West Berkeley

Coordinates: 37°52′28″N 122°17′55″W / 37.87444°N 122.29861°W / 37.87444; -122.29861 West Berkeley is generally the area of Berkeley, California, that lies west of San Pablo Avenue (though sometimes it may also refer to the larger area west of Sacramento Street though this includes Westbrae), abutting San Francisco Bay. It includes the area that was once the unincorporated town of Ocean View, as well as the filled-in areas along the shoreline west of I-80 (the Eastshore Freeway), mainly including the Berkeley Marina. It lies at an elevation of 23 feet (7 m).

The area's first inhabitants were indigenous people who settled along Strawberry Creek around 3700 BC. They built one of the largest – and possibly the first – of the 425 shell mounds around San Francisco Bay. Archaeologists estimate that native people lived on or near the West Berkeley Shellmound for 4,500 years, until the Medieval Dry Period. They abandoned the West Berkeley Shellmound around 800 AD. However, where the people went is still a mystery. They may have associated with other mound dwellers or left the area entirely. The extant Ohlone tribe may be their descendants.

Ocean View was the name of a stagecoach stop established by former sea captain William J. Bowen along the Contra Costa Road (today's San Pablo Avenue) in the 1860s. The name derived from the area's view of the Pacific Ocean through the Golden Gate across San Francisco Bay. The moniker was adopted by the settlement that grew up between the stagecoach stop and the wharf built at the foot of what is now Delaware Street. Ocean View was included in the incorporation of Berkeley in 1878 and thereafter was known as West Berkeley. The first mayor (technically, the President of the Board of Trustees) of the newly incorporated Town of Berkeley was elected from Ocean View, Abel Whitton of the Workingman's Party; he served from 1878 to 1881. Ocean View was also, briefly (1908-9), the name of what is now Albany, California, just north of Berkeley. Ocean View was primarily an industrial, working class community.

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