# Berkeley, a Look Back: City launches big vehicle safety program in 1926 > Source: > Published: 2026-07-07 12:15:01+00:00 **Getting your** [Trinity Audio](//trinityaudio.ai)player ready...A century ago, the Berkeley Daily Gazette ran a story headlined “Sirens Shriek Start of City Safety Drive” on July 8, 1926. Berkeley had organized a big effort “to bring home to every motorist and pedestrian that the campaign to save local lives is underway.” By the mid-1920s, private automobiles had only been around in large numbers for less than a decade, and cities, including Berkeley, were still working out how to accommodate them and address traffic safety. As part of the city’s public campaign, July 9 was designated “Boulevard Stop Day,” referring to now-common red stop signs that were new and unfamiliar in the 1920s. There was also a parade led by Berkeley’s mayor and a U.S. Navy band that included “floats, trucks, automobiles and marchers on foot.” The contingents included wrecked cars being towed, “followed by ambulances and a morgue wagon,” showing the consequences of traffic accidents. While Berkeley was trying to manage the increase in motor vehicle traffic in 1926, it was also avidly promoting measures that would bring more vehicles to town. One was the effort of East Bay manufacturers to turn certain streets in Oakland, Emeryville, and Berkeley into a thoroughfare to carry heavy truck traffic serving factories near San Francisco Bay. Other proposals were to further develop Wildcat Canyon Road and the “Fish Canyon” road to make driving into Berkeley easier for people living beyond the hills. All of these efforts would ultimately bring more motor vehicles onto Berkeley streets, where, hopefully, their drivers would respect stop signs. **New homes:** A July 10, 1926, article reported that “larger and more expensive homes” were being built in Berkeley. A “Mediterranean-style” house in the 1923 fire area was used as an example of a typical new architectural type “ideal for Berkeley” because of its climate. **Richmond mayor:** Nearby Richmond had its first woman mayor in 1926, Mrs. Mattie Chandler, and the Gazette ran a July 8 interview with her. She had been previously elected to Richmond’s City Council for a six-year term and, having recently been appointed mayor, told the interviewer, “my hopes are centered on bringing new industries, factories and people to Richmond.” The reporter then diverted the article to describing her appearance (“wears her hair bobbed, her skirts short, yet long enough to be becoming to her middle years”), her views on smoking (she didn’t smoke but had no problem with other women smoking) and relations between young people (she was in favor of mothers “remain(ing) companions to their daughters” and against “petting” in parked cars.) **Young explorer:** On July 9, 1926, Owen Sigman Hayes, 13, of Pasadena, was brought to the Berkeley police station by a truck driver whom the boy had asked to give him a ride to Sacramento. Hayes had apparently started out, with a dollar given him by his mother for groceries, to travel around the world. He had arrived in the Bay Area by hitchhiking over three days. **Early plantings:** A UC researcher, Professor G.W. Hendry, of the university’s College of Agriculture, reported in the July 9, 1926, Gazette about research on the arrival of European plants on the West Coast. He had explored ruined missions in Baja California to locate organic items (including animal bones, straw and other plant material) that had been used as binders in adobe bricks made before 1700. He brought back “several sacks of seeds, straw and refuse found in the bricks” to analyze them and identify the plant species. **Eclipse:** At 3:18 p.m. July 9, 1926, a partial eclipse was visible over Berkeley, with the moon obscuring about a third of the sun. *Bay Area native and Berkeley community historian Steven Finacom holds this column’s copyright.*