preserving Company?

Del Monte began as a coffee blend made for guests of the Hotel Del Monte, a Monterey resort, before the Oakland firm used the name on its fruit and vegetables.

Which two students founded the Black Panther Party at Oakland's Merritt College in 1966?

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale's party began by patrolling the police, then ran free breakfasts for children and health clinics.

Which governor signed California's 1967 law against armed Black Panther patrols?

Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford Act after armed Panthers walked into the State Capitol in May 1967 to protest the bill.

Which double-decker Oakland freeway segment collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake?

The Cypress Street Viaduct was never rebuilt: the freeway moved to a route along a rail yard, and Oakland built Mandela Parkway, a green boulevard, on its old path.

Which video game did Will Wright start imagining while replacing belongings lost in Oakland's 1991 firestorm?

The Sims: after the fire destroyed his house, Wright had to rebuy everything from toothpaste to furniture and began asking what people really need.

Which future governor served as Oakland's mayor from 1999?

Jerry Brown, California's governor in 1975-83 and again from 2011, was Oakland's mayor from 1999 to 2007 and championed the 10K plan to draw 10,000 residents downtown.

The 2016 blaze that killed 36 people in an Oakland warehouse became known by what name?

The Ghost Ship fire gutted a warehouse where people lived and threw parties, and no building inspector had examined it in three decades.

Oakland was the second US city, after which one, to decriminalise psilocybin mushrooms in 2019?

Denver acted in May 2019, and weeks later Oakland's council voted unanimously to bar police from spending city money to punish use of natural psychedelics.

Which small independent city is completely surrounded by Oakland?

Piedmont voters chose in 1907 to become a city, and when some residents objected, a second vote that year confirmed it.

Which Oakland-born novelist wrote The Joy Luck Club?

Amy Tan began The Joy Luck Club at a 1985 writers' workshop, while she was still working as a business writer.

Gertrude Stein's line 'There is no there there' was about what?

Her razed childhood neighborhood: returning to Oakland, Stein found the house she grew up in gone, though Oaklanders still debate whether she meant the whole city.

Which famous visitor toured Children's Fairyland while gathering ideas for his own park?

Walt Disney toured Children's Fairyland before opening Disneyland in 1955 and hired its first director, Dorothy Manes, to run youth activities there.

Which two performing companies made Oakland's Paramount Theatre their home?

The city's symphony and ballet play in a 1931 movie palace that the Oakland Symphony bought in 1972 and restored after decades of neglect.

Which landscape architect, also responsible for Central Park, designed Oakland's Mountain View Cemetery?

Frederick Law Olmsted's fame made Mountain View the place to be buried, and its ridge of grand crypts became known as Millionaires' Row.

Which feature crowns the Oakland Tribune's landmark downtown tower?

Four big clocks top the tower, and Burning Man co-founder John Law spent decades keeping their neon and the TRIBUNE sign glowing.

Which former US president took part in the Bay Bridge's 1933 groundbreaking?

Herbert Hoover joined Governor James Rolph at the ceremony, while President Franklin Roosevelt set off the first blast by wire from Washington.

Which regional rail network has its Oakland hubs at MacArthur and 19th Street stations?

BART opened between Oakland and Fremont in 1972, and within a month a train-control failure sent a train off the end of the track at Fremont.

Which Fox television station is based in Oakland?

KTVU 2 aired fake, offensive names for the Asiana Flight 214 pilots in 2013, names an NTSB summer intern had wrongly confirmed, and fired producers over it.

Which headline did Oakland make in 2023?

Lost three major-league teams in five years: after the Warriors and Raiders left, the A's 2023 plan to move to Las Vegas left Oakland with no major-league team.

Which Oakland A's owner paid players a bonus to wear mustaches for a 1972 promotion, the first of three title years?

Charlie Finley's stunt stuck: most players kept their mustaches all season, and the press dubbed the champions the Mustache Gang.

The A's moved to Oakland in 1968 from where?

Kansas City lost the A's after their owner spent years courting other cities, including Oakland, until his lease there ran out in 1967.

Which coach led the Oakland Raiders to their first Super Bowl win, a 32–14 rout of the Minnesota Vikings?

John Madden posted a winning record in every one of his 10 seasons as Raiders coach, then left coaching in 1979 to become a TV commentator.

The Raiders were founded in 1960 as a charter member of which organisation?

The American Football League placed the Raiders in Oakland in 1960, and owner Al Davis later beat the NFL in an antitrust suit to move them to Los Angeles.

Which 1975 Warriors champion shot his free throws underhanded?

Rick Barry's underhanded free throws looked like a relic of basketball's early days, yet he was nearly automatic from the line and was the 1975 Finals MVP.

Which NHL team played in Oakland from 1967 to 1976?

The California Golden Seals, earlier the California Seals and Oakland Seals, played at the Oakland Coliseum Arena until moving to Cleveland in 1976.

Which USL soccer club, founded in 2018, plays its home matches at the Oakland Coliseum?

Oakland Roots SC was started by Edreece Arghandiwal and Benno Nagel, who met at an Afghan-American community soccer tournament.

Which US vice president was born in Oakland, California?

Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee in 2024 after President Biden withdrew, and lost the election to Donald Trump.

Which Oakland-born rapper, born Stanley Kirk Burrell, served three years in the Navy before Feel My Power?

MC Hammer was an A's batboy as a kid, and he got his nickname for his resemblance to home-run king Hank Aaron.

Which funk band with a famous horn section originated in Oakland in 1968?

Tower of Power grew out of The Motowns, a band Emilio Castillo started the year before, which took its new name after saxophonist Doc Kupka joined.

Rickey Henderson graduated from which school, where he was an All-American running back?

Oakland Tech's star running back turned down several football scholarship offers to sign with the A's in 1976.

Ryan Coogler's debut film dramatised Oscar Grant's 2009 death at which Oakland train station?

Fruitvale Station follows Grant's last day, and the transit police officer who shot him was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

In 1964, the future Enter the Dragon star moved to Oakland to open a studio with whom?

James Yimm Lee introduced Bruce Lee to Ed Parker, whose Long Beach karate championships put Lee before a TV producer who later cast him in The Green Hornet.

Which Oakland mayor was recalled by voters in 2024?

Sheng Thao was recalled in November 2024, and two months later a federal indictment charged her with bribery.

What was Oakland's second-most-valuable war contribution in WWII, worth $100 million in 1943?

Canning boomed because Oakland sat where rail lines met the bay, so produce from all over California reached its canneries.

Which 1928 Oakland ice cream company is credited with Rocky Road?

Dreyer's is credited with creating Rocky Road, and when later owners took the brand national, they sold it as Edy's east of the Rockies.

Who became Oakland's first mayor elected by ranked-choice voting, in November 2010?

Jean Quan came from second place to beat Don Perata in Oakland's first ranked-choice election, on voters' second and third choices, and became its first female mayor.

Which rum cocktail did Victor Bergeron claim to have invented at Trader Vic's, his Oakland tiki restaurant?

The Mai Tai came from a bar Bergeron opened in 1934 as Hinky Dink's with $500 of borrowed money. He renamed it Trader Vic's to match its new tiki decor.

Which aviator landed in Oakland in 1935 after making the first solo flight from Hawaii to the US mainland?

Amelia Earhart touched down in Oakland on January 11, 1935, after flying alone from Honolulu. Two years later her round-the-world attempt also set off from Oakland.

Which Oscar-winning actor performed in school plays, including South Pacific, at Oakland's Skyline High School?

Tom Hanks stayed loyal to Oakland's teams long after Skyline High. A fan of the A's and Raiders, he said in 2017 he would boycott the NFL for two years over the Raiders' plan to leave.

Which Oakland-born star of Euphoria began as a child model and dancer before a Disney Channel breakthrough?

Zendaya broke through in 2010 on the Disney Channel sitcom Shake It Up. She followed it with a second Disney series, K.C. Undercover.

Which Star Wars actor, born in Oakland, later became the long-running animated voice of Batman's archenemy the Joker?

Mark Hamill first voiced the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. The role has earned him two Annie Award nominations and a BAFTA Game Award.

Which Boston Celtics great, winner of 11 NBA championships, was nearly cut from the team at Oakland's McClymonds High?

Bill Russell moved to Oakland from Louisiana at the age of eight. A McClymonds coach saw his raw athletic potential and told him to work on his fundamentals.

Which Brad Pitt film follows Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane building a contender on a shoestring budget?

Moneyball is based on Michael Lewis's 2003 book about the Athletics' 2002 season. Beane tried to compete with half, or even a third, of the money his rivals spent.

Which rapper started out as a roadie and backup dancer for the Oakland hip-hop group Digital Underground?

Tupac Shakur joined Digital Underground in 1990 through its manager, Atron Gregory, who had signed him. The group is credited with launching his career.

Which outlaw motorcycle club's Oakland chapter was founded in 1957 by Sonny Barger, later the club's public face?

Hells Angels chapters at first barely knew the others existed, Barger recalled. His Oakland charter introduced a bigger death's-head patch in 1959, nicknamed the Barger Larger.

Which Muppets performer and voice of Yoda was a teenage apprentice puppeteer at Oakland's Children's Fairyland?

Frank Oz worked there with the Vagabond Puppets, a troupe run by Oakland's recreation department. At 19 he left for New York to join Jim Henson's Muppets.

Which family vocal group from West Oakland sang gospel in church as children before selling around 40 million records?

Pointer Sisters records ranged far beyond pop. Their first Grammy, in 1975, was for a country song, Fairytale.

Oakland's Lake Merritt is not a true lake but which kind of water body, dammed by a mayor in 1868?

A tidal lagoon is what Samuel Merritt, the mayor it is named after, paid to dam so its level could be controlled. Before that, the inlet had served as the city's sewer.

Which household-products giant, owner of Glad and Burt's Bees, is headquartered in a downtown Oakland tower?

Clorox began in 1913 as the Electro-Alkaline Company, the first commercial-scale maker of liquid bleach in the US. Its name blends chlorine and sodium hydroxide.

Which health care giant, set up to treat shipyard and steel mill workers, has its headquarters in downtown Oakland?

Kaiser Permanente was founded in 1945 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and physician Sidney Garfield. The workers' medical plan was later opened to the general public.

Which team did the Oakland Athletics sweep in the 1989 World Series, which an earthquake halted for ten days?

The Giants lost in four straight games in a matchup nicknamed the Battle of the Bay. Game 3 was about half an hour from its first pitch when the earthquake hit.

Which animal became the Athletics' emblem after a rival baseball manager mocked the young club as a money-loser?

An elephant was adopted after John McGraw said the club's owner had a white elephant on his hands. Manager Connie Mack later handed McGraw a stuffed toy one at the 1905 World Series.

To which city did the Raiders move in 1982, before returning to Oakland for the 1995 NFL season?

Los Angeles was the Raiders' home for 13 seasons. For their return, the Oakland Coliseum gained a 20,000-seat upper deck that became known as Mount Davis, after the team's owner.

Which Golden State Warriors guard was named the NBA's first unanimous MVP during the team's 73-win season in Oakland?

Stephen Curry made a record 402 three-pointers that season. The Warriors went on to lose the 2016 Finals after leading Cleveland three games to one.

Which adventure novelist studied as a schoolboy at Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon on the Oakland waterfront?

Jack London drew on the saloon for scenes in The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf. A cabin built with logs from his Klondike gold rush home now stands nearby.

Which Oakland waterfront machines are popularly, but wrongly, said to have inspired the AT-AT walkers of Star Wars?

Container cranes at the Port of Oakland stand across the bay from the effects studio's San Rafael offices. George Lucas has called the link a myth.

Which US president's yacht, the USS Potomac, is preserved as a museum ship on the Oakland waterfront?

Franklin Roosevelt used the Potomac as his presidential yacht from 1936 until his death in 1945. It is the only presidential yacht open to the public.

What name is given to the car-stunt street gatherings that first appeared in Oakland in the 1980s?

Sideshows began as informal social gatherings of Bay Area youth. Police later opened a substation at Eastmont Mall and set up no-cruising zones to curb them.

Which Bay Area hip-hop style takes its name from Oakland slang for hyperactive, coined by rapper Keak da Sneak?

Hyphy names a whole culture as well as the music. The sound took shape around Oakland in the late 1990s.

Which telephone area code, split from San Francisco's 415 in 1991, covers Oakland and much of the East Bay?

510 came into service on September 2, 1991. A second code, 341, was added to the same area in 2019.

Which Oakland women's school, founded as a young ladies' seminary, became part of Northeastern University in 2022?

Mills College was the first women's college to offer a computer science major, in 1974. It declared a financial emergency in 2017 as enrolment fell.

Which Beaux-Arts Oakland landmark, likened to a rectangular wedding cake, has an unused 36-cell jail on its 12th floor?

City Hall stands 320 feet tall and was the first high-rise government building in the United States. Its jail, complete with an outdoor yard, has sat empty since the 1960s.

Which 2011 protest campaign camped in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza and spurred a general strike that shut the port?

Occupy movement protesters in Oakland saw their camp cleared by police on October 25, 2011. The general strike that closed the port followed eight days later.

Which earthquake fault runs beneath Oakland on its way through Richmond, Berkeley, San Leandro and Fremont?

The Hayward Fault's 1868 earthquake caused damage and deaths around the bay. It was known as the great San Francisco earthquake until the one in 1906.

Which four-bore highway tunnel carries State Route 24 through the Berkeley Hills between Oakland and Orinda?

The Caldecott Tunnel is named after Thomas Caldecott, a former mayor of Berkeley. It opened with two bores in 1937 and gained its fourth in 2013.

Which Oakland-born running back nicknamed Beast Mode came out of retirement in 2017 to play for the Raiders?

Marshawn Lynch had announced that first retirement on the day of Super Bowl 50 by posting a photo of his cleats hanging from a telephone wire.

Which slugger nicknamed Mr. October helped the Oakland A's win three straight World Series before joining the Yankees?

Reggie Jackson earned the nickname for clutch postseason hitting with both the Athletics and the Yankees. He was the World Series MVP for Oakland in 1973.

Which Oakland High School graduate was the NBA's unanimous Rookie of the Year with the Portland Trail Blazers?

Damian Lillard, nicknamed Dame Time, was only the fourth unanimous winner, after Ralph Sampson, David Robinson and Blake Griffin.

Which Oakland-born actor won a Tony for playing both Lafayette and Jefferson in the original cast of Hamilton?

Daveed Diggs went on to write, produce and star in Blindspotting, a 2018 film that he later turned into a television series.

Which church dedicated a five-spired landmark in 1964 that can be seen from throughout the Oakland area?

Latter-day Saints leaders dedicated the temple in November 1964. The NBA's Golden State Warriors once used its cultural hall as a practice facility.

Which Oakland ice cream parlour, open since 1894, makes an appearance in the Pixar film Up?

Fentons Creamery was destroyed by an arson fire in 2001, eight years before its big-screen cameo. More than $2 million was spent rebuilding it.

Which Oakland-born percussionist recorded her debut album The Glamorous Life with Prince?

Sheila E. is the daughter of percussionist Pete Escovedo, with whom she often performed. Before going solo she played percussion in the George Duke Band.

In which California city did the Athletics begin playing home games in 2025 after leaving Oakland?

West Sacramento's Sutter Health Park was built for the minor-league River Cats, who carried on playing there alongside the Athletics.

Which downtown Oakland movie palace sat closed for decades before reopening as a concert venue in 2009?

The Fox Theatre first opened in 1928 as a movie house. Its building also became home to the Oakland School for the Arts, a charter high school.

Which Gold Rush-era chocolate maker is buried with his family at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland?

Domingo Ghirardelli died in 1894 in Rapallo, the Italian town where he was born. He was buried in Oakland with the rest of his family.

Which vocal group, formed in Oakland in 1989, reached number two in the US with their debut single Hold On?

En Vogue were conceived by Oakland producers Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy as a modern answer to the girl groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Which Oakland-born tennis player became the first to win all four major championships in a single year, in 1938?

Don Budge was the son of a Scottish footballer who had played for the Rangers reserve team before emigrating. No player of either sex had completed the Grand Slam before him.

Which pioneer of modern dance grew up in Oakland, where her mother worked as a seamstress and piano teacher?

Isadora Duncan performed to great acclaim across Europe and the United States. She died in Nice in 1927 when her scarf caught in the wheel of the car she was riding in.

Which streamlined passenger train ran between Chicago and Oakland by way of Omaha and Salt Lake City from 1949?

The California Zephyr name was revived by Amtrak, whose modern train ends its run from Chicago next door in Emeryville.

Which Australian aviator took off from Oakland in May 1928 on the first flight across the Pacific to Australia?

Kingsford Smith flew a Fokker monoplane named the Southern Cross. The journey to Brisbane was made in three legs, with stops in Hawaii and Fiji.

Which writer known as the Poet of the Sierras built a home on a hillside Oakland estate he called The Hights?

Joaquin Miller planted the trees around the house himself and built his own funeral pyre on the grounds. The city bought the estate in 1919, and it is now a park that bears his name.

Which independent baseball team began play in West Oakland in 2024 after the Athletics' relocation was approved?

Oakland Ballers pitcher Kelsie Whitmore became the first woman to play in the Pioneer League during that debut season.

Which rock promoter presented the Day on the Green festivals at the Oakland Coliseum, starting in 1973?

Bill Graham oversaw his last Day on the Green in the same month that he died in a helicopter crash, in 1991.

Which Hearst Castle architect designed the 1928 expansion of Oakland's Chapel of the Chimes columbarium?

Julia Morgan grew up in Oakland and graduated from Oakland High School in 1890. She became the first woman licensed as an architect in California.

Which Oakland-born novelist's 2018 debut There There was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction?

Tommy Orange also won the 2019 American Book Award for the novel. His second book, Wandering Stars, followed in 2024.

Which Oakland A's pitcher threw a perfect game against the Minnesota Twins in May 1968?

Catfish Hunter pitched only the ninth perfect game in baseball history. No American League pitcher had thrown one in the regular season for 46 years.