San Francisco and San Diego." A fact due to improved coast and interior traffic, inland ports had their beginning properly in Benicia, the first to receive large vessels and assert itself as a harbor town. Sacramento and Stockton, so far petty landings, followed, each becoming the centre of a host of tributary river landings, Sacramento having, however, to share its trade with the upper heads of navigation, notably Marysville.23 All of these prominent places were beset by a number of rivals, eager for their prospective prizes. Benicia, risen as a competitor of San Francisco, had in time to yield to the adjacent Vallejo both its trade and aspirations, and Marysville having in time to divide its gains from Sacramento with towns above.

24

Many of these aspirants attained only to the rank of paper towns, of which speculative California has probably had a larger proportion than any other country of its size, owing to the unparalleled unfoldment of settlements, the consequent opportunity for entrepôts in different directions, and the abundance of money for investments. City building became a busi

22 See chapters on trade in preceding volumes. Humboldt Bay admits only smaller vessels; Crescent City is a good roadstead, with a scanty range of accessible country. Wilmington rises little above the southern roadsteads, despite costly artificial breakwaters. Sauzalito is an anchorage tributary to San Francisco.

23 For early port of entry privileges, see the chapter on commerce. Petaluma became the chief shipping point for Sonoma, Napa and Vallejo for Napa, Suisun for Solano, etc.

24 Instance Montezuma and New York of the Pacific, and Collinsville or Newport-exposé in S. F. Bulletin, May 11, 1857, etc.-which strove for the valley trade against all the prominent towns above named; Vernon, Fremont, Nicolaus, and Hoboken, which entered the list against Sacramento and Marysville; Hamilton and Plumas against the latter; Butte City and Monroeville, which sought to be recognized as heads of Sacramento navigation, a privilege gained in a measure by Colusa, Tehama, and Red Bluff. Stockton, also Fredrina, Sac. Transcript, Apr. 26, 1850, had even less successful claimants in the cities of San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Mokelumne, and Tuolumne. Instance also Klamath City, which was killed by the shifting river bar. They were duly trumpeted before the people, with the aid of interesting maps, subsidized journals, and persuasive agents, and many made fortunes for their projectors before the collapse came. Frightened by adverse reports, bad titles, or periodical spells of dulness at existing towns, men bought lots in different places to secure themselves. Yet others failed to cover expenses. One company spent nearly $150,000 in vain. Helper's Land, 177-8. The failure of Vallejo to secure, for a time, at least, the capital, was due to bad management. The speculative excitement subsided for the bay towns by the summer of 1850. In 1863 a revival occurred for sea-ports

THE BOOMING BUSINESS.

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ness. At various points tracts of land were seized and town lots mapped out and sold. Then the advantages of the place were trumpeted far and wide, and all were invited by oily-tongued agents to come and buy and live. Title acquired often by force and trickery was kept by the power of the rifle and legal jugglery. The most ambitious projects sought to combine the head of ship navigation in the bay with a command of the great valley outlets, as instanced in New York of the Pacific. Then followed claimants to the head of river navigation in the Sacramento and San Joaquin, beginning with Vernon, and contestants for the control of the trade with certain tributaries and districts. Along the coast rose several pretenders to harbors, with promising river drainage, as Klamath City, and throughout the interior were sprinkled plats intended for valley centres and county seats, some of which nurse, as mere hamlets, the dream of greatness realized by their successful neighbors. The speculative fever for city building raged most virulently during 1849 and into 1850, raising a crop of prospective millionaires, after which the symptoms abated to sporadic forms, with occasional epidemics, as in 1863.

Agricultural towns date from the Spanish pueblo colonies, supplemented in time by converted missions, and latterly by lingering and transformed mining camps, some, like San José, of centennial dignity, and the younger Salinas, depending on wheat regions, Los Angeles boasting of her orange groves, Anaheim and St Helena leading a host of vinicultural communities, and Healdsburg prominent in the display of orchards. Aside from the woollen mills and other industrial adjuncts of the large cities, a number of towns live by their manufacturing interests. Eureka and Guerneville are conspicuous among a host of places producing lumber, the earliest manufacture on a large scale. Flour-mills have found development at Vallejo; Soquel depends upon a variety of industries, notably tanneries; Taylorsville is a paper-mill; Suisun a pack

ing place; Martinez figures among fish-canning places; Alvarado is known for its beet-sugar mills; Boca for breweries; and Newhall for oil. Nortonville and New Almaden find their chief support in coal and quicksilver; Folsom flourishes by a prison and its quarries; Berkeley, Benicia, and Santa Clara rank among college towns; Santa Cruz, Santa Bárbara, and Santa Monica are sustained greatly as watering-places, their list swelled by San Diego, Calistoga, Auburn, and a number of other places, particularly in Lake and San Mateo, as health and pleasure resorts; while Oakland, Alameda, and Washington are known rather as the bed-chambers, or suburbs, of cities.

During the last three decades the railroad has risen as arbitrator in the fortunes of many of these towns. By passing them by it has drawn away their trade and left them to lingering decay, as illustrated notably by San Juan Bautista, and several towns of the San Joaquin Valley. It has build up instead numerous thriving stations, among which towns like Modesto, Merced, Bakersfield, and Hollister have been so effectively fostered as to secure the important dignity of county seats to swell their expanding trade resources. In other cases it has revived many languishing settlements, as for example, Calistoga, Oroville, Sauzalito, and opened the way in the southern deserts for flourishing and reclaiming oases.

The latest feature of town building is presented by a new form of the agricultural colonies, which were first planted by Spaniards, under official auspices, as at San José, Los Angeles, and Branciforte. Sonoma was a subsequent semi-official venture, and Sutter's Fort partook of this stamp. Americans introduced the cooperative system, beginning with San Bernardino of the industrious Mormons, but more properly with Anaheim. This stands as a prototype here of

25 Modesto overshadowed Knight's Ferry and La Grange, Merced took life and honors from Snelling, Fresno from Millerton. Alviso has suffered, Shasta is reduced, etc. A few, like Brighton and Stanislaus, saved a weak existence by moving to the railroad line.

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the chiefly horticultural settlements started on coöperative principles to overcome the early difficulties of such undertakings, marked by costly irrigation canals, non-productive planting periods, and manufacturing adjuncts. These vanquished, each member assumed independent control of his allotted share, associated with his neighbors only by a general and voluntary interest in certain branches, and in sustaining the indispensable canals. Many owners of large ranchos are profiting by the success of these ventures, which with proper management is almost assured,26 by opening ditches and occasionally planting tracts, and then selling the land in small lots, with the expectation of profiting also by the formation of a village by each cluster of colonists. There are a number of these settlements round Fresno, and in the three southern counties along the coast; and with the now growing reputation of California as a wine region, so well suited for them, they are assuming wider proportions and importance.2 They form one of the many startling surprises with which this country has abounded, from the first glittering harvests of gold to the succeeding and richer crops from waving fields; in the spreading fame of balmy clime and fertile soil, once overshadowed by supposed deserts and aridity; in the variety of its magnificent resources and the grandeur of its scenery, with giant trees and geysers, with caves and mountain clefts; in the birth of towns and expansion of resources and wealth, at times swift in rise and fall as the terror-inspiring justice of the vigilance committees, at times slow and majestic as befits the dawning of eternal empire.

27

26 The earliest colony at Fresno failed for lack of due precaution and energy.

27 Agua Mansa, in San Bernardino, is a languishing colony, formed in 1842 by New Mexicans. The not far distant Riverside is one of the most flourishing spots in the county. Lompoc is a Temperance colony in Sta Bárbara. Compare with Nordhoff's Communistic Societies, 361–6. Homestead associations are to be found in connection with most large cities. Comments in National, Dec. 26, 1864; Apr. 10, 1865. Just before the opening of the overland railway in 1870 a homestead fever raged all round the bay. Lottery sales attended them at one time. Sac. Union, June 25, 1855; Jan. 27, 1857; S. F. Ab. Post, July 23, 1870. See, further, under counties, next chapters.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CITY BUILDING.

1848-1888.

THE GREAT INTERIOR-RIVER AND PLAIN-SUTTERVILLE AND SACRAMENTO— PLAN OF SURVEY-THE THRICE SIMPLE SWISS-BETTER FOR THE COUNTRY THAN A BETTER MAN-HEALTHY AND HEARTY COMPETITION-DEVELOPMENT OF SACRAMENTO CITY-MARYSVILLE-STOCKTON-PLACERVILLE -SONORA-NEVADA-GRASS VALLEY-BENICIA-VALLEJO-MARTINEZOAKLAND AND VICINITY-NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CITIES.

In illustration of the preceding observations, I append a sketch of the early development of the principal and typical cities, and of each county in the state, particularly with reference to the birth of its towns, and to the general tendency of progress. Limited space forbids more than a brief consideration of the topical points; and I must refer the reader to the special chapters on politics, mining, agriculture, manufacture, commerce, society, education, and church, for further details touching the different sections. My information has been culled by systematic search through many original manuscripts, and through the newspapers of San Francisco, as well as those from every quarter of the state. I have also carefully consulted the reports of census officers, surveyors, and assessors, county histories, and directories, local archives of towns and counties, the Vallejo, Larkin, and Hayes documents, and scattered notes in books and pamphlets of a more or less general character, as indicated in the narrative, only the most pointed references being retained to affirm or illustrate special

statements.