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Background
Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical
Park (Friends) has worked since the late 1970s to establish the six-acre park,
which opened to the public in 1996. Friends has lobbied successfully
for over $6M of state and local funding to create the park, parcel
by parcel, throughout a 20-year period.
The goal was: 1) to create open
space in a district with the lowest per capita open space in Oakland
and the highest percentage of children; and 2) to rescue and
interpret the history of the once vast Rancho San Antonio, a 45,000
acre land grant to Luis Peralta in 1820, and the historic Antonio
Peralta House which stands on the site.
In 1998, major funding from local
bond Measure K ($365,600) and Measure I ($800,000) allowed the City
of Oakland and Friends to bring in professionals to conduct
historical research, archaeological review, architectural and
interiors restoration, landscape design.
The park was chosen as one of ten
projects nationwide to receive funding for planning from The
National Endowment for the Humanities in 1999. Eminent historians,
landscape architects, museum and interpretative experts, educators,
Friends' staff, and community representatives all came together to
develop a new design for this historic landscape which reflects its
regional and national significance, and to begin to plan its
interpretive programs.
With completion of the house
restoration in 2001, Peralta Hacienda Historical Park entered a new
phase of development that focuses on landscape development, creating
exhibits for the Peralta House and interpretive programs for the
whole site.
Friends of Peralta Hacienda
Historical Park offers an environment for the enjoyment of the
community, where neighbors as well as visitors from the region,
state, and nation can be actively involved in its historical and
natural features through performances, celebrations and educational
workshops and programs. The City of Oakland, the Fruitvale
community, and Friends of Peralta Hacienda Historical Park are proud
to be part of the development of this historic site and look forward
to its future evolution.
Official Historic
Designations:
The 1870 Antonio Peralta House is
on the National Register of Historic Places. The site itself is a
State Landmark as headquarters of the Peralta land grant. It is also
on the National Park Service's Juan Bautista de Anza National
Historic Trail; the Peraltas' arrived in California on the
pioneering Anza expedition in 1776.
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History
Primer
Visitors to
Peralta Hacienda Historical Park walk onto a map of time. On a rise
that looks east to the hills and west to the bay, they first come
upon an 1870 Italianate frame house. Antonio Peralta built this
house when earthquakes damaged his nearby adobes. A few feet away,
an outdoor stage commemorates the house's original location, before
it was moved in 1897 to fit the new city grid. Further along is the
footprint of a large adobe, built in 1840 by Antonio Peralta with
his Mexican and indigenous laborers when California was part of
Mexico. Lastly, there are the traces of a smaller adobe, built in
1820 to establish Luis Peralta's claim to the 45,000 acres granted
him by Governor Solá in the twilight of the Spanish colonial period.
Visitors can imagine indigenous dwellings nearby that must have
existed at this time, when Native Californians still outnumbered the
Spanish-speaking settlers. The park slopes steeply down to the
curved, wooded banks of Peralta Creek, which has its own special
social and ecological history.
Forgotten for
generations, the 1870 Peralta House is now restored to its original
condition, and the surrounding Park will be landscaped to tell its
forgotten story and provide enjoyment of the local community. This
newly established six-acre facility is the last vestige of the
Peraltas' 45,000-acre Rancho San Antonio, estimated to be the most
valuable Spanish land grant ever made in California. It stands in
the middle of the diverse Fruitvale District, which is the
geographic center of the City of Oakland. In a multicultural sense,
it represents the founding settlement of Oakland.
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Park Areas
The
park contains three distinct areas:
The rancho/adobe area
Here you can see footprints of two original adobe structures built
in 1820 and 1840 as well as the outline of the hacienda wall dating
from the Spanish and Mexican eras. Within the hacienda walls, there
were once 22 outbuildings, a well/fountain, an outdoor oven and a
landmark Spanish Pine tree, planted by the Peraltas'.
1870 Peralta House
A local and state landmark listed on the National Register of
Historic Places, this farmhouse represents Spanish-speaking
California on the cusp of a new era after the Gold Rush and
annexation of California by the United States.
Peralta Creek
A wooded slope descends to a winding stretch of creek, recalling
15,000 years of Native Californian habitation and the primordial
flora and fauna of the region.
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