UC Berkeley’s Homecoming Week was happening a century ago, and numerous festivities and reunions were planned on campus. Among them was a big event in Stephens Union (Stephens Hall today) to honor California Gov. Friend Richardson — a Berkeley man — and UC President William Wallace Campbell.
A century ago, local clothing stores encouraged customers to buy new outfits for the Big Game between UC Berkeley and Stanford. This ad for Eastern Outfitting Companies ran in the Berkeley Daily Gazette. (courtesy of the Berkeley Historical Society and Museum)
There was also a “football dinner” in old Harmon Gymnasium, according to the Berkeley Daily Gazette, attended by some 600 alumni. They were entertained by speakers, a “burlesque on Stanford” and “novelty stunts.” Walter Camp, “the dean of American football critics” was an honored guest.
On Nov. 22, 1924, Cal and Stanford met for their Big Game in UC Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium (just as they will this weekend). Berkeley police Chief August Vollmer told the Gazette “he believed the football throng in Berkeley … will be the largest football gathering ever held in the United States.”
About 100,000 spectators were expected, with some 20,000 watching from the slopes around the stadium. The police were prepared with traffic control plans, as well as a special squad to protect fans from pickpocketers. Vollmer borrowed police officers from all over the Bay Area and as far away as Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle and Sacramento to augment his game day force.
After the game 12,000 vehicles were estimated to have come to Berkeley, along with some 60,000 streetcar riders into and out of town. Scalpers were reported to have sold tickets for as much as $25, generally at San Francisco hotels.
The Gazette reported the game day to have been warm and that “the hot sun and crowding in the stadium … resulted in one death and more than 100 persons fainting.” The death was a man who had a heart attack; there was no mention of which team he was rooting for.
And who won the game? It was a 20-20 tie. Cal would go on to play Pennsylvania in the stadium on New Year’s Day and finish the 1924-25 season with an 8-0-2 record.
Streetcar death: There was heavy fog in Berkeley on the night before the 1924 Big Game and a 53-year-old San Francisco woman was struck and killed by a Key System streetcar at Rose and West streets. She had apparently been running to try to stop the streetcar to pick up her party.
Milk war: The milk war continued into the third week of November 1924 with dramatic incidents. Early on the morning of Nov. 19, Frank Heath, who headed the Berkeley Farm Creamery, was shot at in a milk truck he was accompanying “from Mowry near Newark” to Berkeley.
“Bullets whistled around Heath’s head, and two steel jacket slugs were embedded in the driver’s set … a heavy fog prevented the guards from hitting any of the attacking forces.”
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Holiday tree: Berkeley was going to have a permanent Christmas tree planted in the then-city plaza at Shattuck and Center, the Gazette noted Nov. 22, 1924.
“A large Oregon fir, about 40 or 50 feet in height, is now at a nursery in (nearby) Niles,” the paper noted.
Population estimate: On Nov. 20, 1924, the Gazette carried a note that the Census Bureau had released its mid-1924 population estimate for Berkeley. The city’s population was said to be 64,602, which made it bigger than cities such as San Jose and Pasadena. Local Chamber of Commerce leader Charles Keeler asserted Berkeley had some 80,000 residents, though.
New pastor: The Rev. Laurence Cross was “installed pastor of the Northbrae Community Church” on Sunday, Nov. 30, 1924. Cross would later figure prominently in Berkeley history, becoming elected mayor in the 1940s, among other accomplishments.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.