As many readers may know, Berkeley was famous in the tennis world in the 1920s and beyond. In August 1925, two major local players were competing in the National Women’s Tennis championships in Forest Hills, New York. Helen Wills was defending her 1923 and 1924 titles there. Helen Jacobs, the national junior outdoor champion, was a newcomer.
It was front-page news on Aug. 24, 1925, in the Berkeley Daily Gazette when Wills won once again. The paper reported locals calling their offices asking for an update on the score, “and in each case the caller expressed pleasure on learning the result.”
The next day, the Gazette editorialized that “anyone nursing the notion that Helen Wills is ‘slipping,’ that she is not the best woman tennis player the world has yet produced, can lay that notion on the shelf.
“Helen Wills is still a youngster in years. She has mastered the sport in which she is champion. … Unspoiled by the successes of three years’ championship, she will return to her home in Berkeley the same modest, unassuming and withal charming young woman who went East a few weeks ago to demonstrate that she is what all real students of the game knew her to be — Queen of the Tennis Court.”
Car service: With automobiles growing in popularity and number in Berkeley a century ago, contractors and developers were busy adding service facilities to the city’s commercial landscape. The Aug. 25, 1925, Gazette reported that by a 7-1 vote the City Council had approved a proposed service station for the northwest corner of Dwight Way and College Avenue.
Two Ashby Avenue automobile service garages were also announced, one at the southeast corner of Ashby and Claremont avenues and the other west of College Avenue. The paper noted that the former property had been reclassified for garage use “several months ago” and that “property owners in the immediate vicinity were glad to sign the petition in order to have additional garage space in the neighborhood.”
Remarkably, both of these garage buildings, now a century old, still exist. The one at Ashby and Claremont still services automobiles as a car body shop. The one on Ashby west of College was renovated several years ago into restaurant and other commercial spaces.
Hill fires: Berkeley firemen fought “a fierce grass fire” in the vicinity of Euclid Avenue and Crescent Road on Aug. 21, 1925. About an acre burned, and the fire spread to trees before it was extinguished. Fire Chief Sidney Rose noted that a new 6-inch water main on Euclid had enabled firefighters to fight the fire effectively.
At the same time another fire was reported “back of the Berkeley Country Club” in the watershed lands towards San Pablo Reservoir. Berkeley crews and East Bay Water District employees fought that fire together. Meanwhile near Los Angeles, a 5,000-acre fire was burning in Big Tujunga Canyon not far from Pasadena the same day.
Hawaii flight: On Aug. 25, 1925, the Gazette reported that a much publicized “epoch-making flight of three Naval seaplanes from (San Francisco) to Hawaii” could possibly actually take off from Berkeley. “The planes require a mile of clear shallow water for the take-off, and it is believed that the Berkeley waterfront or San Pablo Bay present the most favorable spots.”
A Berkeley takeoff would not come to pass. Instead, the flight lifted off Aug. 31, 1925, from San Pablo Bay. It did not reach Hawaii in the air, however. One plane ran out of fuel and landed in the Pacific. Removing fabric from the wings, the crew improvised sails, and sailed 450 miles to Hawaii.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.