CITY BUILDING.

opened a store at East Twelfth st and Twelfth av., and the following year the town associates erected a $60,000 hotel, which was destroyed by fire within a few weeks. Meanwhile, in 1851, J. B. Larue had squatted across the ravine and started a store at the San Antonio landing, where he subsequently constructed his wharf, and a settlement gradually rose, which was known as San Antonio, after the channel and rancho. Early house-builders are named in Hist. Alameda, 1876, 462-3. In 1856 the two places were con solidated and called Brooklyn, at the instance of Eagar, who had arrived with many pioneers in the ship of that name, and thought that the appellation corresponded well to the spot in its relation to the Pacific metropolis, which was similar to that of the Atlantic Brooklyn. In 1860 the population of the district was placed at 1,341; incorporation was put on in 1870, including the cluster of houses north-eastward, known as Lynn, from the shoe factory established there three years before. Cal. Statutes, 1869-70, 680-93. Settlement had been favored for several years by the land troubles of Oakland, with which it shared in the picnic excursions from S. F. since Larney's steam ferry began its trips in 1858. Hopes were also raised by the temporary location here of the county seat during the four years' struggle for it, but the more conveniently situated Oakland was advancing with such strides lately as to leave Brooklyn behind, and its people voted in 1872 for annexation. Its vote in 1876 barely exceeded 650. Brooklyn Journal, Sept. 9, 1871, etc.; Hist. Alam., 1876, 461-7; Id., Atlas, 22-3.

Alameda may be regarded as a sister town of Brooklyn in their relation to Oakland, although it gained several advantages. It was known as Bolsa de Encinal, or Encinal de San Antonio, and belonged to A. M. Peralta. It was held under lease by Depachier and Lemarte early in 1850, when the interest taken in Oakland called attention to this adjoining tract. W. W. Chipman and G. Auginbaugh, who had subleased the section fronting on S. Leandro Bay, then stepped forward and bought the peninsula for $14,000, selling half to Minturn, Foley, Hays, Caperton, McMurty, and H. S. Fitch. The latter had lately, after a failure to buy Oakland, made a semi-contract for Alameda, only to be forestalled. As auctioneer, he sold the first lots of the tract laid out in old Alameda under his supervision. The first settlements were made near High st, and ferry-boats began running to Old Alameda Point, the first regular boats being the Bonita and the Ranger. Incorporation was effected in April 1854, when the peninsula contained little more than 100 inhabitants, and it was expected that the name borrowed from the county would influence settlers. Cal. Statutes, 1854, 76; Id., Jour. Ass., 650; Alta Cal., Dec. 30, 1854; Sac. Union, Nov. 8, 1854; Alam. Encinal, Sept. 8, 1877. Soon after Encinal was laid out in the centre of the peninsula, and Woodstock at the point; yet progress was slow, with few industries. A tannery was established in 1852. Matthewson's Stat., MS., 3. A. A. Cohen bought lots in 1858 and began to foster the place, establishing a superior ferry, which yielded in 1874 to a railroad via Oakland, across San Antonio channel, supplemented soon after by a special ferry and railroad. A wagon road was made over the tongue of land to Brooklyn in 1854, and ferries had run from Hebbard's wharf in the channel, and from West End, after 1856. In 1872 the entire peninsula was united under a town charter. Cal. Statutes, 1871-2, 276-81; 1877-8, 89,

SOUTH TO SAN DIEGO

479

etc.; Hist. Alameda, 1876, 469-74; Id., Atlas, 23-4; Oakland and Alameda Water Co. Prospectus, 1-8. The advance of the town was from 1,560 inhabitants in 1870 to 5,700 in 1880. The Alameda Post appeared in 1869, the first newspaper, and was replaced in Nov. 1869 by the Alameda Encinal.

Domingo Peralta was interested in that part of his father's tract lying beyond the village of Temescal, the term for Indian baths. He sold it in 1853 to Hall McAllister, R. P. Hammond, L. Herrmann, and J. K. Irving. The conditions were somewhat ambiguous. and not until more than a score of years later was the cloud lifted from the title. It remained a slighted farming region until the choice of a salubrious and attractive site for the state university fell in 1868 upon the spot, which was aptly dedicated to the name of the prelate philosopher. The construction of buildings and laying out the 200 acres of ground, as well as work on the adjoining Deaf, Dùmb, and Blind Asylum, with its 60 acres, begun in 1868, brought settlers for a town; yet previous to 1874 not a dozen houses were within half a mile of the grounds. Among the first occupants were Shattack, Hillegas, and G. M. Blake. With the opening of the university in the summer of 1873, Univ. Cal., Report 1872-3, the influx of residents increased, and by 1877 the Berkeley Advocate, Oct. 13, 1877, Dec. 11, 1879, etc., claimed nearly 2,000 inhabitants, with over 200 houses round the university in 1879. In April 1878 the town was incorporated, including the settlement on the bay, a mile and a half away, known as West Berkeley, or Ocean View and Delaware-st station, which had sprung up under railroad influence as a manufacturing site, embracing the California Watch factory, the Standard Soap Co., etc. A ferry ran to this point until increased railroad facilities with both sections absorbed the passengers. The Deaf Asylum, burned in 1875, was rebuilt in 1877-8. Scattered references in the daily S. F., Oakland, and Berkeley journals.

The mania for city building extended from the great bay and its tributaries throughout the state, in the north guided by the rise of mining districts and the gradual expansion of lumber and farming, for which places like Red Bluff, Chico, Yreka, and Petaluma sought to become centres, while parts like Crescent City and Eureka aimed to supply a range beyond the county limits. In the south, likewise, several old pueblos roused themselves early from their colonial lethargy to assume civic honors under Anglo-Saxon energy, and to open their ports or establish new landings for the prospective world traffic, but the delay of the agricultural era, upon which they depended, caused a relapse. Railroad enterprise marks the revival under which towns like Modesto, Merced, Visalia, Bakersfield, Hollister, and Salinas sprang into prominence, often at the expense of older places, although several of these not only shared in the advance, but maintained the local supremacy due to a judicious selection of site, as San José, San Luis Obispo, Santa Bárbara, and San Buenaventura. Among the most pretentious of southern towns is Los Angeles, whose history has been fully detailed in previous volumes. San Diego, the oldest of California settlements, languished till the close of the sixties, when transcontinental railroad projects gave it life and hope, based on the possession of an important terminus, and of the only other fine harbor besides that of San Francisco on the coast, and with a constantly growing reputation as a health and pleasure resort.

The eagerness to found commercial centres in 1849-50 roused the ambition

of Old San Diego, and led it to assume the dignity of an incorporated city in 1850. Cal. Statutes, 1850, 121. To this it was stimulated by rival projects, which in course of time dotted the entire bay shore with prospective towns. Foreseeing the need for a shore settlement, the alcalde had in Sept. 1849 begun to sell lots at La Playa, and here a certain trade sprang up. Hayes' Misc., 44. Federal officers interfered, claiming the place for military purposes. Report in S. Diego, Rept Land, 1-5. Speculators accordingly turned their attention to the south of the pueblo, and obtaining a grant of land in March 1850, on condition of building a wharf, they laid out New San Diego. W. Davis lent his fostering aid in 1851, and three government buildings and a few dwellings rose behind the wharf. Even a journal appeared for a time, the Herald, of Judge Ames; but southern California fell into neglect and the town stood still, unable to count in 1867 more than a dozen inhabitants. Then appeared A. E. Horton, who purchased for $6,700 about five quarter-sections of the present main site of the new city, on the bay shore, Savage's Coll., MS., iv. 285, laid out the addition named after him, built a wharf to deep water, and on the refusal of the coast steamer to call, he in 1869 placed the W. Taber on the route to S. F., in opposition, at low rates. Four miles below on the bay National City was laid out by the Kimball brothers, and competition ran high. Settlers began to come in, lots sold rapidly, and buildings went up in all directions, the proprietors applying their gains to building and other improvements. In 1870 San Diego claimed a population of 2,300, with over 900 houses. The catholics had a church since 1858, tended by Padre J. Moliner. In 1868 the episcopalians organized under S. Wilbur, and in 1869 methodists, baptists with the first temple, and presbyterians followed the example. In 1870 the new city procured a decree transferring the archives from the old town, which was effected in 1871, after a struggle, and the old pueblo, which had so long reigned in mediocre triumph over its rival, fell into decay. The records of its doings since 1848 are given in San Diego Arch.; Hayes' San Diego; Id., Misc., 44 et seq. Its charter was repealed in 1852, and 20 years later the new city assumed incorporation garbs. Cal. Statutes, 1852, 305; 1871-2, 286-95; 1875-6, 806. The Masonic order, dating here since 1853, moved over in 1871, preceded three years on the new site by the Odd Fellows. In 1873 the place was made a port of entry, and the Panamá steamers cheered it with their calls. Prof. Davidson assigned 22 feet to the bar at the mean of the lowest low water. Two journals flourished. The delay of the promised railroad, upon which all hopes rested, interposed a check on progress, but its completion gave fresh impulse to the city, upon which the claims of National City as the real terminus had little effect. In 1882 almost 100 vessels entered from domestic ports and 99 from foreign ports, paying $263,160 in duties on imports. A chamber of commerce was organized in 1870; water and gas were introduced; and between 1878 and 1888 real property advanced in price in some instances from ten to twenty fold. Details of progress in Bancroft's Pers. Observ., MS., 9, etc.; Rusling's Across, 326-8; Hayes' San Diego, i.-iv., passim; San Diego, Arch. H., passim; Id., Index; Savage's Coll., MS., 233 et seq.; South Transcont. R. R., Mem.; San Diego News, Id., Union, scattered articles, notably June 26, 1873; July 20, 1876; Feb. 22, 1877; Oct. 17, 1878; also S. F. journals; San Diego City Inform., 1-50; Hist. San Bern. Co., 184-8; Cal. Agric. Soc., Trans., 1878, 272; 1874, 381, etc.; San Diego Com. Lands, 1-5.

CHAPTER XIX.

CALIFORNIA IN COUNTIES.

1848-1888.

AFFAIRS UNDER THE HISPANO-CALIFORNIANS-COMING OF THE ANGLO-AMERICANS-EL DORADO, PLACER, SACRAMENTO, YUBA, AND OTHER COUNTIES NORTH AND SOUTH-THEIR ORIGIN, INDUSTRIES, WEALTH, AND PROG

RESS.

IN Mexican times settlements were almost wholly restricted to the coast valleys south of San Francisco Bay, with a predilection for the orange-perfumed regions of Santa Bárbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego. The Russians had obtained a footing on the coast above Marin, as a branch station for their Alaska fur trading; and the attempt roused the California authorities to place an advance guard in the vicinity, first at San Rafael and its branch mission of Solano, and subsequently at the military post of Sonoma, to affirm their possessory rights. In the forties Anglo-Saxon immigrants, adding their number to the Mexican occupants, extended settlement into the valleys north of the bay. With the conquest population began to gravitate round this sheet of water, as the centre for trade, a sprinkling penetrating into San Joaquin Valley and up the Sacramento. The effect of Marshall's discovery was to draw the male inhabitants from the coast to the gold region. Many remained in the great California Valley and became traders and townbuilders; some continued to roam along the Sierra slope as gold-diggers.

HIST. CAL., VOL. VI. 31

481

The American South Fork, as nearest the point of distribution, at Sacramento, and carrying with it the prestige of the gold discovery, long attracted the widest current of migration. A just tribute to fame was awarded to the saw-mill site at Coloma, the first spot occupied in the county, in 1847, by making it a main station for travel and the county seat for El Dorado, and so remaining until 1857, after which, the mines failing, it declined into a small yet neat horticultural town. The saw-mill, transferred to other hands by Marshall and Sutter, supplied in 1849 the demand for lumber. The first ferry on the fork was conducted here by J. T. Little, a flourishing trader. Little's Stat., MS., 3. And E. T. Rann constructed here the first bridge in the county early in 1850, for $20,000, yielding a return of $250 a day. Pac. News, May 29, 1850. Population 2,000 in Oct. 1850. S. F. Picayune, Oct. 21, 1850; Barstow's Stat., MS., 1-4; Sherman's Mem., i. 64; Placer Times, July 28, 1849; Apr. 29, 1850; Sac. Transcript, Feb., March 14, 1851. View in Pict. Union, Jan. 1, Apr. 1854; S. F. Bulletin, Sept. 9, 1857; Sac. Union, Oct. 20, 1856; Placerville Rep., Feb. 28, 1878. Incorporation act in Cal. Statutes, 1858, 207. Marshall, the gold-finder, gained recognition a while in the adjacent petty Uniontown, first called after him. The early drift of miners tended along Webber Creek toward Placerville, which became the most prominent of El Dorado's towns, its final county seat and centre of traffic. Southward rose Diamond Springs, which strove for the county seat in 1854. It was almost destroyed by fire in Aug. 1856. Loss $500,000, says Alta Cal., Aug. 7, 1856. Lately founded, observes Sac. Transcript, Nov. 29, 1850. Camps, etc., in chapter on mines. Mud Springs, later El Dorado, was incorporated in 1855, Cal. Statues, 1855, 116; 1857, 7; with great flourish, and disincorporated in 1857. Several small towns rose on the divide southward. Above the South Fork sprang up notably Pilot Hill, or Centreville, which claimed the first grange in the state. Then there were Greenwood and Georgetown, both of which aspired at one time to become the county seat. The former was named after the famed mountaineer, though first known as Long Valley, Lewisville, etc. Georgetown, begun by Geo. Ehrenhaft, Ballou's Adven., MS., 22, had in Dec. 1849 a tributary population of 5,000. Alta Cal, Dec. 15, 1849; Cal. Courier, July 12, 1850. It was nearly destroyed by fire in 1856. S. F. Bulletin, July 7, 10, 1856. Latrobe rose on the Placerville R. R.

route.

In 1857 an effort was made in vain to form Eureka county from the northern half of El Dorado. Nearly every surviving town in the county owes its beginning to mining, although so large a proportion now depends solely on agriculture and trade. Many had early recourse to these branches for supplying a profitable demand, potatoes being scarce and high. With the decline of mining, however, involving the death of so many camps, the vitality of the larger places declined, and by 1880 less than 11,000 remained of a population which during the fifties exceeded 20,000. But farming, and notably horticulture, stepped in to turn the current into a channel of slow though steady revival, still assisted to some extent by quartz and hydraulic mining. The census of 1880 assigned to the county 542 farms, but an improved acreage of only 69,000, valued at $1,181,000, with $482,000 worth of produce, and $297,000 of live-stock, the total assessment being $2,312,000. Farming