Oakland Scavengers History

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History of the Oakland Scavenger Company

The history of collecting garbage in Oakland, California, is a history of Italian immigrants coming to America and creating work to support their families in their new country. Through hard work and camaraderie, these unskilled immigrants provided the opportunity for hundreds of Italians in the future to truly create a story of the American Dream.

These immigrants began by individually picking up garbage with their horses and wagons. The first documentation of these immigrants organizing together took place on June 7, 1894. On this date, the Articles of Incorporation of the Scavenger Protective Union of Oakland, California.

The term for this corporation to exist is 50 years.

The first Board of Directors were:

On December 10, 1909, the name of the company was changed to the OAKLAND SCAVENGER ASSOCIATION at a meeting held at 435 6TH Street, Oakland, CA.

Among the changes in the Articles of Incorporation with the new name of the company was the reduction to five Board of Directors and one President:

These previous changes in corporate name changes were part of the evolution of these hard-working immigrants. The next change was created not by the maturation of this organization, but possibly caused by a worldwide pandemic that altered this association significantly.

In 1919, the collection of garbage in Oakland became severely limited, creating a crisis in the city.

For many years, the reason why garbage picking was severely limited was not clear, as the company's history, which was available, did not mention what had occurred.

The Covid epidemic of 2020 in America and the similarities of the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 spiked interest in investigating what effect, if any, the Spanish flu had on the City of Oakland.

The Spanish flu of 1918 infected and killed millions of people globally, including more than 1,400 in Oakland, California. (The population at this time was about 216,000). There were two major outbreaks in Oakland, one in the fall of 1918 and another in January 1919.

The epidemic affected nearly every aspect of life in Oakland. Garbage collection became difficult; for example, in early November of 1919, 75 of the 90 men who had routes in Oakland to pick up the garbage came down with influenza. In many districts, trash simply piled up along the curb, waiting to be hauled off by men too sick to work.

This information about the effects of the Spanish flu in Oakland coincides with an interview with Tom Ferro Jr. in 2014, the son of the first president of the United Oakland Scavenger Company in 1920.

Thomas Ferro Sr. was one of the many Italian immigrants who maintained a wagon and two horses to pick up garbage around the downtown city buildings. After his route was complete, Tom would walk around the area looking for valuable items he could salvage and sell.

Upon seeing the 28-year-old scouring the area from his office above, Mayor John Davies, who took office for a second period in 1915 and was impressed with his work ethic, approached Tom and told him that the city had a problem in that they could not get the garbage picked up in Oakland.

Tom told Mayor Davies he only had one wagon. Mayor Davies told him that if he could get the garbage picked up in two weeks, the mayor would give Tom a city contract to pick up the garbage.

Initially, Tom had no idea how he was going to achieve this task. Another garbageman and friend of Tom, Louie Re, had a cousin who was a garbageman in San Francisco. Tom and Louie took the ferry to San Francisco and negotiated with some of the San Francisco garbagemen to bring their horses and wagons over to Oakland via the ferry to get the garbage picked up in Oakland.

This unique arrangement lasted a few weeks and achieved the goal of getting the initial backlog of garbage picked up. Mayor Davies was elated with the outcome and, true to his word, offered Tom a contract for the future. Tom asked for a 10-year contract, and the mayor agreed.

Following this agreement, Tom became very aggressive and gathered the healthy garbagemen and their wagons to work for him under the new contract.

The next written documentation following this event of having one contract with the City of Oakland appeared on May 26, 1920, with the Articles of Incorporation of the United Oakland Scavenger Company. These articles defined the purpose of the company and provided a footprint for the future. They were:

The Board of Directors was set at eleven (11) members for the first year:

Finally, on June 1, 1926, the name of The United Oakland Scavenger Company was officially changed to The Oakland Scavenger Company.

The company grew as the city of Oakland grew in population. After the 1906 earthquake, many people moved and settled in Oakland, contributing to the city’s growth. In 1928, the company erected its headquarters at 2601 Peralta Street in Oakland. The building housed two stories of office space on one side and a shop for horse care and the maintenance of the first gas-powered trucks in the early 1930s. The shop’s upper floor served as a meeting room and temporary quarters for incoming immigrants until they found more formal accommodations. The building also provided ample space for the garbage trucks.

Operating the wagons with horses led to some interesting stories. At times, the company purchased horses from Reno, Nevada, to maintain their fleet. On one occasion, eight horses were delivered to 2601 Peralta Street. In the process of unloading them, two horses escaped and ran up Peralta Street. Despite efforts to retrieve them, they escaped into the neighborhood and were never found.

In 1935, the city’s waste disposal methods shifted as route trucks began offloading waste into the cargo holds of two steamships, the Tahoe and the Joachim, which sailed past the Farallon Islands to dispose of the refuse at sea. During WWII, a story emerged that a Japanese submarine may have struck one of these ships, though the claim was never documented.

Many items picked up by the scavengers did not end up at sea. Beginning in 1931, the company purchased a hog farm and created routes to collect swill from restaurants, which was then fed to the hogs at the ranch. At its peak, the hog farm housed 13,000 hogs, which were sold to processors as they matured.

Another form of recycling and reuse created the need to establish the Bay Cities bottle and rag works, which was located near Jack London Square. As bottles, rags, paper, and carpets were sorted in the open route trucks, these items were dropped off at this facility. The bottles were sanitized and sold back to the wineries. The rags were bundled and sold to petroleum companies. The used carpet remnants were sold to concrete companies who utilized them to cure concrete after a pour.

The company continued to grow and expand. As evidence of this growth, an amendment to the Articles of Incorporation provided for 183 shares of ownership in the company. Most of these partners were responsible for managing their routes, collecting monthly fees from their customers, and maintaining their equipment.

World War II created severe problems for the company. Many of the partners of the company were classified as 1A for military duty. The loss of manpower necessitated the need to hire more non-Italian men to fill the many needs of the company. When Mussolini declared war, all Italians who were working on ships of commerce in the various ports of the United States immediately became the enemy. The war environment curiously created a new story of opportunity for some Italian men who were either ushered into encampments due to their nationality or who were on Italian ships at the time Italy joined the war and escaped. The company needed many people to fill the void. They contacted Bella Vista, an encampment in Missoula, Montana, that housed many Italians being held captive. A few of these prisoners said yes, I will go to Oakland for work. Their opportunity to leave the camp and join the company was truly a life changer. The result was that after a few years of working at the company, they had the opportunity to become partners in the company and created the opportunity for their children to join the company in the years ahead.

The post-war boom echoed for sophisticated equipment. As the first motorized open trucks entered the industry in the 30s, the company saw the first packer trucks that utilized hydraulics to compact the garbage. Later, Front-End Loaders and Roll-off trucks were utilized for maximum production and to increase revenue.

The disposal of the refuse also underwent major changes. Due to enhanced environmental awareness, new laws were created to serve the community. Gone were the ships carrying refuse out to the bay. The company purchased the land where the Galbraith golf course is today and utilized this to dump the material. For years, the company was able to burn the garbage at night, thus creating longevity for the landfill.

The company needed to pivot with additional environmental laws to eliminate nightly burning. They had purchased 252 acres at the foot of Davis Street in San Leandro. This landfill became a modern landfill with all the new environmental laws.

As time went on, the company had the foresight to bid on and get garbage contracts for neighboring cities such as Hayward and Castro Valley. The company also pursued and were awarded garbage collection contracts for the emerging communities of Fremont and Livermore, California. With these long-term contracts in hand, the company created additional landfills in Hayward and Fremont to dispose of their material. The company had innovative and creative partners who continued to expand their territory, keep abreast of the continual improvements in equipment, and maintain the company's needs.

The vision and foresight of acquiring the Altamont Landfill were another example of foreseeing the company's future needs while the business continued to grow.

Davis Street Landfill was in the process of filling to capacity in the coming years. The company developed a master solid waste plan for the East Bay that included the planning and building of an integrated resource recovery and transfer facility at the Davis Street location. The newest home of refuse material was purchased in the 1970s at Altamont while the design and construction of the transfer station at Davis St. were underway.

The Oakland Scavenger Company grew over the years to one of the top 10 private refuse collections in the United States. With the wave of acquisitions by larger publicly held waste companies, Oakland Scavenger Company became a main target. Oakland Scavenger Company, which began with Italian immigrants picking up refuse with a horse and wagon, had over the years created the rare and desirable model of having several city collection contracts, the state-of-the-art Transfer Station and resource recovery, and one of the largest landfills in the nation with many years of capacity.

In November of 1986, the 122 owners of Oakland Scavenger Company agreed to sell their company to Waste Management.

References and Notes