Sun Staff Reports

Dennis Evanosky

The Alameda Naval Air Station opened on November 1, 1940. However, the Navy arrived in a city with an aviation history that stretched back more than 30 years to 1909 and Sunset Aviation Field.

Old Valentine cards used to range from the lacy sentimental to the sassy sophisticated. They carried on a tradition that began nearly 1,400 years before, when the first paper Valentines appeared.

Dennis Evanosky

Eric J. Kos

A life celebrated in glory for the United States, that of Marine Corps Pfc. Harold Gonsalves, began in Alameda, and ended far too early in the Battle of Okinawa during World War II. Gonsalves started life in the bustling little city of Alameda in January 1926.

When British-born Alfred A. Cohen built his railroad through Alameda, he turned to his friend and fellow countryman George Bird to build a hotel to house the men who built the line. Cohen and partner James D. Farwell built a second hotel across town to accommodate a wealthier clientele.

Dennis Evanosky
In 1916 Dr. Chauncey Penwell Pond and his wife, Josephine Kibby Pond, filed a plat map with Alameda County. They had purchased the Hawley tract on the east side of High Street south of Central Avenue.

Dennis Evanosky

Alameda news publishers — going back to the Encinal’s publisher Fred Krauth who piloted the city’s first influential newspaper in the late 1860s — become connoisseurs of local business.

Among the many fascinating lives that played out at least in part here in the Island City was California Pioneer Alonzo Green. Ship captain, hotelier and city trustee (City Councilmember), Green lived a long, notable life in part in Alameda as well as on Bay Farm Island.