Oakland by James White

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 11, 1875

Oakland.

By James White

The city of Oakland, the pride of California, has become a point of especial interest to our people, as the seat of the Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association. In the center of this beautiful city we have a Publishing House in the form of a Greek cross, 66x26, east and west, and 46x26, north and south.

This building has two stories, a fine basement of great value for storing stock, and four finished rooms in the attic. On the lower floor of the building in the rear part we have two fine presses in use, driven by the New York Safety Engine which is located in a brick engine house eleven feet from the main building. The rooms in the two stories are large, and twelve feet from floor to ceiling. The indentations at the four corners of the building give the rooms better shape and more light, which is highly prized by editors, compositors, proof-readers, and pressmen. We are five blocks from the noise of Broadway, in a quiet part of the city. And as we do not covet common printing, our retired position is desirable for our own work and fine book and music printing from the outside, which is already pressing in upon us before we are fully ready for such work.

In this city there is a church of S. D. Adventists of eighty members. The conversion of these resulted mainly from a course of lectures in the Big Tent sixteen months since. And there are no reasons why a similar effort should not result in doubling our numbers here. Our relation to the temperance cause at the time of the “Local Option” struggle, when the tent was first pitched in this city, brought us before the most valuable part of the public in our true character. And notwithstanding the unpopularity of our religious sentiments, we enjoy the confidence and friendly feeling of the people.

The growth of Oakland is rapid. The School Census Marshal for the year 1875 reports that in June the population by actual count was 20,691, in 1873 the population was 15,387. This shows an increase of 5,304 in two years. Its increasing and ever changing population will make this city one of the best fields of missionary labor in the world.

The climate of Oakland is delightful. The water is good. The people attend to their own business and respect those who in a proper manner mind theirs. Probably there is not a city on the globe where the rights of men are regarded more sacred, and where property and human life are safer than in Oakland. The cheap labor of the Chinamen brings the services of common working white men at a low figure. Rents and fuel are too high for such in this city. And those men of small means and large families who cannot get a good living in the East would do worse in Oakland. And California is overrun with mechanics.

But the young cause in this city needs help from those who are able and willing to help. Men in advanced years, or in feeble health, who have made life a success, and have a liberal competency, live on the proceeds of property easier and happier in Oakland than in any other city of which we have knowledge. Having neither rents nor interests to pay we can print as cheaply in Oakland, Cal., as they do at Battle Creek, Mich. J. W.