Idora Park - History

History

The Realty Syndicate constructed the park in 1903 on a site of Ayala Park that included an opera house, ranchlands and greenhouses on the north banks of Temescal Creek. Rodney Ingersoll erected the first figure eight "sky railway" on the site in 1903. Idora Park was leased by the Ingersoll Pleasure and Amusement Park Company that ran several eastern pleasure parks and originally the name was to be Kennywood Park (the name of an amusement park in Pennsylvania). It was reported that Mr. Ingersoll named the park after his daughter, Idora, but there is some question about the name because of the park with the same name, Idora Park, located in Youngstown, Ohio. That park was said to have been named either by a contest winner claiming, "I adore it!" or after a local Indian tribe.

The Realty Syndicate also owned and operated what later became known as the Key System transit company, the Claremont Hotel and the Key Route Inn. Major partners of the company were Frank C. Havens and Francis "Borax" Smith, who earned his fortune in borax mining, subsequently investing it in transit, commercial and housing properties in the East Bay area.

Located on the block bounded by Telegraph Avenue, Shattuck Avenue, 56th and 58th streets in the northern section of Oakland, Idora Park was famous for its Opera house. Idora Park was a walled-in park and admission to the park was 10 cents and it was open thirty or more weeks a year. A man named Bertrand York managed the park from 1911 until its demise in 1929.

In the early 1900s, Idora Park was also the site of public demonstrations with lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flying machines including those by Frank Hamilton and David Wilkie, including a balloon-launched glider flight by David Wilkie in a glider designed by John J. Montgomery on February 22, 1906. Idora Park also served as the location for the final construction of The California Arrow, a dirigible built by Thomas Baldwin in 1904. On August 3, 1904 the first successful round trip flight of a dirigible in the United States was made by Baldwin with The California Arrow at Idora Park.

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, comic stars from the Tivoli Theater relocated to Oakland and renamed themselves the Idora Park Comic Opera Company. Shows like The Mikado, The Pirates of Penzance and The Wizard of the Nile were performed under the direction of Paul Steindorff in a large wooden opera house called the Wigwam Theater. Also after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake hundreds of displaced people camped at the park and the Pacific Coast League of baseball relocated to Idora Park. In 1919 when Oakland's own 159th Regiment returned from France, the Park was opened to the fighting men at no charge.