Dimond History
- Richard Dimond
- Tim Chapman
Richard Dimond Tim Chapman "But the name that stuck to the district was that of a nouveau-arrivé Irish liquor wholesaler who settled on the old Luelling property in 1877. Hugh Dimond was born in County Derry, Ireland. He came to New York at age sixteen, and sailed for San Francisco via Panama when the lure of gold reached the east. By 1850 he was in the mines in Mariposa and Tuolumne Counties, and doing well. One source has him bringing out $100,000 from the mines, a sum which seems fantastic in view of his subsequent work as manager for the general merchandise firm of O'Sullivan, Cushman and Company in Mariposa and San Francisco. Later he was in the wholesale liquor trade in San Francisco, and served for many years as a director of the Hibernia Bank.
"Well off Dimond must have been, for the year 1873 found him retiring from business life at age 41. He decided to settle on the 267 acres he had purchased in 1867 in the Oakland foothills along Sausal Creek, an area including the Luelling spread near the cherry orchards and the hay farms. While the old Luelling house was being enlarged and refurbished for his family, he and his wife traveled in Europe. Daughter Nellie was born in Switzerland in 1873, and son Hugh in France in 1875, son Dennis back in Oakland in 1876. They moved into their new home in 1877.
"Eyewitness accounts tell us the home was an imposing two-story white wooden structure surrounded by a spacious one-story veranda. Dimond Avenue began as the carriage entrance to the Dimond place, which was situated just beyond the grove of redwood trees in today's Dimond Park.
"Hugh Dimond died in 1896. The next year his son Dennis moved the bricks from the old Peralta adobe along Peralta Creek up to a spot under the great "Dimond Oak" near the house and had a study fashioned from them. There they and the oak stand today, though the Dimond home burned to the ground on July 2, 1913, and the study was damaged by fire in recent years. The last Dimond family connection to the district was severed in 1917, when the Dimond children sold the remaining twelve acres to the City of Oakland
I am interested in the history and where the name of your
organization/neighborhood came from.
The following is a quote from the Oakland Heritage Alliance News from the fall of 1986: