Emeryville is a small city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. Take a look below for 20 amazing and interesting facts about Emeryville, California, United States.
1. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay.
2. The resident population was 12,905 as of 2020.
3. Its proximity to San Francisco, the Bay Bridge, the University of California, Berkeley, and Silicon Valley has been a catalyst for recent economic growth.
4. It is the home to Pixar Animation Studios, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, The Center for Investigative Reporting, and Clif Bar.
5. In addition, several well-known tech and software companies are located in Emeryville: LeapFrog, Sendmail, MobiTV, Novartis (formerly Chiron before April 2006), Wargaming America, and BigFix (now HCL).
6. Emeryville attracts many weekday commuters due to its position as a regional employment center.
7. Emeryville has some features of an edge city; however, it is located within the inner urban core of Oakland/the greater East Bay.
8. It was industrialized before the First World War.
9. Before the colonization of the area by Spain in 1776, this area was long the site of indigenous settlements.
10. The historic Ohlone Native Americans encountered the Spaniards and later European colonists.
11. They thrived on the rich resources of the bayside location: gathered clams from the mudflats, oysters from the rocky areas, caught fish, and hunted a variety of game.
12. In addition, women gathered acorns from the local oak trees, roots, and fruit. The Ohlone discarded clam and oyster shells in a single place, over time creating a huge mound, now known as the Emeryville Shellmound.
13. During the Spanish and Mexican eras, colonists constructed a small wharf near the mouth of Temescal Creek adjacent to the shellmound.
14. The wharf served the Peralta family’s Rancho San Antonio. It was used for loading cattle hides, the principal product of the ranch, onto lighters, and transferring them to ocean-going ships, including New England–bound schooners.
15. Cattle were a major part of the economy into the American era, when numerous meat packing plants were established along the bayshore in Emeryville between 67th and 63rd streets, in an area called “Butchertown”.
16. The cattle processed here were raised in nearby ranches and farms, and brought in by rail or barge. The odors from the corrals and slaughterhouses were notorious and often mentioned in local newspapers of the 19th and early 20th century.
17. Emeryville’s first post office opened in 1884.
18. The Town of Emeryville was incorporated December 2, 1896. It was named after Joseph Stickney Emery, who came during the California Gold Rush and acquired large tracts of land in what became known as “Emery’s”. In 1884, Emery was president of a narrow-gauge railroad called the California and Nevada Railroad.
19. The railroad was originally intended to extend from Oakland, through Emery’s (at the time, an unincorporated settlement along the bayshore) and east across the Sierra Nevada to the gold mining town of Bodie, California. From Bodie the railroad would extend east through Nevada to a connection with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad.
20. Despite these goals, the railroad was completed only from Oakland to Orinda. Its right-of-way was sold to the Santa Fe Railway. The Santa Fe constructed a rail yard and passenger depot below San Pablo between 41st Street and Yerba Buena Avenue. Although located in Emeryville, when the depot opened in 1902, it was called “Oakland” after the larger community.
