Children's Hospital

The site of this hospital began as the estate of Solomon Alden. At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the Temescal area was known as Alden because most of the land was purchased by Alden in 1854 from Vicente Peralta. Alden was initially a farmer, but as of the 1880 census had taken to calling himself “a capitalist” as a profession. The site of the Alden family home became the Oakland Baby Hospital in 1915, founded by Bertha Wright, a nurse, and Mabel Weed, a social worker. Hospital rates in 1914 were $2.50 for a private room and $1 for a bed in the wards. Families unable to pay were not charged a fee. Eventually, it became the Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland, one of the most important pediatric hospitals in the country.