There are three stone circles — little henges — on Lakeshore Boulevard, one close to El Embarcadero by the library and two up close to Mandana. All of them have the identical stones, supposedly from the identical supply.
The primary one everyone knows, however perhaps not its title: Astro Circle.
It’s a big ring of stones in Eastshore Park, 120 toes throughout, with a tree, swings, slides, a water fountain and a pleasant new rest room on the sidewalk. It was devoted in 1968, on the peak of Apollo fever, and sported varied space-related options together with a metal “flying saucer” comprised of a boiler tank by town parks division. (Learn extra over on the Oakwiki.) Additionally this concrete “moon cheese climber” that if something has gained in attraction through the years.
The opposite two, in skinny little Mandana Plaza Park, on Lakeshore between Mandana Boulevard and Prince Road, are a lot smaller.
The plaque there, positioned in 1958 by the native Kiwanis Membership, calls the 2 rings a “Artistic Play Space.” The set up dates from the identical interval as The Factor in Lakeside Park, when progressive thinkers had been reimagining youngsters’s play as autos for cognitive and bodily enrichment. A Tribune article from the time tells extra in regards to the scheme, which was referred to as “Simply Think about!” and initially had three rings and a way more elaborate set of options. Does anybody have previous photographs of this stuff?
However sure, I’m right here to speak in regards to the rocks. All three circles are made of enormous blocks of reduce and dressed sandstone. Particularly, it’s a medium to coarse grained lithic arenite (principally clear quartz) with sparse gravel clasts. The grains are angular and subangular, suggesting a close-by supply in granitic basement rocks. This block at Astro Circle shows a big mudstone clast; others characteristic small siliceous pebbles and holes the place shale clasts apparently eroded out.
It’s first rate materials, not ok for monuments however fairly satisfactory. The blocks are expertly dressed, to evaluate by the device marks, and had been clearly salvaged from a demolished constructing.
The newspapers report in each circumstances that these blocks had been as soon as a part of the previous Oakland Excessive Faculty (1871-95), and had been supposedly introduced “around the Horn” from Indiana.
It’s believable that they got here from Oakland’s first highschool, a high-quality previous constructing at Market and twelfth that town was very happy with.
Bancroft Library picture
The stones would have come from components of the experior like window ledges, pediments, lintels and archways. Many of the constructing was most likely confronted with timber. I’ve discovered no file of its building particulars within the newspapers.
It’s believable that the parks division rescued the stones and left them in a boneyard for sixty years till the enterprising Amedee Sourdry discovered a brand new use for them. (I feel his company was behind the recycled boulders of Lakeside Park, too.)
Nevertheless, I can’t vouch for the bit about Indiana sandstone coming by sea across the Horn, particularly (as some say) within the type of ship’s ballast. I don’t know sufficient but to say for certain, however Indiana was extra of a coal-producing state than a stone-quarrying state on the time. I can also’t fairly sq. the character of the sandstone with the geology of the state. It’s extra like a California-style sandstone.
I additionally really feel skeptical in regards to the economics of manufacturing this not-quite-premium materials, then delivery it to New Orleans for a protracted, perilous sea voyage to California. The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, so the varsity’s architects extra probably organized for a load of completed stone to be fabricated to order and delivered by rail. Perhaps even from Indiana. It could be bragworthy.
Simply stuff to ponder as I sit and watch the youngsters play on the moon cheese climber.
