Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 121

ft 5: AY ST 9 cr 3 he had seen Prince Co. on Contra Costa County's 1853 assessment and tax rolls. This bit of checking brought Elk Horn to life again. The assessment list recorded: "Prince ST Elk Horn, 320 acres of land valued at $5,000 plus $2,000 worth of improvements." Elk Horn had been in the redwoods all the time. TT) I i rvP 'V, THK SOLE clue to rediscovering Elk Horn was the name of the lumbering firm of Prince Company.

Actually, Frickstad was on the verge of placing Elk Horn where it rightfully belonged during his research a decade ago. "There is no record," he wrote, "of a post office to serve the camps and mills in the Redwood Canyon area, although voting places were established." Elk Horn had been established by the appointment of John Mayo on May 7, 1852, and his compensation dates from Nov. 1. From then to June 30, 1853, he was allowed $1 64 compensation, the net to the Post Office Department being $1.75. The office was officially discontinued Dec.

13, 1853. "Inquiry so far as failed to locate the site of the office, or the reason for its establishment." Frickstad continued. "Often the name of the Postmaster furnished a Continued on Page 14 -I 1869 White picket fence of George Potter's garden dominates Telegraph Avenue and Broadway Stein Jr. of Berkeley, one of the founders and leaders of the Contra Costa County Historical Society, took up the search. Stein recalled introduced as founders of Prince's lumber mill in the middle redwoods along San Leandro Creek in 1852.

It was at that point that Louis L. Mi! 'hiviffyr AKLAND was only a few Odays old back in May of 1852 when a neighboring post office called Elk Horn was established. Oakland's own post office was. still known as Contra Costa at the. time and would continue under that name for two more years until March 2, 1855 before it would be known officially as Oakland.

In th meantime the little post office of Elk Horn folded up. Somehow or other it seems that everybody forgot all about it. Ten years ago when the late Walter N. Frick-stad was preparing his book on "A Century of California Tost Offices" there wasn't anyone around who could tell him where Elk Horn had once stood Even though Frirkstad search was thorough he had to put his book to press with Elk Horn's location a question mark. It was the belief of most historians professional as nell as amateur that Elk fern must have stood somewhere on the Contra Costa shores of San Franci.co Bay, inasmuch as it was only natural that early communities and post offices should be set up along the waterfront where lines of communication could be readily established.

Thus it remained until a few works ago when The Knave called attention on this page to the work of Sherwood D. Burgess on "The Forgotten Redwoods of the East Bay." The names of William C. Trince and Thomas B. Prince were jT- ll I LiLJ Hi 1 nr 1965 Buildings soar skyward and department stores now blossom where Potter's garden stood.