How About Oakland?

By Jack Dionne

Just a month ago I wrote for these columns a story on what ,I conceived to be the future possibilities of Southern California. While I believe every word'of it to be true, it could hardly be said that it was over-modest in its fundamentals.

Now, up in the city of San Francisco is located "Gus Russell's Outfit." But across the Bay in the free and unafraid city of Oakland is a much more important "outfit," where Mrs. Gus Russell presides.

:To this "outfit" there goes twice each month with personal address attached, copies of The California Lumber Merchant, and Mrs. Russell has shown herself as enthusiastic a reader of these columns as Mrs. Fred Conner, Miss Brey, and other California lumber ladies. Yet Mrs. Russell had never contributed to these columns. Not until the article on Southern California appeared.

Then there came direct to us from Mrs. Russell, a list of statements concerning Oakland, its prides, its possessions, its delights, its loveliness, and its admirable characteristics. She would have us to know that there are wonder places in California north of that "Ridge." She evidently likened us in her mind to the Egyptians of old, whom the Bible tells us "knew not Joseph." She fears we know not Oakland.

And so we shall reprint what Mrs. Russell sends about Qakland. It reads as follows: Know Ye That;

Oexr,axo

Has the greatest land-locked harbor in the world. Has an avera.ge temperature within one point of being perfect.

Is the natural, inevitable distributing point for the Western World.

Is a city of unsurpassed scenic beauty.

Has the unique distinction of having within its boundaries a natural Redwood Park.

Has a 160-acre salt water lake one mile long in the heart of its down town section

Has a Sky Line Boulevard rated by Baedeker as the third finest drive in the world.

"A city where highways terminate and rail meets water."

"The Western outpost of a Nation."

Oakland's population has increased from 75,000 to 275,M in the past 15 years.

Its building record of $5,000,000 jumped to $24,000,000 in the last three years.

The home of Mills College, the only women's school of collegiate rank west of the Mississippi.

The University of California, largest university on earth, with a total enrollment of 25,W, four miles from Oakland's city hall.

(Continued on Page 44)

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