Cypress/West Oakland Historical Archaeology Project

~ Chapter 2 Detail ~

Transportation, by both land and sea, was a pivotal factor in the 19th-century development of West Oakland, which quickly developed into a multi-ethnic population center. The role of trains, commerce, industry, land speculation, and immigrant populations in the history of this neighborhood are all explored in Chapter 2. In the 1878 woodcut shown here, passenger trains come and go from dock-end terminals while deep-water square riggers take on or discharge cargo. In the foreground, a crew of Overseas Chinese laborers awaits transportation between jobs (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Magazine 11 May 1878).

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