THE California Promotion Committee OF SAN FRANCISCO The California Promotion Committee is composed of fifteen representative business men of San Francisco and the State selected from the different commercial organizations, and has for its object the promotion of the development and the advertising of the resources of California with a view of inducing people to locate in the State. The members of the Committee give their services. gratuitously and their well-known reputation insures to all inquirers unbiased and unprejudiced information. The funds for carrying on this work are subscribed by a large number of bankers, merchants, professional men and others of the city of San Francisco. The California Promotion Committee has representatives in all portions of the State and is kept conversant with the conditions in the several localities, thus enabling it to direct and properly locate newcomers to California according to their various inclinations, whether they come as visitors or wage-earners. The Committee maintains headquarters in the central part of the city of San Francisco convenient to the hotels and other points of interest, where all are cordially welcome and reliably informed regarding the city and State. At these headquarters may be found reading, writing and lounging rooms for the convenience of visitors. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. Purpose of the Book—Recent Events that Have Caused an Awakening in the West- The Oriental Outlook-Alaskan DevelopmentAnnexation of Hawaii-Gold Mining-Horticultural Progress - The Charm of Climate - A State for Comfort and Prosperity — Demand for Men of Energy and Thrift-Facts Little Known Heretofore Concerning Marvelous Fertility and Climate of Central aud Upper Portions of California - Oranges, Olives, and Tropical Fruits in Northern Counties — A Vast Empire with Tremendous Possibilities. The Californian loves his State because his State loves him, and he returns her love with a fierce affection that men of other regions are slow to understand. -DAVID STARR JORDAN. C ALIFORNIA TO-DAY! The phrase speaks of present opportunity in the great State that is bound to be greater-greater in population, in resources that result from skill and trade, in commerce compelled by the world's demands. This volume is designed to tell and to picture concisely, truthfully, and plainly, the chief facts relative to the State and its possibilities; facts such as will answer briefly the questions that might be asked by anyone thinking of making California his home. No book of this size could do more than to satisfy interest in briefest detail; to point the way to knowledge that may be had for the asking; to refer to and to quote men whose authority in special lines is recognized the world over; to give figures of Government and State officials; to tell of things from the standpoint of the writer's experience; and last, but above all, to present by the finest reproductions of photographs, scenes of natural beauty, of industries, of houses, lands, factories, horses, cattle, dooryards, dairies, race-courses, irrigation ditches, poultry yards, business blocks, buildings in the chief cities, parks, steamships, railroads-the thousand things that mean New World and much to one whose face is turned toward the Farthest West-all this is here attempted and accomplished in reasonable measure. To the stranger to all things Californian, to one who forgets that the State's area is larger than all England and Scotland combined, there may be found some lack, but enough is here compressed to excite the wonder of anyone reasonably familiar with the vastness and the variety of California's resources. To tell in any satisfying detail of products, of industries, of men behind them, and opportunities for others, would require an Encyclopedia Californica as large as the Britannica. This State that to-day faces the Orient is scarcely a Old World. half century old, but the years have been years of active, many-sided progress. Their history is that of civilization in brief, of the subduing of wilderness, of home-making under skies as blue as Italy's and air as beatific, by men and women of brain and muscle; of the growth here, in fifty years, of a State where a million and a half of people have homes; of the impetus westward following events of the Spanish war until to-day the New World and the Old World face each other through the California gateway. Westward the A century ago, and the century through, Europe and Empire. America have shaken fists and shaken hands by turns across the Atlantic. To-day at the opening of the Twentieth Century the path of progress is over the Pacific. Old World powers are gathering their forces in the Orient. Alaska and "the isles of the sea" belong to America. The course of empire is still westward as much to-day as when wise Bishop Berkeley penned his famous prophecy. And the pathway across the United States is through California. Increase of To tell, then, of this big State and the gateway, where -East is East and West is West, is the object of this volume. It tells many old facts and many new ones. It tells, for example, that all New England and New York and Pennsylvania besides may be laid out in California's giant area of mountain and valley, but it notes, too, that California is fast taking a leading |