Point Isabel History Project

Regional Parks Foundation Awards $10,000 Grant

*The late Roger Gies limbers up and salutes PI’s legendary fog. Roger and his dog Daisy, who passed a few months before he did, were long-time park visitors.*
photo by Mary Barnsdale

Point Isabel Dog Owners and Friends (PIDO) is administering a $10,000 grant from the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) Regional Parks Foundation to document the history of Point Isabel, in conjunction with Point Isabel Regional Shoreline’s 50th anniversary in 2025. Point Isabel Regional Shoreline is managed by EBRPD.

Mary Barnsdale, longtime park user and retired PIDO board member, is writing the history, with the help of contributing editor Eileen Cohen, and designer and webmaster Dave Emanuel. Mary works closely with EBRPD Archives. The project is a public service; Mary and Eileen are not paid, the grant does not benefit PIDO, and the history document will be available to all as a free PDF download. The money from the Regional Parks Foundation helps with costs including photo acquisition and rights, design, layout, duplication, supplies, and a website.

Unusually, feedback, edits, and additions to the Point Isabel history document are being solicited from the community during Summer 2025. The draft will be made available for crowdsourced review at www.point-isabel-history.org in July or August 2025. In 2026 the final document will be available as a free download from that site.

The Point Isabel area is rich historically. It has included Ohlone settlements, a Mexican rancho, a commercial ferry landing, a dynamite factory, a frog farm, and a gentleman’s shooting club. It was where raw sewage from the local community was pumped directly into San Francisco Bay and then the site of a sewage treatment plant. Seventy-five years ago, the point was still a low hill jutting into San Francisco Bay. Beginning in 1951, half was flattened for the Stege sewage treatment plant and creation of an industrial park.

Before the environmental movement gained traction in the 1960s and 1970s, more than a third of San Francisco Bay was filled in with garbage and debris to create landfill that could be developed. Three local women started Save the Bay in 1961; as a direct result, dumping stopped, environmental standards were established to preserve the bay, and new state regulations established the public’s right to access California shorelines.

Point Isabel before mature trees, benches, or the fenced Bay Trail bike path. The hillocks were contoured by the US Army Corps of Engineers to echo the hills of the original low, rocky peninsula.
Photo from *EBRPD*

When the United States Postal Service (USPS) built its Rydin Road bulk mail sorting facility in the mid-1970s, it had to grant public access to the water. In April 1975, USPS and EBRPD signed a 50-year lease for an L-shaped fringe of landfill around the postal facility. That became Point Isabel Regional Shoreline.

The park district kept PIDO on a short leash during the early years. Gradually, PIDO worked up to a 10-year Special Use Agreement that enables it to hold several events a year and have its own bulletin boards at the park, while obliging it to communicate park rules and encourage visitors to keep Point Isabel clean and safe. PIDO also donates at least $2,000 a year to EBRPD, to help cover the cost of MuttMitts. To date, it has contributed more than $60,000. The Regional Parks Foundation’s grant furthers a publicpartnership that benefits Point Isabel, park visitors and, of course, dogs.