855 Cedar Street, Alameda, CA
Dutch Colonial Revival: Completed on August 1, 1899
Builder: Charles Bolin
Architect: Henrietta Theresa Schermerhorn Speddy
Original Owner: Mr. and Mrs. Thomas H. Speddy
Lot 23, Block C, Bellevue Tract
In 1850, Mark Hopkins and E.H. Miller, Jr. opened their wholesale grocery business in Placerville. It is this early collaboration that ultimately led Miller to become an officer and a director of the Central Pacific Railway. Miller was thus able to make a personal purchase of land in The Lands Adjacent to the Town of Encinal in the present-day Alameda.
In 1850, Mark Hopkins and E.H. Miller, Jr. opened their wholesale grocery business in Placerville. It is this early collaboration that ultimately led Miller to become an officer and a director of the Central Pacific Railway. Miller was thus able to make a personal purchase of land in The Lands Adjacent to the Town of Encinal in the present-day Alameda.
Miller laid out the land and on July 21st, 1885, he filed the “Map of the Bellevue Tract” in the office of the County Recorder of Alameda County. Lot 23 of Block C in the Bellevue Tract was later identified as 855 Cedar St.
The Golden Spike
E. H. Miller, Jr.'s name is engraved on the Golden Spike at Promontory Summit, Utah along with his colleagues, Leland Stanford, C. P. Huntington, E. B. Crocker, Mark Hopkins, A. P. Stanford and Chas Crocker.
Thanks to the KITTERMAN family for their family photos, stories, and enthusiasm for this project;
to the descendants of Thomas and Theresa SPEDDY;
and to George Gunn, Curator of the Alameda Museum.