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| Affiliation | Independent |
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| Name | John L. Davie |
| Address |
Oakland, California , United States |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
June 24, 1850
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| Died | February 02, 1934
(83 years)
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| Contributor | Thomas Walker |
| Last Modifed | David
Nov 27, 2023 03:18pm |
| Tags |
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| Info | John Leslie Davie was born in upstate New York in 1850 and, too young to fight in the Civil War, took a job skinning mules on the Erie Canal along with deserters, criminals, and other toughs from that era. He went to Chicago to attend law school but he was burned out of his education by the Great Chicago Fire. He decided to go west with the skill he had learned to support his law education--meat cutting. The dreamed of establishing a ranch in Lassen County through he passed on his travels. He met entrepreneurs in a beer hall and was hired to perform on stage with one of San Francisco's numerous opera companies. He took singing lessons and earned the nickname "Tenor." About the same time, he resumed his work in the markets as a meat cutter. He also joined the national guard and fought the racist Kearnyitesin the streets of San Francisco. Within a few years Davie had saved enough money to realize his dream of becoming a Lassen County rancher and spent his summers in the northern Sierra turning desert land into a profitable ranch and building, by hand, a dam that saved enough water to irrigate his whole valley. His ranch became renown and a group of investors from Oakland visited him and made him an offer he could not refuse. Davie and his wife rented ten acres and a house in north Oakland to spend the winter. Soon he became restless waiting for the proceeds from his ranch and he bought a retail coal company and began to build a substantial business. He was offered an opportunity to get into the wholesale coal and salt business and he grabbed at it. It was with this venture that his great troubles and fame began. The old oyster beds in Oakland, where Jack London Square is now located, were for lease and Davie rented the land and began to build a wharf to land coal and other commodities. Within a few days, a crew of railroad thugs appeared and began to tear apart his wharf. They built a tall fence around his leasehold and allowed him no access. Davie strapped on his six-shooters and loaded his shotgun and took back his property without much objection. The great battle with the Central Pacific Railroad had begun. The railroad claimed that the entire Oakland waterfront was its property and that the Oyster Company had no claim to the property and that Davie was trespassing. Davie laid claim to the land by right of special oyster bed legislation and by right of possession. He lived on the waterfront property day and night for months, while the railroad attempted to land a barge on the property in order to occupy the land and make good its case in court. The night the barge was to be towed ashore a great crowd of Oaklanders gathered to watch what was predicted to be fireworks between the railroad thugs and Davie's allies, who included Jack London among others. When Davie succeeded in sawing through the chains that connected the barge to the locomotive on shore, a great cheer went up and citizens began the Oakland Waterfront Riot. They tore up the tracks and defiantly moved the small railroad station, intact, from First Street to the doors of City Hall by horse-drawn freight wagon. The citizens finally had some hope of throwing out the railroad controlled city government and electing an honest administration that would give them a fair shake. Davie won his case in court and regained access to the waterfront for the people of Oakland. He opened his wharf and landed the goods the people of Oakland needed. And he was able to sell those goods at prices which did not include the exorbitant railroad landing tariff. With his great success behind him, Davie began his own ferry company carrying passengers and freight all about the bay from Oakland. He set fares and freight rates so low that his boats became known as the "Nickel Ferries." The railroad still gave him trouble. Its slower ferries zigzagged in front of his boats in the estuary and its bridge tenders refused to open railroad bridges to Alameda when Davie's ferries signaled. After consulting with a maritime attorney he rammed and sunk a railroad ferry that was in his way. He also pulled down the Webster Street and Fruitvale Avenue railroad bridges when they would not open. He was never indicted for his rash actions and the railroad finally began to honor his rights of way. Davie was asked to run for mayor in 1895 by the officials of the new Populist Party. With but a few weeks left in the campaign only one candidate was left in the race. He was a businessman who was endorsed by the Republicans, the Democrats, and the powerful Municipal League. He was considered unbeatable. Davie began his campaign with a coalition of liberal Populists, small businessmen, union partisans, and residential coal users behind him. By the time the opposition recognized Davie's popularity, the election was in the bag. Davie served a two year term as a reform mayor and then left for the mountains to mine gold and to get mixed up in many adventures and civic ventures such as forming California's first consumer co-operative and solving the hobo (homeless) problem that existed during the early part of the century in Oakland. In 1915 the Republicans asked Davie, then 65 years old, to run for mayor one more time. Even after eighteen years of political absence, Davie's popularity was strong and he won that election in the primary, garnering a majority of Oaklander's votes. He ran three more times, each time winning in the primary. John Davie retired as Oakland's mayor in 1931, at age eighty-one, after serving sixteen consecutive years, eighteen in all, making Oakland into the great modern seaport it has become.
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