Tilden Regional Park: Golf Course - Berkeley CA

City:: Berkeley, CA
Site Type:: Parks and Recreation, Golf Courses
New Deal Agencies:: Works Progress Administration (WPA), Work Relief Programs
Started:: 1936
Completed:: 1937
Quality of Information:: Very Good
Marked:: No
Site Survival:: Extant

Description

The Tilden Park golf course was constructed by the the East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD) with aid of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief labor in 1936-37.

WPA workers first uprooted 20,000 eucalyptus from former plantations of the trees in the Berkeley Hills. Then they prepared the land and laid out the course. It opened in November 1937.

Of the total cost of $173,000, abut $139,000 was paid out of WPA funds. The rest came from the Parks District.

The course was designed by William Bell, a nationally prominent golf course architect, who was assisted by Richard Walpole, who later became manager of the EBRPD.

Source notes

Berkeley Historical Society Newsletter, 20:3, Fall 2001.

Elbert Vail, The Early Story of the East Bay Regional Parks. Unpublished manuscript, available at East Bay Regional Parks District archives.

Elbert Vail, Progress Report, c 1940, available at East Bay Regional Parks District archives

Elbert Vail, 1940 Master Plan. Oakland CA: East Bay Regional Parks District, 1940, available at East Bay Regional Parks District archives

Amanda Sue Marshall, "WPA and CCC worksites in East Bay Regional Parks," research report for Living New Deal, January 2, 2012.

Mimi Stein, A Vision Achieved:Fifty Years of the East Bay Regional Parks District. Oakland CA: East Bay Regional Parks District, 1984. @ https://www.ebparks.org/civicax/filebank/blobdload.aspx?BlobID=25719

Brechin, Gray. 2008. "Forgotten Foundation". Bay Nature Magazine. January 1. https://baynature.org/articles/jan-mar-2008/forgotten-foundation

Smith, Harvey. 2014. Berkeley and the New Deal. Charleston SC: Arcadia Books.

Amanda Sue Marshall, The East Bay Hills: A Brief History. Charleston SC: The History Press, 2017.

Site originally submitted by Shaina Potts on August 25, 2010.
Additional contributions by Richard A Walker.