Summary: After growing up and attending college in Oregon, Donn and Arlene Black moved to California, where Donn started his law career. In 1967 they moved from Oakland to Lafayette. He became Lafayette’s first mayor when the city incorporated the following year. In this interview Donn describes how he and a small group of other […]
Upcoming Two-Part Speaker Series: The History and Tour of the Lafayette Cemetery
Listen to stories of pioneers resting in our Cemetery and then take a tour! The Lafayette Cemetery is the final resting place for Benjamin Shreve, the man who named our city, and Jennie Bickerstaff Rosenberg, Lafayette’s beloved pioneer school teacher. History comes alive at the cemetery when visiting the plots of a Civil War veteran, […]
From the Archives: Oliver Hamlin – April 27th, 1982
A speech given by Oliver Hamlin at the Lafayette Historical Society pot luck in 1982.
From the Archives: Joan Merryman – October 7th, 1976
Angela Broadhead interviews Joan Merryman about the book La Fayette: A Pictorial History on October 7th, 1976.
Oral History: Dr. Clifford Feiler – November 17th, 1979
Summary: Dr. Clifford Feiler, physician and civic leader, came to Lafayette in 1939. He talks about the small village where there were no banks and no bus service and where he was the only medical doctor. Oral History: Angela Broadhead: This is an interview with Dr. Clifford Feiler on November 17, 1979 for the Lafayette […]
Oral History: Andrew H. Young – November 11th, 1981
This speech by Andrew H. Young was delivered at the Town Hall building in Lafayette on November 11, 1981. Addressing a combined meeting of the Friends of the Lafayette Library and the Lafayette Historical Society, he presents a summary of his book, The Developers of Lafayette.
Oral History: Jack Marchant – November 30th, 1984
Summary: Jack Marchant and his brother Paul began building houses together in Kensington and North Berkeley at the end of World War II. They moved to Lafayette to continue this work in 1950. When Lafayette was incorporated in 1968, Jack was a member of the first City Council. The demand for new homes was very […]
From the Archives: LHS Potluck, April 12th, 1977 (Lou Borghesani and Mickey Meyers)
Summary: Lafayette in the 1930s and 1940s – speech by Mickey Meyers and Lou Borghesani to the Lafayette Historical Society, April 12, 1977. Transcript: LHS Annual Potluck 4-12-77 Mickey Meyers (Introduction by Lou Repetto) Lou Repetto: We have with us tonight two gentlemen whom I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for 28 years… that’s my […]
Oral History: Barbara Franke Boyle – March 4th, 2011
Barbara Franke Boyle came to Lafayette from Oakland in 1937, when she was 10. Her family had been using the ranch in the Happy Valley area as a summer place only prior to the that. They raised pears, and Barbara’s father operated the Walnut Creek Cannery. In the years that Barbara was going to grammar […]
From the Archives: Dedication of Peter Thomson’s Anvil
This is a recording of the dedication of Peter Thomson’s anvil that was conducted on May 22nd, 1970. If you stop by the history room, you can see it in person.
