Bradford Island is a island of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, in Contra Costa County, California, United States. Bradford Island is inaccessible by roads, and is served by a ferry across the False River from nearby Jersey Island. Approximately 48 people lived on the island . Other uses of land include wheat farming, cattle grazing, and natural gas extraction.
Bradford Island is a reclaimed peat wetland; as it lies below sea level, it is protected by flooding by levees. These, as well as a pump station and internal drainage canals, are administered by Reclamation District 2059, founded in 1921. The levees have been breached on several occasions, leading to the island becoming flooded. Bradford Island is one of eight Delta islands considered critical to the region's water quality by the California Department of Water Resources.
Geography and ecology
Bradford Island's coordinates are , and it is in the lower delta of the San Joaquin River. It falls within the Köppen climate classification of Csb (cool and dry summer Mediterranean). The San Joaquin River separates it from Sherman Island to the west, and Twitchell Island to the north. To its east, it is separated from the Webb Tract by Fisherman's Cut. No bridges go to the island; it is accessible only by a ferry across the False River from Jersey Island to its south. Mount Diablo, to the southwest, can be seen from Bradford Island.
As a reclaimed wetland, Bradford Island has rich peat soil, which is used to grow wheat and graze cattle. Additionally, some land on the island is used for residences. Since Bradford Island is above part of the Rio Vista Gas Field, some land is used for natural gas wells. Due to the history of the island's reclamation, and subsidence in its interior caused by oxidization of the peat, Bradford Island has a saucer-shaped profile — it is lower in the center than at the edges. There is at least one lake on the island.
The islands of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta prevent saltwater intrusion in the Delta; while freshwater flows into the region from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, so does saltwater from the Pacific Ocean through San Francisco Bay. Islands in the Delta reduce the flow of this saltwater, and Bradford Island is one of eight Delta islands considered critical to the region's water quality by the California Department of Water Resources. As it is below sea level, it is protected from flooding by levees and pumps. In 1981, the United States Geological Survey gave its elevation as , but in 2015, the Contra Costa County Local Agency Formation Commission gave its elevation as below sea level. It is classified by the county as part of the "East County Delta Drainages" watershed.
Ducks, cranes, swans and geese feed in the marshes of Bradford Island; Swainson's hawks, Cooper's hawks and red-tailed hawks have also been seen over the island. In December 2014, Reclamation District 2059's Board of Trustees approved a Project Funding Agreement for the removal and mitigation of Himalayan blackberry and other invasive weeds.
Striped bass were good there in 1962.
History Approximately ten thousand years ago, sea level rise at the end of the Last Glacial Period moved the Pacific Ocean inwards, creating San Francisco Bay and Suisun Bay in what were once dry valleys. Glacial meltwater flowing from the Sierra Nevada mountains deposited peat and alluvium over compacted lacustrine sediment and aeolian sand fields. The Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta was built over thousands of years by the confluence of two rivers with drainage basins encompassing nearly half of California, with up to of organic matter being deposited in some places.
The landmass currently constituting Bradford Island and Webb Tract, as it appears between the San Joaquin and False Rivers in an 1852 survey of the area made by Cadwalader Ringgold, was one of many naturally formed islands in the region. Shaped like "broad shallow saucers", these islands consisted of tule marsh surrounded by naturally-formed levees with woody foliage extending root networks downward into peat. However, spring tides and river floods could submerge the entirety of the Delta.
This large expanse of tidal marshland was discovered by Native American tribes such as the Miwok and Wintun, who used it to fish, hunt and forage; while they did not cultivate it as farmland, they burned vegetation to "manage the landscape [...] to favor plants they used". In 1772, when Spanish explorer Pedro Fages found the Delta, the area was inhabited by large numbers of deer and tule elk, as well as a native population somewhere between 3,000 and 15,000. Attacks from Spanish and Mexican settlers, and a series of epidemics, decreased this population sharply.
European settlement in the area began in the mid-19th century, and accelerated with the California Gold Rush; in 1846 there were about 150 Americans in the entire Central Valley, but after 1848 tens of thousands of people moved to California. Many turned to farming, as "they realized that surer fortunes could be gained by tilling the soil than by turning gravel". The Swamp Land Act of 1850 gave states the ability to purchase federally-owned "swamp and overflowed public lands" on the condition that they be reclaimed and put to productive use; in 1855, California's state legislature passed an act allowing citizens to purchase tracts of swampland for $1 per acre (equivalent to $ in ). In 1868, individual acreage limits for purchasers were removed, and counties were authorized to form "reclamation districts" which collected funds to administer levee improvement and maintenance; by 1871, "practically all of California's swamp and overflowed land was sold".
Reclamation
When reclamation began, the naturally-formed levees surrounding the tule marshes provided an obvious starting point for artificial levees to be constructed. Webb Tract's levees were constructed in 1870, and Bradford Island's in 1871, financed by a land grant.
The reclamation project was carried out by a partnership run by George D. Roberts (for whom Roberts Island is named); his Tide Land Reclamation Company was one of the largest operating in the Delta at the time. Despite being the director of the company, Roberts did not develop Bradford Island in conjunction with it, instead entering in a partnership with other investors. The original levee project enclosed several now-independent tracts (Bradford Island, the Webb Tract, the Franks Tract, Bethel Island and Jersey Island) into one contiguous area, and cost approximately $4 (equivalent to $ in ) for each acre of enclosed land. The reclamation process dramatically increased the value of this land, which had been purchased for less than $2 ($ in ) per acre, to as much as $50 ($ in ) per acre. The portion of the land comprising Bradford Island and Bethel Island (called "Sand Mound Ranch" at the time) were sold to other landowners in 1872. Despite their attempts to build up and further reinforce the levees, floods in 1873 and 1874 "washed onto the pasture-land and small areas of field crops. Additional floods would occur prior to the turn of the century; John Thompson, writing in 1957, said that "probably all of" these tracts were flooded in 1878, and that "several other floodings are understood to have occurred".
Fisherman's Cut, which now separates the islands, was made later; an 1887 topographic and irrigation map made by the California State Engineering Department shows them as a contiguous landmass. However, USGS maps from 1910 (surveyed from 1906 to 1908) show the cut clearly separating Bradford Island from Webb Tract. The currents in Fisherman's Cut were described as "treacherous" in 1942 press reports following a drowning there.
Bradford Island would eventually be cultivated as farmland, but first found use as pasture; after reclamation was completed, it was leased as a stock range for two years by cattle barons Henry Miller and Charles Lux. By 1899 George Shima, a farmer and businessman known as the "Potato King", was reclaiming 400 acres on the island.
20th century
Potatoes were grown on the island by George Shima in 1900 and 1901. In 1901, some land on Bradford Island was owned by Lester Morse; in 1903, several public officials purchased land on Bradford Island. Superintendent of Public Instruction T.J. Kirk bought , assistant superintendent and statistician Job Wood bought , and N.K. Foster, Secretary of the Board of Health, bought 240 acres. of Foster's land would be sold in 1922. By 1907, the Meek Brothers (Horry W. and William E., the latter of whom was referred to as the "Asparagus King") owned more than of land on the island. The capitalist Willis G. Witter owned nearly of land on the island when he died in July 1907. were sold in 1918 to A. B. Curtis, F. J. Coggina, and J. L. Tence. of land on the island was offered to the state prison board for use as a prison farm in 1925, which was never built. 324 acres of land was sold in 1926, by H. J. McCourt to the California Pacific Title Insurance Company, and by 1929 land on Bradford Island was being listed for as much as $250 per acre ($ in ). By 1934, much of the island was owned by the California Delta Farms Company. In May 1938, after the discovery of the nearby Rio Vista gas field, the Standard Oil Company of California began exploring Bradford Island for hydrocarbon deposits. Drilling began in 1942 for a gasser, Jordan Unit No. 1; it had multiple producers by 1954. In January 1957, the Contra Costa Gazette reported Standard Oil's announcement that "Jordan Unit Number 1, a wildcat unit, will begin operations in Section 33, 3N-3E". In 1961, there were eight wells, tended by Joe Nichols. Standard Oil, in conjunction with Gulf Oil, filed a lawsuit against Contra Costa County in a 1966 lawsuit, claiming that the county had illegally taxed state and federal governments' royalties from drilling sites in the area. Standard Oil averred that their incomes from the Bradford Island wells had been overtaxed by $6,439.64 ($ in ). A deep exploratory well previously drilled by Standard was abandoned in 1967. In March 1970, Standard Oil began directionally drill a well under Bradford Island from Sherman Island, to the west. This well (Giannini No. 1) was abandoned in April. By 1990, natural gas wells on the island were being operated by the Hess Company.
In 1974, a tract of farmland on the island was sold for $185,000, or approximately $552 per acre ($ in ).
On November 29, 1903, a murder occurred on Bradford Island; a man named Katsimo was stabbed in the back by his partner, "Big Jack", over a dispute regarding the growing of vegetables. The levees were inundated, and the island was flooded, on March 26, 1907. By April, repairs on the levees were "progressing rapidly" through the use of "immense" pumps. By the time another flood occurred in January 1909, inundating many islands in the area, Bradford Island was one of several reported to be safe. By this point, land on Bradford Island had appreciated considerably; in September of that year, a plot was listed for $140 per acre ($ in ). The Daily Gazette of Martinez reported in June 1912 that the entirety of Bradford Island was to be sold to Howard S. Dudley, an Oregon businessman, by Pierce & Company, a transaction which was completed in December of that year. Near the end of 1915, the wooden-hulled ship Princess caught fire at Bradford Island. In the 1910s, a floating general store, owned by Frank Bapsette, was operated out of an ark moored to the island. A "large moonshine still", with a capacity of 25 gallons, was confiscated in the Bridgeport Tract of Bradford Island in 1922.