assurestay.com

Berkeley history: Peace emphasized on Armistice Day in 1934

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Nov 12, 2009 | by Steven Finacom

Berkeleyans commemorated Armistice Day 1934 with a two-day Nov. 11-12 series of events, culminating with the Armistice Ball in the Veterans Memorial building.

“Speakers at the flag-raising exercises in the morning yesterday and at church services in the evening emphasized the necessity of everyone, regardless of nationality, working for peace,” the Berkeley Daily Gazette reported.

Hollis Thompson, Berkeley’s City Manager, said “the beating of drums, the angry exchange of threats can lead but to one end.”

The lead in the Gazette news columns that same day noted, “dispatches from all points of the globe today reflected the continued festering of sore spots created in the World War which ended 16 years ago.”

The day commemorated the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918 when the Armistice that brought World War I to an end was signed. Years later, it was generalized into Veteran’s Day.

Italian books

On Nov. 14, the Italian ambassador to the United States, Augusto Rosso, visited the UC Berkeley campus to present “300 Italian books, beautifully bound” to the University Library. Professor Atrocchi, chair of the Department of Italian, thanked the Italian government for the gift.

Phone history

The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company held an open house Nov. 13-14, at its local headquarters, 2116 Bancroft Way. “Hundreds of Berkeleyans” viewed the facilities.

District cedar rapids chiropractic Manager B.A. Glover outlined for the Gazette in its Nov. 14 issue the history of telephones in Berkeley. Berkeley was the 13th city in California to have a telephone exchange, opened in 1882 in a drugstore at University and Shattuck.

Drugstores were often chosen for telephone switchboards in those days, he said, because they tended to stay open late, as “people trekked to the telephone office to do their calling.” Since then, the local facilities had moved seven times. In 1899, he said, there was one statewide telephone book, and Berkeley numbers occupied three pages.

In 1934, there were two telephone buildings (one still stands) between Bancroft and Durant, above Shattuck. Together they housed the switchboards for the Berkeley, Thornwall, and Ashberry units.

Younger “old-timers” will recall that telephone numbers used to begin with the first two letters of the switchboard. Thus, someone might give their number as THornwal5-4321.

Rail wrecks

Halloween night, 1934, there was a train accident on the Santa Fe line in North Berkeley