OAKLAND

city, seat (1873) of Alameda county, California, U.S., on the eastern shore of the San Francisco Bay. Its site was once part of Rancho San Antonio, where Moses Chase leased farmland and laid out the town of Clinton (later named Brooklyn). In 1851 Horace W. Carpentier started a transbay ferry service to San Francisco and acquired a town site (1852) to the west of Brooklyn, naming it Oakland for the oak trees on the grassy coastal plain. In 1854 Carpentier and his associates extended the area and incorporated it as a city. Oakland and Brooklynseparated by a slough that had been bridged in 1853became amalgamated in 1872. Chosen as the terminus of the first transcontinental railroad (1869), Oakland developed its harbour. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake it received an influx of refugees. The 8.25-mile- (13-kilometre-) long San FranciscoOakland Bay Bridge to San Francisco (opened 1936) and military and naval installations (built in the 1940s) stimulated expansion; industrial growth has been heavy and diversified. A deepwater port (on an estuary between Alameda Island and the bay shore) covers 19 miles (31 km) of waterfront in the outer, middle, and inner harbours. On Oct. 17, 1989, an earthquake that measured 7.1 on the Richter scale caused major damage to the Bay Bridge and also caused a mile-long section of Interstate 880 highway (double-deck in some sections) to collapse. Metropolitan Oakland International Airport fronts the bay to the southwest. Lake Merritt, a saltwater lagoon near the central business district, is a wildfowl refuge surrounded by parkland. Jack London Square honours the author who spent his boyhood years in the city. Oakland is the site of Mills College (1852), Holy Names College (1868), California College of Arts and Crafts (1907), and Merritt College (1953). The OaklandAlameda County Coliseum complex is the home of the Golden State Warriors (basketball) and Athletics (baseball) teams. Pop. (1992 est.) city, 386,086; Oakland PMSA, 2,160,350. town, seat (1872) of Garrett county, extreme western Maryland, U.S., in the Allegheny Mountains near the West Virginia border. Laid out in 1849, after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad decided to build a rail line through the area, it became a popular tourist destination. Oakland remains at the centre of a resort and agricultural area. Trout fishing, hiking, boating, snow skiing, biking, waterskiing, hunting, and white-water rafting are local outdoor activities. Several state parks and state forests are in the vicinity, as is the Cranesville Subarctic Swamp. Inc. 1862. Pop. (1990) 1,741; (1996 est.) 1,800.