Schoolhouse Creek is the name of a creek which flows through the city of Berkeley, California

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

 in the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

.

History

The creek acquired its name from a school which was sited adjacent to it, the Ocean View School (the first school in today's Berkeley, established 1856 on land donated by José Domingo Peralta). The school was later replaced by the San Pablo Avenue School and still later, the Franklin Elementary School. In 2003, Franklin was closed, and in 2004, the Berkeley Adult School moved into its remodeled buildings. On this site at the corner of Curtis and Virginia Streets, a small park created by citizen volunteers, the Schoolhouse Creek Common, was opened on May 13, 2006.

Schoolhouse Creek rises in the Berkeley Hills

Berkeley Hills

The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that surrounds San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" , but with the establishment of Berkeley and the University of California, the current usage was...

 from a number of small springs just south of Codornices Creek

Codornices Creek

Codornices Creek , long, is one of the principal creeks which runs out of the Berkeley Hills in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In its upper stretch, it passes entirely within the city limits of Berkeley, and marks the city limit with the adjacent city of Albany in...

 and north of Cedar Street. Its principal tributary, Lincoln Creek begins in the hills at the top of Virginia Street. Schoolhouse and Lincoln have their confluence in the vicinity of McGee and Cedar Streets on the flatlands below the hills. From there the creek runs southwest between Virginia and Cedar Streets. Throughout most of its upper and middle courses, the creek is culverted. It emerges for part of the block between Sacramento and Acton Streets, above Chestnut Street, and again at Curtis Street. Where it crosses the old right-of-way of the Santa Fe railroad, now a pedestrian-bicycle trail, a massive buried concrete abutment and culvert hide the creek.

Watershed

Originally, the creek flowed into the south end of a large, northward-flowing salt marsh and slough that also carried waters of Codornices

Codornices Creek

Codornices Creek , long, is one of the principal creeks which runs out of the Berkeley Hills in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In its upper stretch, it passes entirely within the city limits of Berkeley, and marks the city limit with the adjacent city of Albany in...

 and Marin Creeks to San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

. West of this marsh, low dunes and a crescent of sandy beach curved northwest to Fleming Point. But the marsh was filled, the creek was channeled into a pipe that also carried sewage to the Bay, and the shoreline was extended westward with Berkeley's garbage.

East Bay Municipal District intercepted the sewage in the late 1940s, but the creek still flows in the pipe just north of and parallel to Virginia Street, reaching San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay

San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...

 in the squared off "North Basin" that was destined to be filled by more garbage, before citizen effort halted Bay fill in the 1960s.

This shoreline is now part of Eastshore State Park

Eastshore State Park

Eastshore State Park is a state park and wildlife refuge along the San Francisco Bay shoreline of the East Bay between the cities of Richmond, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland. It encompasses remnant natural wetlands, restored wetlands as well as landfill west of the Eastshore Freeway. It...

, managed by East Bay Regional Park District

East Bay Regional Park District

The East Bay Regional Park District is a special district operating in Alameda County and Contra Costa County, California, within the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area...

. The long-term plan for the park contemplates daylighting the creek here to create a small salt marsh that would also lessen flood danger in West Berkeley. Friends of Five Creeks, a volunteer group, does maintenance and revegetation work in this area.

See also

• Codornices Creek
  Codornices Creek
  Codornices Creek , long, is one of the principal creeks which runs out of the Berkeley Hills in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In its upper stretch, it passes entirely within the city limits of Berkeley, and marks the city limit with the adjacent city of Albany in...
  
  
• List of watercourses in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Strawberry Creek
  Strawberry Creek
  Strawberry Creek is the principal watercourse running through the city of Berkeley, California. Two forks rise in the Berkeley Hills of the California Coast Ranges, and form a confluence at the campus of the University of California, Berkeley...
  
  
• Temescal Creek

Links

• Schoolhouse Creek - Friends of Five Creeks information on restoration and access of Schoolhouse Creek mouth.