Joaquin Miller Park

Joaquin Miller Park, managed and operated by the City of Oakland , California, is a large open space park at Oakland Hills. He is named after the early California writer and poet Joaquin Miller, who purchased the property in the 1880's and named it "The Hights" [sic].

 

The park covers a densely wooded area of 500 acres (2.0 km2), coastal redwood, live oak and pine trees. Miller himself was planting many of the trees initially. Panoramic views of the San Francisco Bay area are offered on Oakland Hills. The park contains thousands of walking , cycling and riding trails, an area for leash dogs and an amphitheater and a barbecue.

​

The 2 000-seat Woodminster amphitheater and Cascade, an open-air amphitheater that is often used for amateur and professional music as well as for concerts, are located in Joaquin Miller Park. For many years , the Department of Recreation of Oakland has been using popular music comedy films, three every season. From 1967 on, the current management took over the production of the summer musicals.

 

The Cascade is the waterfall feature of the amphitheater built in 1941, which is still flowing water dedicated to California authors. It was designed for the Cleveland Waterfall on Lake Merritt (now dry) by Howard Gilkey.

 

The redwoods in Joaquin Miller Park are one of the few to flower in an urban environment today. The native Redwoods Coast (sequoia sempervirens) most especially grow throughout the park. Many are growing in the late 1800s and early 1900s after the major logging, when the redwoods were used as support for building Oakland, San Francisco and other booming cities. Many still stand today of the thousands of trees planted under the leadership of Joaquin Miller.

 

The park comprises a variety of central coastal ecosystems, dry, open hillsides, cool redwoods, oak forests, lush creeksides, and wet meadows. There are more than 200 native plants in the park. Rar plants are found alongside such unborn plants as fennel, acacia and eucalyptus, such as Oakland star tulip, pallid manzanita and leatherwood. Throughout the Serpentine grasslands there is plentiful California's State Grass, purple needlegrass and California's State Flower, the Golden Pape.

 

Move softly and enjoy wildlife. In this park are Towhees, scrub jays, Cooper's hawks, wild turkeys, California's quai, lizards, gopher snakes, or even gray foxes, deer, or skunk.