Oakland Geology

Oakland has not only rocks, but also stone to admire. The grand McElroy Fountain of Lakeside Park, newly refurbished and 100 years old this year, displays monumental marble to advantage.

Annalee Allen’s book Oakland shows the fountain and talks about its namesake on page 24, and here’s a Flickr page with some discussion of the project and a set of closeups of the bronze panels by Douglas Tilden around the fountain depicting stages of life (not McElroy’s life).

I didn’t find any information about the stone, but this grade of marble was easily available from domestic and foreign sources in 1911. Oakland was a big stoneworking town with many skilled European craftsmen, a major regional cemetery, a booming construction industry and good freight service by rail and sea.

This entry was posted on 29 June 2011 at 11:21 am and is filed under Oakland stone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.