Oakland, California, real estate broker Fred Elroy Reed was the first chairman of the Oakland Planning Commission, a founder and first president of the California Real Estate Association, president of the Oakland Real Estate Board, East Bay Regional Plan Association Chairman, three time unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Oakland in 1923, 1961, and 1965, a driving force behind development in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood and other areas in the Oakland hills, and was recognized state-wide as an authority on city planning.
Primarily correspondence, strategy documents, and public communications relating to his unsuccessful campaign for Mayor of Oakland in 1923 and his role in fighting the proposed sale of the Southern Pacific-Golden Gate ferry franchise to the Toll Bridge Authority as means of refinancing the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Also includes materials relating to his career in Oakland real estate, unsuccessful campaign for Oakland City Commissioner, and poems by Reed. Correspondence relating to his political campaigns is included in the general correspondence, while the East Bay Regional Plan Association correspondence folder deals solely with the ferry franchise sale. Of note in the collection are: several tract maps for property on Manchester Drive, Redwood Road at Crestmont Drive (tracts 1494, 1896, and 1903), and Joaquin Miller Road at Robinson Drive; and a petition (and related exhibits) of the California Toll Bridge Authority for rehearing and redetermination before the California Railroad Commission (case no. 4204) regarding the ferry franchise sale.
Go here for a more detailed list of this collection's contents.
Available at Oakland History Center, Main Library.
