Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 137

Oakland 'Home' Of a President HERE'S a house still that Street standing in our West on fair Oakland Twelfth city might well recommend for preservation. It's a twostory frame dwelling where orice lived a man who became president of the United States. The house was once numbered 1077. Twelfth Street, but it now has the dual numbers of 1079-1081 Twelfth Street. In the latter years of the last century when the big house with its high porch and gingerbread decorations was number 1077 Twelfth Street it was the home of Herbert Clark Hoover who became the 31st president of the United States (1929-1933).

Herbert Clark Hoover was then but 22 and only a year out of Stanford University. That was in 1896 when he was just beginning a career that would lead him from his modest rooms in Oakland to the White House. That very same year Herbert Clark Hoover signed his name in the Great Register of Alameda County and cast his first vote in a national election. In the Great Register he appears as Number 8044; Herbert C. Hoover, mining engineer, age 22.

Following that identification is the additional information that he is "able to read the Constitution, able to write his name, and able to mark his ballot." After the votes were counted that year The Tribune reported on Nov. 4, 1896: "It looks as if Alameda County has again won the banner in the contest for the best Republican County in the State. Complete returns show a victory for William McKinley in this county by plurality. The county also returns a solid Republican Legislative ticket. ERBERT Hoover was the first president born west of the Mississippi River.

He was born in West Branch, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 1874. His ancestors had come to America from Germany. and had settled in Pennsylvania, then Ohio, and then Iowa. Herbert's parents, Jesse Clark Hoover and Huldah Randall Minthorn Hoover, had two sons and a daughter: Theodore, Herbert, and May.

The father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith. The parents of the three Hoover children- died when Herbert was nine years old. He then lived with his uncle, Allan Hoover, near West Branch. His brother and sister lived elsewhere. But here in Oakland the three Hoovers two brothers and sister shared the West Twelfth Street residence.

Theodore at one time worked as a printer for The was of 3 1079-81 12th Street was once 'home' wasn't a bit surprising that she was able to come up with a rare photo of Hard Luck, one of the favorite "oat burners" in Oakland's first horse car company. The photo shows Hard Luck in front of the Oakland Railroad Company's horse car barn at Temescal in company with, left to right, Peter Schulthise, Peter LePrice and Michael Irwin, all members of the horse staff for Oakland Railroad Company. "Those early day horses even had turn-in value," Virginia interjected smilingly. "What other piece of equipment could match the horse, turned loose at the end of the line to find his own way back to the barn?" Most rail fans are probably looking forward to a November celebration when another Centennial shows up on the calendar. It was on Nov.

8, 1869, that the first trancontinental train arrived -here. But AC Transit is devoting its Centennial plaudits to the horse car which, 100 years ago, swept Oakland off its feet. It was the horse car that maugu- E3 This one-time imposing house at une. In 1928 Theodore was dean of the Engineering College at Stanford. "Herbert began his engineering career as office boy for Louis Jannin, with a salary of $35 a month.

His place of work was at the old Jannin home at 17th and Webster Streets in Oakland. The house remained standing until 17th Street was cut through to Harrison from Franklin Streets some years ago," according to the late William Knowles, architect and pal of Herbert Hoover in college days. Hayburners URING a casual chat with exD newshound Virginia Dennison the other day I was reminded that' it was on the eve of Halloween 100 years ago that Oakland rolled out its first horse car, inaugurating a noiseless transportation system that was easy to feed, steer and operate. Virginia is now News Bureau Manager for AC Transit SO for a President of the United States rated an East Bay boom and the ancestor of today's publicly-owned 11-city bus system. TRANSIT'S history bookA let reports it took five years to get Oakland's first horse car moving.

Even at that, all was not smooth going, even at the last minute. On Oct. 29, the day before the inaugural, there was a ruckus when workmen tried to prevent the street car crew from laying Broadway rails across the train tracks on Seventh Street tracks that were soon to hum with the arrival of the Central Pacific's transcontinental train. But onlookers and police stepped in and the street rails were laid. Volunteers who helped got their reward: free horse car rides the first day.

A street car, powered by horses, had been proposed as early as 1864 by E. B. Wadsworth who had erected the Pacific Female College on a 30-acre campus on Academy Continued on Page 28.