Rancho San Antonio
After contemplating a pair of Spanish land grant boundary markers erected in
1937 on the border of El Cerrito and Albany —
here's one from a previous Read the Plaque post
— I wondered if you'd find similar markers elsewhere on the borders of the old
Rancho San Antonio. And yes, the Oakland Tribune carried a couple of items in
1937 and '38 that talked about a project involving a Castlemont High School
teacher, the Boy Scouts, and the Oakland Junior Chamber of Commerce to erect
half a dozen markers commemorating the old rancho. One of the markers was said
to have been installed at Root Park, on East 14th Street in San Leandro — right
on the bank of San Leandro Creek, the southernmost extent of Rancho San
Antonio. So we took a drive over to see if the marker is still there.
It isn't -- or at least we couldn't find any sign of it. Instead, there was
an installation with a state historic marker along with several other plaques
installed in the 1970s. Looking at how the site is set up, you might assume the
historical marker above was placed there in 1970. But a picture in the San
Leandro HIstorical Society archives dated 1970 shows both the 1970 plaque and
the 1937 marker on the same bus shelter-ish structure. There's no sign of that
shelter-ish structure now. Perhaps it was done away with, and the 1937 marker
moved somewhere else, when Root Park was made over in the 1990s. Further
inquiries are required.
After all that, here's the plaque text:
California Registered Historical Marker No. 246
Plaque placed by the state Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the city of San Leandro, the Club Iberia Español, the Sociedad de Agustina de Aragon and the Supreme Council U.P.E.C, March 14, 1970. (U.P.E.C. is União Portuguesa do Estado da Califórnia, the Union of the State of California).
Submitted by @danbrekke