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.

PERSONNEL

OF

THE CALIFORNIA PROMOTION COMMITTEE

MEMBERS

REPRESENTING ANDREA SBARBORO, Chairman, San Francisco, Manufacturers' and Producers' Assn. RUFUS P. JENNINGS, Executive Officer, San Francisco, Chamber of Commerce CHARLES BUNDSCAU, Treasurer, San Francisco, Merchants' Association GEO. W. MCNEAR

San Francisco, Merchants' Association W. A. BISSELL

San Francisco, Atohison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad ARTHUR R. BRIGGS

Fresno,

California State Board of Trade JAMES A. BARR

Stockton, San Joaquin Valley Commercia Assn. N. P. CHIPMAN

Red Bluff, California State Board of Trade WILL S. GREEN

Colusa, Sacramento Valley Development Assn. W. H. MILLS

San Francisco, California State Board of Trade. E. O. MCCORMICK

San Francisco, Southern Pacific Company V. A. SCHELLER

San Jose, Coast Counties Association E. D. SWEETSER

.

INTRODUCTION. Purpose of the Book — Recent Events that Have Caused an

Awakening in the West — The Oriental Outlook — Alaskan Development -
Annexation 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 Cali-
fornia - Oranges, Olives, and Tropical Fruits in Northern Counties - A
Vast Empire with Tremendous Possibilities.

CAL

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 froin 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.

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.

To tell, then, of this big State and the gateway, where

a

Westward the

Course of

Increase of

State Products.

-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