page_title: Tilden Regional Park
section_title: World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Tilden Regional Park / History / World War II
caption_attribution_description: English: Tilden Regional Park little farm
context_page_description: Tilden Regional Park, also known as Tilden Park or Tilden, is a 2,079-acre regional park in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area in California. It is between the Berkeley Hills and San Pablo Ridge. Its main entrance is near Kensington, Berkeley, and Richmond. The park is contiguous with Wildcat Canyon Regional Park.
  The park is managed by the East Bay Regional Park District, created from the first land the District purchased in 1936.
  Tilden Regional Park was named in honor of Charles Lee Tilden, a Bay Area attorney and businessman who served on the first Board of Directors of the East Bay Regional Park District.
context_section_description: In 1942, at the onset of World War II, 72 acres (29 ha) of southern Tilden Park was leased to the United States government to construct the Grizzly Peak VHF Station. Beginning in 1944, the radio site served as headquarters for the San Francisco Control Group (411th Army Air Forces Control Group) that oversaw command and control for air defense radar sites across coastal Northern California. The site was also a VHF station for Hamilton Air Force Base. While the site was named after nearby Grizzly Peak on the border of Tilden Park and Oakland, the actual antennas were located atop Vollmer Peak.
  In 1952, the U.S. Army opened Grizzly Peak AAA Site No. 3 at the site near Vollmer Peak as an anti-aircraft installation. Two locations had a 90mm four-gun battery. The anti-aircraft installation was decommissioned during the Cold War as a result of the opening of the Nike missile base in adjacent Wildcat Canyon Regional Park. The land was returned to the East Bay Regional Park District in 1959. The Army Camp area of the Redwood Valley Railway is the former location of the installation's barracks and mess hall. A large concrete bunker still exists and is used as a Tilden Park maintenance facility.
  Camp Wildcat Canyon was used for convalescing soldiers during World War II.
  On September 7, 1942, the Richmond Shipyards Athletic Association put on a large scale Labor Day company picnic at Tilden Park for the thousands of workers and families of the Kaiser Richmond Shipyards. The event spanned the entire park offering a golf tournament, diving contest, band concerts, and dancing in addition to picnicking and sporting events. The event went from 8am-10pm, allowing all shipyard shifts to attend the picnic. Attendance was 10,000 people, making it the largest event in Tilden Park history.
  Nimitz Way, which traverses the park from north to south generally following the ridgeline of the hills, was named in 1955 in honor of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, former U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander. Originally built as an access road for the World War II and Cold War-era anti-aircraft gun and missile batteries in the area, Nimitz Way is now closed to motor vehicles and has been redeveloped as a multi-use path. Nimitz was known to hike in the area of Inspiration Point, spreading wild flower seeds, during the time he and his wife lived in Oakland at the Claremont Hotel and later at a residence in Berkeley.
caption: The park has a small farm called "The Little Farm" with various livestock
exif: {"Image Make": "LG Electronics", "Image Model": "LG Optimus Elite", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "158", "GPS GPSLatitudeRef": "N", "GPS GPSLatitude": "[37, 54, 35663/1000]", "GPS GPSLongitudeRef": "W", "GPS GPSLongitude": "[122, 15, 52651/1000]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSAltitude": "709/5", "GPS GPSTimeStamp": "[1, 55, 27]", "GPS GPSDate": "2013:09:19", "Image GPSInfo": "382", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2013:09:18 18:55:26", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2002:12:08 12:00:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FocalLength": "413/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2560", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "352"}