It was New Years Day and our Piedmont Recreation Department’s Walking on Wednesdays group started 2025 looking back at one of the city’s treasures, Piedmont Park. Piedmont Historical Society President Gail Lombardi and Piedmont historian Meghan Bennet’s research, along with the Piedmont Park History Trail markers were guides for us. There was a large New Years turnout of 51 walkers and four K-9 best friends on hand.
The Ohlone are the area’s original, predominant Indigenous group. They lived here for 10,000 years before Spanish explorers came in 1769 and later colonized the area. In 1820 the Spanish Crown gave Luís María Peralta a 44,800-acre land grant in recognition of his forty years of military service. His Rancho San Antonio stretched from what is now San Leandro to Albany. American’s annexation of California in 1848 and the Gold Rush of 1849 had a tremendous impact on the Peraltas and other “Californios.” Americans guaranteed to recognize land grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments, but that didn’t last.
Walter Blair came to California in 1852 and in 1853 purchased land in what became Piedmont from the US Government, which then owned most of the Peralta land. Blair’s property ran from the Mountain View Cemetery wall on the Moraga Avenue side to beyond Blair Avenue.
In about 1867 pink minerals oozing from the creek in Bushy Dell Canyon started to attract visitors. It was believed the minerals had therapeutic benefits. In 1868, 1869, and 1870 there was a "boom," and Piedmont lands became sought after. However, this soon died and little attention was paid to the area, except for the springs. Walter Blair built his Piedmont Springs Hotel in 1872 and in 1884, he also developed a 75-acre amusement park in Moraga Canyon. Blair died suddenly in 1888 at the age of only 57, but the hotel thrived until 1892 when it was destroyed by a fire. Additionally, a boy fell from a hot air balloon in 1897 at the park to his death. The land was felt to be cursed and developer Frank C. Havens’ Realty Syndicate swooped in to buy it up.
Havens developed Piedmont Park in 1898 and through the early 1900s to draw people to Piedmont. However, by 1916 Havens was in financial trouble, and wanted to sell the park. The Piedmont School Board wanted to purchase 13 acres of the park for a new high school, but Havens wouldn’t sell less than its entire 27 acres, and the City didn’t have money to purchase the remaining park land. Havens died in 1918, and the land was still available in 1921 when Piedmont philanthropist Wallace Alexander and others purchased the land from Havens’ widow. Voters later passed a bond issue to reimburse them.
Our first destination was the Piedmont Park History Trail marker summary in front of the Piedmont Veterans Memorial Building. There we learned that when Piedmont approached its 100th anniversary in 2007 a public/private partnership was developed to preserve the history of Piedmont Park and to create a self-guided walking park tour with nine markers.
We went to the first marker just up Vista Avenue past the City Hall in the shaded, somewhat secluded courtyard at its right front. We read the Last Original Park Bench marker with a photo of a rustic wood bench near the spring’s grotto. We exited the courtyard and went down Vista to Bonita Avenue, then turned up Magnolia Avenue with the second marker at the Exedra. This one told how Blair built the Piedmont Springs Hotel. Next, we went behind the Exedra to the upper edge of the park where a marker told the story of Havens opening his Piedmont Springs Park in 1898. We took the attached group photo there and continued past the Community Hall to the Japanese Tea House. This is not the original tea house that Havens built in 1907 as a park attraction. When the City acquired the park in the 1920s, the tea house was torn down to make room for a new civic center master plan. In 1976 when the Leander Redmon estate at Hillside and Magnolia Avenues was razed to build the new Piedmont Middle School its tea house was donated to the City of Piedmont was moved to its current site. Our next stop was outside the park tennis courts. Here Havens had built a world class art museum in 1907.
We went behind the Community Hall into the park. We took the lower path and followed Bushy Dell Creek to The Cascade marker. This was “a lush tropical paradise” and an artificial waterfall. The next stop was the marker for the Sulphur Springs Grotto which told how Mark Twain in 1867 had stood on this very spot. We continued to the marker for the Eucalyptus Amphitheater that was built in 1908 and where the PHS softball field is today. Finally, after climbing to the steps above Witter Field, we read the marker telling the story of a maze, another Havens attraction.
That was it. We had read all nine markers and shared lots of Piedmont Park history. We returned to the Community Hall through the upper path, appreciating the park even more.