Transitions: From Benicia to Oakland, From Seminary to College As Mills College currently faces a major change, the Quarterly takes a look at some of the other transitions the College has experienced over the course of its esteemed 170-year history. This is the first story in a series of three. By Moya Stone, MFA ’03
The Beginning
onto the brand-new campus,
On a summer day in 1865, Cyrus
and the young women let out
Mills and his wife, Susan, fresh
a “ladylike” cheer when they
from missionary work abroad,
first glimpsed their new home.
traveled to San Francisco with
Dubbed an “imposing struc-
the intent of buying a school.
ture” by the local press, the
With state universities still just
state-of-the art building could
beginning, private academies and
accommodate
seminaries were popping up all
and offered high ceilings, wide
over California. These institutions
stairways, and sunny rooms—
were often founded by evangelical
which included gas and sinks
200
students
with running water! At the
groups and modeled after wellestablished schools on the East Coast,
site, and Cyrus almost immediately began
time this impressive construction, even-
offering basic education as well as music
looking across the Carquinez Strait into
tually to be named Mills Hall, was consid-
and art.
Contra Costa County and beyond. The
ered the “finest for school purposes this side of the Rocky Mountains.”
When Cyrus and Susan arrived, they
couple first purchased seven and a half
were presented with a possible sale by
acres near what later became Lake Merritt,
Addie Justina Mason, Class of 1876,
Mary Atkins, whom they had met the year
but quickly determined it was too close to
recounted their arrival in her Mills remem-
before while she was passing through
the “village of Oakland,” according to Elias
brances: “I can still smell the tar weed
Hawaii on her way to China. Atkins was the
Olan James in his 1953 book, The Story of
of the surrounding fields and hillsides.
first individual head of the Young Ladies’
Cyrus and Susan Mills.
That lovely sunny day of the opening of
Seminary, founded by Protestant men in
Cyrus wanted space, and a 25-acre tract
Mills Seminary, we all came chattering in
1852 and located in Benicia, the Solano
with two streams running through it along
through the middle front door. Mrs. Mills
County town that served as the capital of
the old San Leandro Road kept drawing
came out to greet us, though she was
California from 1853–1854. From its earli-
the couple’s attention. Groundbreaking
a very busy woman, for many mothers
est days, the Seminary attracted an array
took place in June 1870, and at graduation
accompanied their offspring and [...] beds
of young women from the Mother Lode
in Benicia the next year, he announced the
and meals had to be prepared for them.”
region in the Sierra foothills as well as
next school year would begin two months
Sacramento, Stockton, and San Francisco.
later at the new site 30 miles south.
Enrollment ebbed and flowed, rising to as
The move from Benicia to what was then called Seminary Park, Brooklyn (five miles from Oakland), was a major
many as 149, all housed in one building.
The Move
Students took “preparatory” classes such
It was a warm day in late July 1871 when
were going from a house-turned-school
as geography, US history, and English
students from the Young Ladies Seminary,
in a bustling village to a spacious man-
composition. In her 1946 book Fourscore
along with teachers and staff, took the
sion, topped with a bright blue cupola,
and Ten Years: A History of Mills College,
arduous journey by two trains from
in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps there
Rosalind Keep wrote: “The seminary cur-
Benicia to Oakland. Once at the Seminary
were a few reservations; Seminary stu-
riculum was a forerunner of today’s junior
Park Railroad Station (near the modern-
dent (and future Mills College President)
college requirements.”
day neighborhood of Melrose), some stu-
Luella Clay Carson said of the move,
Eager to sell, Atkins anxiously courted
dents rode in carriages, but others walked
“There is always something to regret
the Mills couple, who bought Young Ladies
under the blazing sun, their long skirts
when leaving the old.”
Seminary for $5,000 and took it over at the
dragging along dusty roads as they took
Any regrets soon faded when the
start of 1866, thus beginning their lofty
in a vast open landscape, not the crowded
excitement of new opportunities set in.
plans for something much bigger than a
city of today. After a long three miles, the
Lizzie Trask Miller from the Class of 1873
seminary. Such plans necessitated a larger
caravan crossed over the entrance bridge
later wrote: “Can you realize what the
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M I L L S Q U A R T E R LY
transition. Students, teachers, and staff
