Founders’ Rock
Hearst Avenue at Gayley Road, Berkeley, CA
Susan Cerny
Photo: Daniella Thompson, 20073 March 2001
The University of California was founded in 1868, but its origins date back to 1860 when the College of California, a small, private institution then located in Oakland, purchased thirty acres of land for the “benefits of a country location.”
On 16 April 1860, the trustees of the College of California met at the location of Founders’ Rock to dedicate their new campus.
Among those present were the Reverends Samuel H. Willey, D. B. Cheney, Henry Durant, and Frederick Billings. Billings is credited with choosing the name Berkeley for the college, and popular tradition has him standing on the rock when the name Berkeley came to him.
In 1866, the California legislature established the College of Agriculture, Mining, and Mechanical Arts.
Two years later, with the passage of the Charter Act by the legislature, the new state college joined with the College of California, and the University of California was formed.
Founders’ Rock, located at Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, is a natural outcropping of unusual geologic composition that may have been thrust up by activity centuries ago on the nearby Hayward Fault.
It was once the most prominent feature in the surrounding landscape. The plaque commemorating Founders’ Rock was placed there by the graduating class of 1896.
Photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007This article was originally published in the Berkeley Daily Planet.
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Editor’s note: Many stories circulate about the naming of the town (read Berkeley: The Man Behind the Name by Alex Coolman, published in the Daily Californian in 1996).
The Centennial Record of the University of California offers the official story:
Founders’ Rock is located on the north side of the campus near the corner of Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road. On this outcropping, 12 trustees of the College of California stood on April 16, 1860 to dedicate property they had just purchased as a future campus for their college. In 1866, again at Founders’ Rock, a group of College of California men were watching two ships standing out to sea through the Golden Gate. One of them, Frederick Billings, was reminded of the lines of Bishop Berkeley, “Westward the course of empire takes it way,” and suggested that the town and college site be named for the eighteenth-century English [sic] philosopher and poet.
On Charter Day, 1896, the senior class commemorated the dedication of the campus by placing a memorial tablet on Founders’ Rock.
Photo: Daniella Thompson, 2007More information is provided in Chapter 3 of Sally Woodbridge’s book John Galen Howard and the University of California (available here in an html version).
The final stanza of George Berkeley’s poem
Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America:Westward the course of empire takes its way;
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The first four acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama of the day;
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
Founders’ Rock was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark on 25 February 1991. It is #82004642 on the National Register of Historic Places (added in 1982). Along with other historic features of the University of California campus, the rock is part of California Historic Landmark No. 946.
Copyright © 2004–2008 Daniella Thompson. All rights reserved.
