A century ago this week, Berkeley voters went to the polls May 6, 1924, for the presidential primary election and two consequential, hotly debated local initiatives.
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When the local votes were counted, the lumber industry had won in the fight over banning wooden shingles in Berkeley. After the city’s September 1923 fire, the City Council had approved an ordinance prohibiting wooden shingles on the exterior of buildings.
The lumber industry and makers of wooden shingles retaliated with a petition drive that put a repeal initiative on the May 1924 ballot. Despite considerable opposition from city leaders, the repeal won, carrying 71 precincts citywide. The 35 precincts that voted in favor of the shingle ban were in the fire area itself, other hill districts and the Claremont neighborhood, all of them at great risk from future fires.
South, west, and downtown Berkeley precincts produced the votes necessary to overturn the ban and allow continued use of wooden shingle roofs. From reviewing the arguments in the Berkeley Daily Gazette for and against the shingle ban, many “flatlands” Berkeley homeowners apparently were swayed by a lumber industry claim that they would have to reshingle their homes at greater expense with fire-resistant composition shingles.
The repeal of the shingle ban put a nail in the coffin — or maybe we should say in the shingle — of any substantive local reform after the 1923 fire. Although water and firefighting services were improved, no other major efforts were carried out to change the way Berkeley planned and built in response to the fire.
In the same election, voters by 10,039 to 7,986 rejected the initiative placed on the ballot by West Berkeley residents and businesses to end municipal dumping of garbage in San Francisco Bay. This would have far-ranging consequences for Berkeley.
From the early 1920s to the early 1960s, the city would fill a huge area of waterfront and there would be frequent proposals for commercial, industrial, residential or other development on that manmade land. Berkeley would not stop its garbage dumping and infill in the bay until the 1960s, after the Save the Bay Association organized.
In other election news, Berkeley — primarily a Republican town at the time — voted strongly for incumbent President Calvin Coolidge in the presidential primary. Nearly 11,000 local Republicans voted for Coolidge, against about 5,000 for California native son Sen. Hiram Johnson, who had previously been the state’s governor.
Flights regulated: In other municipal news on May 7, 1924, the City Council banned aircraft from flying lower than 2,000 feet above the city and from “flying over an assemblage” of people.
Telegraph store: On May 8, 1924, the S.H. Brake Co. opened their newly built store selling women’s clothing at the southeast corner of Telegraph Avenue and Channing Way. The two-story commercial structure still stands and is the home of Rasputin Records today.
The Berkeley Daily Gazette reported on the May 1924 opening of this commercial building at Channing Way and Telegraph Avenue. The building houses Rasputin Records today. (Berkeley Historical Society and Museum)
Hume leaving: The Gazette reported May 2, 1924, that Samuel Hume, an “assistant professor of dramatic literature and director of the Greek Theatre … has resigned and will leave the university in August.” Hume is primarily remembered today for his striking home, the “Hume Cloister” on the hills north of the UC Berkeley campus.
That was still in the future in 1924, as was his marriage to psychologist Portia Bell. In 1924, Hume was primarily known for his enthusiastic promotion of the dramatic arts in Berkeley, including his leadership of programming at the Greek Theatre from 1918 to 1924. Before leaving Berkeley, he was scheduled to direct a final Greek Theatre production of “The Twelfth Night” at the end of May 1924.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.