Living on the Shore of Lake Temescal

In researching Montclair (a district in Oakland), I have come across many interesting stories. Here is one of them.

---

“Montclair was wild as a hawk,”

Walter Wood

In a 1976 article in The Montclarion entitled “Old Timer Reminisces,” Walter Wood talks about growing up along the shores of Lake Temescal.

Walter was born in 1887 in a small four-room house near the corner of 51st and Broadway, built by his father and torn down to make room for the widening of 51st. His father died in 1886 before Walter was born.

When Walter was attending school, he lived with his mother and stepfather, George W. Logan.   They lived on a farm alongside Lake Temescal, where Logan was the caretaker/superintendent for Contra Costa Water Company’s filtering plant that supplied Oakland’s drinking water.

Walter started school at the age of 8 in North Oakland. Wood attended Peralta until fourth grade. From 1899 to 1904, he went to Hays Canyon School for the fifth through ninth grades.

Walter and his seven brothers and sisters walked from Lake Temescal to Peralta School in North Oakland.

The Hays Canyon School (where the old Montclair firehouse is) was located two miles from the lake when they walked there in the early 1900s. Sometimes, remember Wood, they rowed a boat to the other end of the lake and walked from there.

The school was a beautiful Victorian one-room building with a bell and cupola. There was room for forty students and one teacher.

When Walter was 11, he was a mule driver with the crew that dug the first tunnel(Kennedy Tunnel) from Oakland to Contra Costa County. He spent a summer working on the project, earning him the honor of being the first person through the tunnel. He was near the front when they broke through, and a man who looked after Walter gave him a shove and pushed him through.

A Day in the Life

On a typical Day in 1899, Walter Wood would wake up on the farm and, after breakfast, do an hour’s worth of chores.   

In addition to their regular chores, the Wood and Logan children were assigned the duty of weed-pulling on the Temescal dam. If weeds grew on the side of the dam, squirrels would dig into the barrier and cause damage.

Playtime came on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. Wood and his siblings had run the area, as it was completely undeveloped except for a few farms.

One of the few farms was the Medau Dairy, where Montclair park is today.

Superintendent Logan

George W. Logan started working for the Contra Costa Water Company (now EBMUD) as the Superintendent of the Lake Temescal dam in 1888.

Logan worked at Lake Temescal for 18 years; he transferred to Lake Chabot in 1904 and retired from the company in 1916.

George William Logan (1842-1928)was born in Canada in 1848. He came to California in the late 1880s.

Logan was married twice, first to Elizabeth Robinson (1845-1886)in 1884, and they had two children a daughter, Jessie, and a son Maurice. Elizabeth died in about 1886 or 87.

His second wife was Mary Jane Hayden Wood (1860-1958); they raised eight children, her five children, his two and their one together.

• Jesse Logan (1884-1961)
• Maurice Logan (1886-1977)
• Harry Logan (1889-1959)
• Ann Wood (1880- ?)
• Josephine Wood(1882-1970)
• Juanita Wood(1883-1934)
• Alfred Wood (1885-1920)
• Walter Wood (1887-1990)

Maurice Logan

Maurice (1886 -1977) was an American watercolorist, commercial artist, arts educator, a member of the Society of Six, and a professor at the California College of the Arts in Oakland.

Logan grew up on the shores of Lake Temescal, his father, George Logan, stepmother, and brothers and sisters.

Later in life, he lived on Chabot Road, close to Lake Temescal.

More Info:

• Married a Quarter of Century –SF Chronicle Aug 10, 1913
• Bubbles July 1917 pg 10 – Internet Archive
• Bubbles November 1917 pg 15 – Internet Archives
• Bubbles July 18, 1918 – Internet Archive
• Funeral Rites for GW Logan – Oakland Tribune Oct 15, 1928
• Society of Six Pg 1 – Oakland Tribune
• Society of Six Pg 2 – Oakland Tribune
• Oakland Painter Logan – Oakland Tribune Oct 21, 1962
• Peralta School – History

The End