A century ago Berkeley residents thronged the city’s downtown for the third annual Berkeley Fair. It “opened literally and figuratively in a blaze of glory” on the night of May 14, 1923, in a set of tents covering five acres on land at Milvia and Center streets.
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Local schools, churches and community groups also participated in the Berkeley Fair, with several days of entertainment and special events taking place and a stage featuring “continuous” performances.
A sampling from May 15, 1923, included the Emerson School “May Day Festival,” performances by the Berkeley High Boys’ Glee Club, the “Washington School Forestry Pageant,” the “Woodman of the World Drill Team,” Hawthorne School students performing “a European Geography Lesson interpreted by dancing,” movies and “Playlets of Latin, French and Spanish” by Willard Junior High students.
Public school classes of “millinery, typewriting, rug weaving” gave demonstrations, Berkeley PTA’s organized a cafe and “lounging room” for fair visitors, and the Red Cross ran a canteen selling “hot waffles, coffee, tonics and donuts.” On May 18 there was “the biggest pet show ever held in the West”.
Painter passes: Noted California painter Edwin Deakin died at his Berkeley home a century ago on May 14, 1923. Deakin, a highly accomplished painter, was one of the artists whose work popularized the history and study of California missions in the early 20th century. He painted marvelously detailed images of everything from European cathedrals to California grapes, as well as some of the most evocative images of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire.
Deakin, born in England, had come to California in 1870 and lived in Berkeley for 32 years as of his death. He owned property along the 3100 block of Telegraph Avenue, where he made his own home, had his painting studio and periodically exhibited his art. Although his house and studio appear to be gone, a large brown-shingled apartment building designed by his architect daughter, Edna Deakin, still stands at that corner (across from The Smokehouse burger restaurant).
Jail suicide attempt: On May 12, 1923, Edwin Alders, 44, shot himself in the Berkeley City Jail after being arrested on suspicion of selling stolen books. He had been arrested at a local bookstore by Berkeley police, whom the Gazette Reported had been “on the trail of a man suspected of book thefts for several weeks.”
Police took Anders to his rented room on Kittredge Street where he was allowed to pack some clothes to take to jail with him. Apparently he hid a “baby 22-calibre” revolver in a shoe, and the police didn’t find it when they searched his belongings at the station. Later than night the police on duty heard two shots and rushed to his cell, where they found him with “superficial wounds.” He then shot himself in the chest three more times while the police were trying to open the cell door.
Taken to a hospital, he was initially thought to be dying, but the next day the Gazette reported he was “likely to live” with bullets in one lung. His estranged wife had arrived from Oregon.
Mormon chapel: Berkeley’s Mormon residents, “of whom there are quite a number,” the Gazette wrote, gathered May 13, 1923, to help dedicate a 500-seat new chapel at Moss and Webster Streets in Oakland.
Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.
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