text: « Mountain View Cemetery's big knocker: old and in the way
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  As I find the time (or as the subject hijacks me, in this case), I sniff around for details of Oakland's rock quarries. There are a good two dozen of them. One I've always been curious about first appears in 1868 in The Natural Wealth of California, by Titus Fey Cronise: "The quarry from which the stone used in erecting the Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylum was obtained, is situated on Pryal's ranch, about four miles from Oakland. The supply of this stone is exhaustless." And William Halley's meticulous Centennial Yearbook of Alameda County, published in 1876, notes that Pryal sold the quarry to J. S. Emery, who was probably the Bay area's preeminent quarrier (and the eponym of Emeryville).
  This entry was posted on 21 January 2019 at 11:09 am and is filed under Franciscan rocks, Oakland geology puzzles, Quarries and mines.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  5 Responses to "On Pryal's quarry"
  Just wanted to let you know that I love these little Geology / Historic vignettes. I found the one with the pipeline explosion in Canyon amazing. Really amazes me the way things used to be done around here. Always look forward to the reads.
  21 January 2019 at 2:23 pm
  Great post. I'm amazed at how much "stuff" has centered around the Chabot canyon over the years. The Hayward Fault, Temescal Creek, Lake Temescal, the PG&E substation, the EBMUD pipeline, the OA&E/Sacramento Northern Railway, BART, highways 13 and 24, and this quarry (and apparently, gold mine), all occupy/have occupied the same, what, one-mile radius?
  9 November 2019 at 2:09 pm
  So interesting. We grew up on Pryal Street from the very late 1940s until our home's demolition in the early 1960s to make way for the freeway. My father used to take me out with my rock hammer to look at rocks, I think up towards the end of Tunnel Road/Ashby, a small quarry-like place, in my memory.
  10 November 2019 at 10:29 am
  I never noticed Pryal Street! I see it used to be just a little east of McMillan Street, where the freeway runs today. Thank you for the first-person testimony.