Walking along Broadway or Washington Street between Eighth and 10th Streets in downtown Oakland can feel a little like walking back in time.

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Just a stone's throw from the business and government hub of City Center, across the street from a vibrant Chinatown and bordered by two major interstates, the neighborhood of Old Oakland has brick-lined sidewalks leading into grand Victorians that date back to the late 1800s.

"It's sort of odd that you've got older buildings and what appear to be older businesses that still exist in an area that I would have thought would have been bulldozed and turned into skyscrapers," said Spencer Barton, who lives around the corner from Old Oakland.

Barton asked Bay Curious: "What the heck is Old Oakland doing here?"

The Railroad Comes to Oakland

Today's Old Oakland was the heart of downtown Oakland in the 1870s. Before then, Oakland was a small town, dwarfed by booming San Francisco across the bay.

But in 1869, Oakland became the western terminus of the First Transcontinental Railroad, bringing a flood of new residents to the East Bay. The city's population more than tripled from 1870 to 1880, including a large number of African Americans who had recently been freed from slavery.

"On the weekends, if you wanted to stroll around and enjoy the fresh air and open space in an urban setting, you could do that in Oakland," said Annalee Allen, an Oakland historian who coordinates the Oakland Tours Program through the city's Cultural Affairs Department.

To support its growing population, a thriving downtown built up along Washington Street and Broadway, in what is now Old Oakland. Department stores, bakeries, tailors, offices, liquor stores, markets and more filled the street-level storefronts, with residential hotels occupying the upper stories of the neighborhood's grand Victorians.

The 1906 earthquake and fires that devastated San Francisco brought even more residents to Oakland, and as the city expanded its footprint, the center of town started moving farther uptown along Broadway.

