Question: Joan Merriam Smith began and ended her flight in the city that is the seat of what county?
Context: George Murrell Smith Jr. (born May 15, 1968) is an American politician.  Born in Florence, South Carolina, Smith spent the majority of his childhood Sumter, South Carolina, where he attended Wilson Hall School.  He graduated in 1986 and then enrolled at Wofford College, where he completed his B.A. in Forms of Government in 1990.  After subsequently earning his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1993, Smith began practicing law in his hometown of Sumter: first as a public defender and later as partner at Lee, Erter, Wilson, James, Holler & Smith, LLC.  He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives from the 67th District in 2001, and has held this seat continuously ever since.  He is a member of the Republican party. Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States.  A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth largest city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States, with a population of 419,267 as of 2015 .  It serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America.  The city was incorporated in 1852. Nathaniel Clark Smith (often Major N. Clark Smith; July 31, 1877 – October 8, 1935) was an important African-American musician, composer, and music educator in the United States during the early decades of the 1900s.  Born on the Army base at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Smith began his music education very early organizing bands in Wichita starting in 1893.  His strict military style leadership led to prominence and over the next 30 years he would lead bands in Chicago, Wichita, Kansas City, the Tuskegee Institute, and in St. Louis.  He was an important educator for many of the prominent early Jazz musicians from Kansas City, Chicago, and St. Louis.  He died in 1935 as the result of a stroke.  Many primary documents about Smith's life have been lost as a result of a fire that destroyed most of his personal documents. The Smith Farmhouse, also known as the Smith Homestead Farmhouse, is a historic dwelling located in Lake City, Iowa, United States.  This house's significance is due to its association with the pioneer Smith family.  Peter and Sarah Smith and their four young sons settled here from Cass County, Michigan in 1855.  Their first two houses were built on the same property to the north of this one.  Their first house and barn were log structures, and their second was frame construction.  What is now known as Lake City was chosen as the county seat for Calhoun County because it was the area with the highest population.  (It would lose that distinction to Rockwell City in 1876.)  Smith donated 40 acre of land for the town. Taylorsville is a city located in Smith County, Mississippi.  With a population of 1,353 at the 2010 census, the city is the second most populous city in Smith County, behind the county seat of Raleigh to the north.  Athletes such as Tim Duckworth, Billy Hamilton, and Jason Campbell are among the city's natives.  It is a bustling community, claiming most of the industry in Smith County. Joan Merriam Smith (c. 1937–1965) was an American aviator famous for her 1964 solo flight around the world that began and ended in Oakland, California, as she set out to follow the same route as the 1937 flight plan of Amelia Earhart.  Mrs. Smith had attempted to become the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by herself, but another woman, Jerrie Mock, set off during the same week and would complete the task earlier.  Already an accomplished pilot as Joan Merriam, she married Lt. Commander Marvin "Jack" Smith, Jr. in 1960. Geraldine "Jerrie" Fredritz Mock (November 22, 1925 – September 30, 2014) was the first woman to fly solo around the world, which she did in 1964.  She flew a single engine Cessna 180 (registered N1538C) christened the "Spirit of Columbus" and nicknamed "Charlie."  The trip began March 19, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and ended April 17, 1964, in Columbus, Ohio, and took 29 days, 21 stopovers and almost 22860 mi .  An almost forgotten part of this flight is the "race" that developed between Jerrie Mock and Joan Merriam Smith who had flown from a field near San Francisco CA on March 17, 1964.  Joan's departure date and flight path was the same as the aviator Amelia Earhart's last flight and though not in direct competition with each other, media coverage soon began tracking the progress of each pilot fascinated with who would complete the journey first.  The story of this race is told in a book written by Taylor Phillips entitled, "Racing to Greet the Sun, Jerrie Mock and Joan Merriam Smith Duel to Become the First Woman to Solo Around the World".  Jerrie Mock was subsequently awarded the Louis Blériot medal from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale in 1965.  In 1970 she published the story of her round-the-world flight in the book "Three-Eight Charlie".  While that book is now out of print, a 50th anniversary edition was later published including maps, weather charts and photos.  "Three-Eight Charlie" is a reference to the call sign, N1538C, of the Cessna 180 Skywagon Mock used to fly around the world.  Before her death, Mock, mother of three children, resided in Quincy, Florida; northwest of the state capital, Tallahassee. The Fulton Mansion State Historic Site is located in Fulton on the Texas Gulf Coast, in the county of Aransas, in the U.S. state of Texas.  It is one of the earliest Second Empire style buildings constructed in Texas and is one of the most important of the style in the Southwest United States still in existence.  Colonel George Ware Fulton and Harriet Gillette Smith began building the 4 story structure overlooking Aransas Bay in 1874 and finished in 1877.  The residence, dubbed "Oakhurst" by its owners George & Harriet, featured the most up-to-date conveniences for the time, such as indoor plumbing reaching sinks in every bedroom, gas lighting and central heating, along with three bathrooms and two built-in copper tubs. The Peter and Mary Smith House, also known as the Hopkins House and the Otto House, is a historic dwelling located in Lake City, Iowa, United States.  Peter Smith was a pioneer to this town and a prominent businessman.  He was involved in retail, banking, and real estate.  Smith and his first wife Sarah settled in Calhoun County, Iowa from Cass County, Michigan around 1855, and bought land near the present Smith Farmhouse.  He served as the first judge in the county when Lake City was the county seat.  Sarah died in 1875 while they were living in Glidden, Iowa.  After the arrival of the railroad in 1881, Peter and his second wife Mary moved to Lake City.  They built this two-story, brick, L-shaped house in 1887.  While it does not conform to any one style, it is primarily a combination of the Italianate and the Gothic Revival styles.  The Italianate influence is found in the bracketed cornice, segmentally arched lintels, wooden cutout designs over the windows, a front bay window, and the hipped roof.  The influences of the Gothic Revival style are found in the bargeboard and the roof line.  The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990. Tyler is a city located in central Smith County, Texas, United States.  In terms of both population and land area, Tyler is by far the largest city in Smith County, of which it is the county seat, and has long been the region's major economic, educational, financial, medical, and cultural hub.  The city is named for John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States.  Tyler had a population of 96,900 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau, and Tyler's 2014 estimated population was 107,405.  It is 100 mi east-southeast of Dallas.  Tyler is the principal city of the Tyler Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of 209,714 in 2010, and is the regional center of the Tyler-Jacksonville combined statistical area, which had a population of 260,559 in 2010.
Answer: Alameda County