ALVARADO MEMORIES

Alvarado grew as the combined effort of people of many cultural heritage.  Land was relatively  cheap by 1910.  The Spanish and Portuguese established their homes in Alvarado, working for large farmers and at the salt mills. 

Ben Matsumoto, well known in Union City because of his grocery store on Smith Street, was born in Alvarado.  So were his sisters, Grace Handa, Alice Motozaki, and Dorothy Matsumoto.  Ben remembers  there was a store on Smith Street, where the park is now.  Across the street from his store there was a whole string of gambling dens and a Chinatown.  People used to come out from Oakland in the evenings after work.  Then in the mid-1920's or so, the town decided to clean out chinatown so they vacated the prostitution and gambling house and burned the buildings down.