Newark's roots run through bay landings, salt, and rail

Newark’s older story starts at the edge of the Bay, not in a shopping center or office park. By the early 1850s, landings near today’s city were already handling wheat, hay, and coal. Mayhew’s Landing helped draw attention inland, and the Mayhew Ranch stretched toward what is now I-880.

Then came a very Newark mix of ideas: the Green Point Dairy and Transportation Company, plans for a townsite near today’s Thornton and Jarvis area, swamp-land reclamation, salt production, and railroad work. The name Newark came from Newark Castle in Port Glasgow, Scotland, chosen by J. Barr Robertson.

The railroad made the town more solid. Work began from Dumbarton Point in the 1870s, and later the South Pacific Coast Railroad brought a station, roundhouse, shops, hotels, stores, and manufacturing. Salt work had already been underway in the Newark area since the 1850s and later fed into companies that became part of a larger Bay salt industry.

That background makes Newark feel less like a gap between Fremont and the Bay. It has its own bay landing, railroad, dairy, salt, and incorporation story, with independence running through all of it.