Before the colonization of the area by Spain in 1776, this area was the site of extensive native American settlements. Mudflats rich with clams and rocky areas with oysters, plus fishing, hunting, and acorns from the local oak trees provided a rich and easily exploited food source for the residents. They would dispose of their clam and oyster shells in a single place, over time creating a huge mound—the Emeryville Shellmound.
Emeryville was named after Joseph S. Emery. In 1884, Joseph Emery was president of a narrow-gauge railroad called the California and Nevada Railroad. The railroad originally intended to extend from Oakland, through Emery (Emeryville) and then east across the Sierra Nevada Mountains at the gold mining town of Bodie, California. From Bodie the railroad would extend east through Nevada to a connection with the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. Despite its grandiose intentions, the railroad only built from Oakland to Orinda and by 1903 was sold to the Santa Fe Railway.
With the late 19th and early 20th century urban development of the San Francisco Bay Area, Emeryville played a role as a naturalistic playground for the people of the bay. In the early 20th century, a large park, dance hall and fairground were built along the waterfront on the shellmound to serve as an entertainment and social spot in the area. On February 22, 1920 the first dog race track to employ an imitation rabbit opened in Emeryville. These have since been paved, with the shellmound hauled away for building materials—replaced in the early 20th century by heavy industry, including for a long time a paint factory of Sherwin-Williams (at the time easily recognizable for a large animated neon sign showing a can of red paint tilting, spilling, and covering a globe of the earth, with the slogan "We Cover the Earth"). It was also once the location of Shell Development, the research arm of Shell Oil Company, relocated in 1972 to Houston, Texas. The area has significantly recovered from its depressed post-industrial period.
The town is now a center for various research and development companies, drawing upon the bay area's well educated and experienced scientific, technical, artistic, and business workforce. With the reconstruction of the area from industrial to technical research and development, intellectual property creation, and "Big Box" shopping, there have been opportunities for anthropologists to re-examine the lower portions of the original shellmound and to excavate, examine, and re-inter elsewhere the contents of Native American burial sites in the area.
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