In subsequent years the relations between the city of Oakland and the Oakland Water Front Company were repeatedly subjects of most bitter controversy. Extravagant as had been the consideration of the grant to the Central Pacific for coming to Oakland, this matter was less serious than the circumstance that the control of the remaining water-front by the Central Pacific through the Oakland Water Front Company appeared to make it impossible for any rival transportation company to gain a footing in the city. The city long endeavored to free itself from this monopoly. It contended at one time that Carpentier had secured the election of his own agents to the board of trustees which had made his grant, and that in any case Carpentier had agreed to reconvey the property to the city. Neither statement could be proved. On the contrary, in 1897 the Supreme Court of California definitely pronounced the compromise of 1868 binding upon the municipality, although it interpreted the words “ship channel” to mean the low-tide line and not a depth of three fathoms at low tide as had at first been supposed.[139]
Water-Front Monopoly Broken
Ten years later the title of the Oakland Water Front Company was again questioned in a case brought by the Western Pacific Railroad Company. By this time two jetties had been built by the United States government extending the lines of San Antonio Creek westward to deep water. As a result of the deposit of material taken out of the channel of the estuary and placed north of the northern training wall, and of additional deposits from dredging operations conducted by the Central Pacific and by private parties, the line of low tide had been moved appreciably out into the bay. Under the general rule that accretions belong to the proprietors of riparian lands, the Southern Pacific, as successor to the Oakland Water Front Company, asserted title up to the limit of the new line of low tide. This claim the federal court denied. The limit of the railroad company’s property was declared to be the low-tide line of 1852, extending first northwesterly and then northeasterly from the mouth of the San Antonio estuary at Sand Point as indicated in the map on page 93.[140]
Map of Oakland and Brooklyn, showing location of Central Pacific terminals, 1871
This at one stroke transformed the Southern Pacific’s holding from a water-front to an interior location, by making it clear that the title to the substantial area between the bulkhead line of the city of Oakland and the low-water mark of 1852 lay in the city and not in private hands. The city had indeed given away its water-front as it existed in 1852, but the creation of a new water-front during the following years relieved it of the effects of its negligence. It thus appears that the alienation of the water-front of Oakland in 1868 did not permanently vest in the Central Pacific interest control of the tide-lands to which the compromise of that year referred. For the time being, however, the company secured a well-nigh complete monopoly. Not only had it convenient access to tide-water for its own trains, but it was able for many years to keep other railroads from obtaining a similar advantage. Up to this point, however, no arrangement had been completed for a terminus on the San Francisco side of San Francisco Bay.
Proposed Grant of San Francisco Water-Front