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MARKET STREET, MAIN ARTERY OF THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, LOOKING FROM THIRD STREET TO THE FERRY BUILDING AND

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CHAPTER II.

SAN FRANCISCO - The Wonderful City by the Golden Gate - Its Unique Characteristics-Growth Following the Discovery of Gold - Unrivalled Situation for Controlling the Commerce of the Pacific - At the Gateway of the Great Interior Valley of California - Recent Increase in Commerce, Bank Clearings, Manufactures, and Industries—A Vigorous Municipality with Stirring History - The New Charter and Reformed GovernmentRemarkable Building Activity-Investments of Eastern Capital and Opportunities - Manufactures aud Cheap Fuel - Shipbuilding — A Rendezvous for War Vessels - The Battleship Oregon and its Builders - Equable Climate, making City a Favorite Summer as well as Winter Resort-Two Transcontinental Railroads and More Coming - Steamship Lines to Alaska, Mexico, the Orient, Australia, and Islands of the Pacific-Growth of Arts and Letters Young Writers and Painters Gaining World Fame-Social Life and Characteristics-Cost of Living - Cheap Suburban Transportation.

Yea, here sit we by the Golden Gate,

Nor demanding much, but inviting you all,
Nor publishing loud, but daring to wait,

And great in much that the days deem small.

-JOAQUIN MILLER.

A

Growth.

HALF CENTURY AGO, San Francisco, Califor- Marvelous nia's metropolis, was little more than a sand-hill settlement. To-day it is a populous city of over four hundred thousand inhabitants and an outlook before it, commercial, industrial, and social, second to no other city in the world. In its land-locked harbor, to-day, fly the flags of ships of all nations. Through its Golden Gate, out across the Pacific to the Orient, north to Alaska, south to Mexico, Central and South America and to the islands of the sea, go steamships and sailing craft laden with passengers and diversified cargoes. Hawaii, Philippines, Alaska, the awakening Orientthese mean a new San Francisco. Westward, across the

continent, a half-dozen new lines of railway are approaching California's metropolis. The West is wide awake; the East is looking westward; old things are passing away; new things are here; action is in the air.

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The past year shows unprecedented activity in all lines, in real estate transfers, in clearing house receipts, in building contracts. Huge structures of steel and stone, -a credit to any city-have been built. More are being constructed. Capital from the older eastern cities, as well as from the centers of finance abroad, is being invested here. No longer do those lines of Bret Harte truthfully describe the city,

Serene, indifferent to Fate,

Thou sittest at the Western gate.

In 1902 total real estate sales in San Francisco county Trade. amounted to $41,000,000; in 1901, $29,147,969, an increase for the year of over $10,000,000. The coinage at the United States Mint (1902) aggregated $47,310,988.00. In 1901,$81,072,490. Total receipts of customs duty paid into the United States Treasury, San Francisco, during 1902, $7,735 015.42; 1901, $7,125,082.34; 1900, $7,693,342. Wheat exports from San Francisco during 1902 were 9,152,436 centals, valued at $10,213,105; 1901, 9,294,538 centals valued at $9,526,812; 1900, 7,733,667 centals valued at 7,923,347; 1899, 3,245,434 centals valued at $3,576,329. Nine savings banks of San Francisco held on deposit December 31, 1902, $144,295,034.57; on December 31st, 1901, $133,430,482. The rapid growth of the city is shown by its total bank clearings for the past five years, which were as follows: 1898, $813,153,024; 1899, $971,015,072; 1900, $1,029,582,594; 1901, $1,178,169,536; 1902, $1,342,927,204.

San Francisco
Unique Among

San Francisco is unique among cities, a study among the Cities. the municipalities of the world. Here are many characteristics of older places, adjusted to cosmopolitan demands. On this peninsula has grown up a city eighth in size among the cities of the nation. Qualities of West and East, and North and South, are here mingled and developed. Practical and poetical sides of life here touch in equal and harmonious growth. Painter and musician, stockbroker and merchant, are shoulder to shoulder. Progress in commerce and literature has been conspicuCritics remark to see such lines of endeavor, of

ous.

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ALONG THE SAN FRANCISCO WATER FRONT, WHERE ARE MOORED SHIPS FROM

THE PORTS OF ALL THE WORLD.

Untrammeled Individuality.

the City.

allel growth in the same community. Here is the soft air and blue sky of Milan, the marine outlook of Naples, with Mount Tamalpais personating Vesuvius; the hills of Rome, the winter climate of the Riviera, and people who are the combination of New England energy and Oriental luxury.

The open-air life that is possible the year through, coupled with the coming hither, in the search either for riches or for health, of the world's best brain and brawn, have formed here, on the Nation's western shore, a community that stands for untrammeled individuality. The genius, free from conventions, here finds breathing room. In books and on canvas these truths have already

been demonstrated.

The characteristics of the city are the characteristics of the State in a measure. Newcomers hear in California and in San Francisco much of the missions and see some of them, that chain of land-marks along the old King's Highway from Mexico to San Francisco and beyond. They mark the pathway of the padres of old Spain, who founded in the wilderness of that age, at intervals of a day's journey, buildings for worship marked by the cross of Stories of Christ. The story of it all, of old Father Junipero Serra and his associates, is attractive history. So is the story of the Argonauts following the gold discovery in January, 1848; so is the story of this unique city built here by men who came for gold; and then gold finding and gold mining, fruit growing, stock raising, and stock broking, exciting political troubles of early days, the sandlot demagogism, the anti-Chinese movement, all help to form a history worth reading about, but a history too long for the telling here, too fascinating for the reader who wishes to learn of things more vital, of California and of San Francisco to-day.

The Forward
Look and

These stories of history are a backward look, but Action. there is a living present on the Pacific shores to-day, and a forward look that can have no backward glancing. Things are doing here, and busy men need now to learn only of progress, of advances in value, of chances for investment, while over all and around all is the lure that here, on this

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