HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUIZ 2: 2016

Reminder: Questions may have one or multiple correct answers.

1. Camp Herms in the El Cerrito Hills, a Boy Scout camp since 1930, is one of the most amazing spots in the city. One of its features is a stone-walled swimming pool that was built to resemble:
a: A 14th century French fortified hill town
b: The pool at San Francisco’s Sutro Baths
c: The Mayan temple of Chac Mool in the Yucatan
d: The Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

2. One towering figure in American jurisprudence played a lead role in halting gambling and vice in El Cerrito in the mid-20th century. Who?
a: Louis Brandeis
b: Thurgood Marshall
c: Rose Bird
d: Earl Warren.

3. Over the years, businessmen and other big shots from Berkeley have created institutions in or around El Cerrito that they wanted nearby – but not in their own town. Which of these is not one of those?
a: Sunset View Cemetery
b: El Cerrito Plaza
c: The sewage plant at Point Isabel
d: Mira Vista Country Club.

4. El Cerrito’s Recycling Center has long been one of the most popular, even beloved spots in town. Yet for a time it raised a major ruckus because:
a: Poor sanitation led to a plague of rats running into people’s yards.
b: Trucks and cars caused traffic jams and noise as they lined up to sell cans and bottles and paper to the recycling center.
c: An industrial sized glass crusher could be heard crashing and bashing from half a mile away.
d: The city council tripled garbage fees to pay for losses generated by recycling.

5. The first European, or American or Mexican, of European descent who is known to have visited what is today El Cerrito is:
a: Juan Cabrillo in 1542
b: Sir Francis Drake in 1579
c: Pedro Fages in 1772
d: John C. Fremont in 1847.

6. For many years we had an area called "No-Man’s-Land." Where was it and why did it take on that name?
a: The area west of San Pablo Avenue and south of Central Avenue, because of gambling and crime.
b: The area west of San Pablo Avenue between Potrero Avenue and Cutting Boulevard, because it was all flower growers and industrial.
c: The area of today’s Hillside Natural Area near the present Recycling Center, because it was used for quarrying and dynamite was frequently used to loosen rock.
d. The former rifle range area in today’s Wildcat Canyon Park, because of the shooting that occurred there.

7. Japanese flower growers based in El Cerrito and Richmond once made up an important business sector in West Contra Costa County. At least two structures associated with this era of the history of El Cerrito Japanese American community remain. They are:
a: The stone-faced structure just south of City Hall on San Pablo Avenue.
b: The cute but now unused, brick-faced former Bead Biz Building, on San Pablo Avenue across from El Cerrito Plaza.
c: What is now the Old West Gun Room on Carlson Boulevard.
d. The now-closed Trevino’s Mexican Restaurant on San Pablo Avenue in the north end of town.

8. El Cerrito Plaza has been the site for many important things – but not what?
a: The original Mexican residence in town, the Victor Castro Adobe
b: A thoroughbred horse track
c: A drive-in theater
d: A roller rink.

9. One of the major industries in town was TEPCO (Technical Porcelain and China Ware Co.) which manufactured dishware and much more for restaurants, individuals, hotels, even the military, from 1918 to 1968. Where can you go around here to find physical memories of this institution?
a: Where Central Avenue meets the Bay
b: At Sunset Cemetery
c: At the DMV Office on Kearney Street
d: At the foot of Motorcycle Hill.

10. The first dwelling built by people of European descent in El Cerrito, the Castro Adobe, from the 1840s, is no longer with us. Why not?
a: It deteriorated after years of use as a gambling hall and was condemned by the building department in 1947.
b: It was torn down after World War II to make way for the Motor Movies, a drive-in that occupied the site that’s now El Cerrito Plaza.
c: It burned down in 1956, shortly before the Plaza was built, in a suspected arson.
d: d. It was demolished by a firm that used its original bricks to reconstruct the Alvarado Adobe in San Pablo, where portions of the Castro Adobe can be admired today.

Answers: 1. c; 2. d; 3. b, c; 4. b; 5. c; 6. a; 7. b, d; 9. a, c, d; 10. c.