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There is an area in the East Bay that still has oak trees, tule elk, and lion mountains. It is called the Ohlone Wilderness. |
The climate was friendly and there was plentiful fish and game. Most importantly, there was water everywhere that the land was flat. There were springs, brooks, ponds, large lakes and creeks. These provided fresh water for drinking and flowing water for transportation purposes. Rivers and streams entered into the bay and fanned out into estuaries which supported large tule marshes. The Ohlone built boats from the tule and paddled around the estuaries, hunting and fishing as they went.. The edges of the bay held vast pickleweed and cordegrass swamps. Cordgrass provided what many biologists now consider to be the richest wildlife habitat in all of Northern America. In 1870, Oakland established the first wildlife refuge in North America at Lake Merritt. There were no others until 1903. The indian village located closest to modern day Oakland was called Huchiun.
It wasn't located exactly on present-day Oakland because when the Ohlone
settled here, the San Francisco Bay was much larger than it is today.
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