Test your knowledge of El Cerrito's history. Questions may have one or multiple correct answers.
You may enjoy reading the following notes related to the questions:
1. There was a dynamite factory near Albany Hill but it closed in the early 1900s and doesn’t appear to have been a major factor in influencing development. Some land was marsh in low-lying areas but again this doesn’t seem to have been a major factor either.
2. Stege Junction was in the northern part of town centered around today’s san Pablo Avenue and Potrero Avenue. Schmidtville was around today’s Schmidt Lane. Tepco was a ceramics manufacturer where the DMV is today but there was no Tepco Town. ‘Baxter’ is a known name in town today because of Baxter Creek but it’s not known who Baxter Creek is named after.
3. The dog track was on the site of EC plaza; dairies were all over but not here. Not that we know at least. There were several prizefight arenas in town but not here.
4. Many recycling centers predated El Cerrito’s by a few years, including centers in Palo Alto, Davis, and Modesto. It wasn’t even the first in EC; there was one at the old El Cerrito Co-op store!)
6. Bead Biz is the Nawata family’s former Japanese Laundry, an important remnant of the early Japanese in EC. Eagles hall is the former Wagon Wheel gambling establishment; Nong Thon was once used for prize fights; the dental office was once the It Club, a nightclub and gambling hall.
8. The Portola band room and the Fogerty home.
9. Isadora Duncan was a dancer of worldwide fame from Oakland; Maya Angelou, the author, was once a famous calypso singer and dancer in nightclubs; but though she lived for a while in El Cerrito, she probably never danced here, as dancing occupied an earlier phase of her career.