PIDO to write history of Point Isabel for EBRPD

Point Isabel Dog Owners and Friends (PIDO) has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the East Bay Regional Park District (EBRPD) Regional Parks Foundation to document the history of Point Isabel, in advance of Point Isabel’s 50th anniversary in 2025.

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

The grant will fund photo rights, cartography, design, layout, and other development costs. PIDO board member Mary Barnsdale will research and develop the material – which may become a book or online story map – for free, working closely with EBRPD Archives.

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 a place where raw sewage was pumped into San Francisco Bay. Until relatively recent times, the point was a low hill jutting into San Francisco Bay. Beginning in 1951, half was flattened for the Stege sewage treatment plant (now East Bay Municipal Utility District’s storm water treatment plant). The other half was leveled to create an industrial park.

Aerial view in the 1960s, after Point Isabel’s hill had been leveled and a sewage treatment plant built. The empty space eventually became Costco, a bulk mail sorting facility, and Point Isabel Regional Shoreline.
El Cerrito Historical Society

Before the environmental movement gained traction in the 1960s and 1970s, more than a third of San Francisco Bay was filled 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 and new state regulations established the public’s right to access California shorelines.

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.

PI before mature trees, benches, or the Bay Trail. The low hills were contoured by the US Army Corps of Engineers.
EBRPD

The park district kept PIDO on a short leash during the early years. Gradually, PIDO worked up to a 10-year Special Use Agreement and having its own bulletin boards at the park. The Regional Parks Foundation’s grant to PIDO furthers a partnership that benefits Point Isabel, park visitors and, of course, dogs.

(Note that no portion of the grant will fund PIDO operations.)