Berkeley! How We Got Our Name

17 April – 24 September 2016
Berkeley History Center
Veterans Memorial Building
1931 Center Street
Berkeley

In 1866, the private College of California, predecessor to the University of California, was getting ready to subdivide and sell some of the land it owned north of Oakland and south of the college site to help pay for building a campus. The college trustees knew that a name was needed if they were to sell home sites. They had turned to Frederick Law Olmsted for guidance. Would we have been better off living in Shelterdue, Havensholme, or even Billingsgate, as Olmsted suggested? How did we end up with Berkeley?

This new exhibit at the Berkeley Historical Society commemorates the 150th anniversary of the official selection of the name Berkeley on 24 May 1866. Curators Steven Finacom and Phyllis Gale, using documents, manuscripts, diaries, maps, images, and other sources, follow a committee of college trustees as they gathered on Founders’ Rock, an outcropping now found on the corner of Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, to name the hamlet. It will retell the story of George Berkeley, how his name came to be attached to our campus and town, and who was involved in the naming.

Admission free; donations welcome; wheelchair accessible. Telephone: (510) 848-0181. Regular hours: Thurs.–Sat., 1 pm–4 pm. berkeleyhistoricalsociety.org