PHOTOS: East Bay Regional Park District celebrates 90 years

( KRON ) — The much beloved East Regional Park District turned 90 years young on Saturday.

In celebration of its 73 parks, 126,809 acres, 55 miles of shoreline, and over 1,330 miles of trails in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, park officials treated us by sharing a set of archival photo collections of some of the East Bay’s most beloved getaway trails.

Here’s a look at one of the collections: Martin J. Cooney’s “People in Parks” photo series, which spans over 14 years of photos taken across the EBPRD.

In 2016, Cooney’s family gifted EBRPD the over 15,000 negatives that were taken during Cooney’s time photographing the park district from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Some photos were taken by Martin, but for the predominant part of the later 1970s-1980s, photos were taken by Nancy McKay, an apprentice of Martin’s while working in the Park District’s Public Affairs Department beginning in 1968.

Nancy was the Park District’s primary photographer for over 37 years, EBPRD said.

Cooney himself is an Illinois native who worked as a photojournalist for several major news stations and newspapers across the Bay Area. In 1963, he opened his own commercial studio in Jack London Square in Oakland before shortly being commissioned to photograph the EBRPD.

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