USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > A history of California and an extended history of Los Angeles and environs : also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I > Part 35
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CHAPTER XXXII. RAILROADS.
T HE agitation of the Pacific railroad ques- tion began only two years after the first passenger railway was put in operation in the United States. The originator of the scheme to secure the commerce of Asia by a transcontinental railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific was Hartwell Carver, grandson of the famous explorer, Jonathan Carver. He published articles in the New York Courier and Inquirer in 1832 elaborating his idea, and memorialized congress on the subject. The western terminus was to be on the Columbia river. His road was to be made of stone. There were to be sleeping cars and dining cars at- tached to each train. In 1836, John Plumbe, then a resident of Dubuque, Iowa, advocated the building of a railroad from Lake Michigan to Oregon. At a public meeting held in Du- buque, March 26, 1838, which Plumbe ad- dressed, a memorial to congress was drafted "praying for an appropriation to defray the ex- pense of the survey and location of the first link in the great Atlantic and Pacific railroad, name- ly, from the lakes to the Mississippi." Their application was favorably received and an ap- propriation being made the same year, which was expended under the direction of the secre- tary of war, the report being of a very favorable character .*
Plumbe received the indorsement of the Wis-
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. VII., p. 499.
consin legislature of 1839-40 and a memorial was drafted to congress urging the continuance of the work. Plumbe went to Washington to urge his project. But the times were out of joint for great undertakings. The financial panic of 1837 had left the government revenues in a demoralized condition. Plumbe's plan was to issue stock to the amount of $100,000,000 divided in shares of $5 each. The government was to appropriate alternate sections of the public lands along the line of the road. Five million dollars were to be called in for the first installment. After this was expended in building, the receipts from the sale of the lands was to continue the building of the road. One hundred miles were to be built each year and twenty years was the time set for the completion of the road. A bill granting the subsidy and authoriz- ing the building of the road was introduced in congress, but was defeated by the southern members who feared that it would foster the growth of free states.
The man best known in connection with the early agitation of the Pacific railroad scheme was Asa Whitney, of New York. For a time he acted with Carver in promulgating the project, but took up a plan of his own. Whitney wanted a strip of land sixty miles wide along the whole length of the road, which would have given about one hundred million acres of the public domain. Whitney's scheme called forth a great deal of discussion. It was feared by some
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timorous souls that such a monopoly would endanger the government and by others that it would bankrupt the public treasury. The agi- tation was kept up for several years. The acquisition of California and New Mexico threw the project into politics. The question of de- pleting the treasury or giving away the public domain no longer worried the pro-slavery poli- ticians in congress. The question that agitated them now was how far south could the road be deflected so that it would enhance the value of the lands over which they hoped to spread their pet institution-human slavery.
Another question that agitated the members of congress was whether the road should be built by the government-should be a national road. The route which the road should take was fought over year after year in congress. The south would not permit the north to have the road for fear that freemen would absorb the public lands and build up free states. It was the old dog-in-the-manger policy so character- istic of the southern proslavery politicians.
The California newspapers early took up the discussion and routes were thick as leaves in Valambrosa. In the Star of May 13, 1848, Dr. John Marsh outlines a route which was among the best proposed: "From the highest point on the Bay of San Francisco to which seagoing vessels can ascend; thence up the valley of the San Joaquin two hundred and fifty miles; thence through a low pass (Walker's) to the valley of the Colorado and thence through Ari- zona and New Mexico by the Santa Fe trail to Independence, Mo."
Routes were surveyed and the reports of the engineers laid before congress; memorials were received from the people of California praying for a road; bills were introduced and discussed, but the years passed and the Pacific railroad was not begun. Slavery, that "sum of all vil- lainies," was an obstruction more impassable than the mountains and deserts that intervened between the Missouri and the Pacific. Southern politicians, aided and abetted by Gwin of Cali- fornia neutralized every attempt.
One of the first of several local railroad projects that resulted in something more than resolutions, public meetings and the election of
a board of directors that never directed any- thing was the building of a railroad from San Francisco to San José. The agitation was be- gun early in 1850 and by February, 1851, $100,- 000 had been subscribed. September 6 of that year a company was organized and the pro- jected road given the high sounding title of the Pacific & Atlantic railroad. Attempts were made to secure subscriptions for its stock in New York and in Europe, but without success. Congress was appealed to, but gave no assist- ance and all that there was to the road for ten years was its name. In 1859 a new organization was effected under the name of the San Fran- cisco & San José railroad company. An at- tempt was made to secure a subsidy of $900,- 000 from the three counties through which the road was to pass, but this failed and the corpora- tion dissolved. Another organization, the fourth, was effected with a capital stock of $2,000,000. The construction of the road was begun in October, 1860, and completed to San José January 16, 1864.
The first railroad completed and put into suc- cessful operation in California was the Sacra- mento Valley road. It was originally intended to extend the road from Sacramento through Placer and Sutter counties to Mountain City, in Yuba county, a distance of about forty miles. It came to a final stop at a little over half that distance. Like the San José road the question of building was agitated several years before anything was really done. In 1853 the company was reorganized under the railroad act of that year. Under the previous organization sub- scriptions had been obtained. The Sacramento Union of September 19, 1852, says: "The books of the Sacramento Valley railroad company were to have been opened in San Francisco Wednesday. Upwards of $200,000 of the neces- sary stock has been subscribed from here." The Union of September 24 announces, "That over $600,000 had already been subscribed at San Francisco and Sacramento." Under the re- organization a new board was elected November 12, 1853. C. L. Wilson was made president; F. W. Page, treasurer, and W. H. Watson, sec- retary. Theodore D. Judah, afterwards famous in California railroad building, was employed as
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engineer and the construction of the road began in February, 1855. It was completed to Fol- som a distance of twenty-two miles from Sacra- mento and the formal opening of the road for business took place February 22, 1856. Accord- ing to the secretary's report for 1857 the earn- ings of that year averaged $18,000 per month. The total earnings for the year amounted to $216,000; the expenses $84,000, leaving a profit of $132,000. The cost of the road and its equip- ment was estimated at $700,000. From this showing it would seem that California's first railroad ought to have been a paying invest- ment, but it was not. Money then was worth 5 per cent a month and the dividends from the road about 18 per cent a year. The difference between one and a half per cent and 5 per cent a month brought the road to a standstill.
Ten years had passed since California had become a state and had its representatives in congress. In all these years the question of a railroad had come up in some form in that body, yet the railroad seemingly was as far from a consummation as it had been a decade before. In 1859 the silver mines of the Washoe were discovered and in the winter of 1859-60 the great silver rush began. An almost continuous stream of wagons, pack trains, horsemen and footmen poured over the Sierra Nevadas into Carson Valley and up the slopes of Mount Davidson to Virginia City. The main line of travel was by way of Placerville, through John- son's Pass to Carson City. An expensive toll road was built over the mountains and monster freight wagons hauled great loads of merchan- dise and mill machinery to the mines. "In 1863 the tolls on the new road amounted to $300,000 and the freight bills on mills and merchandise summed up $13,000,000."*
The rush to Washoe gave a new impetus to railroad projecting. A convention of the whole coast had been held at San Francisco in Sep- tember, 1859, but nothing came of it beyond propositions and resolutions. Early in 1861, Theodore P. Judah called a railroad meeting at the St. Charles hotel in Sacramento. The feasi- bility of a road over the mountains, the large
amount of business that would come to that road from the Washoe mines and the necessity of Sacramento moving at once to secure that trade were pointed out. This road would be the beginning of a transcontinental line and Sacra- mento had the opportunity of becoming its terminus. Judah urged upon some of the lead- ing business men the project of organizing a company to begin the building of a transconti- nental road. The Washoe trade and travel would be a very important item in the business of the road.
On the 28th of June, 1861, the Central Pacific Railroad company was organized under the general incorporation law of the state. Leland Stanford was chosen president, C. P. Hunting- ton, vice-president, Mark Hopkins, treasurer, James Bailey, secretary, and T. D. Judah, chief engineer. The directors were those just named and E. B. Crocker, John F. Morse, D. W. Strong and Charles Marsh. The capital stock of the company was $8,500,000 divided into eighty-five thousand shares of $100 each. The shares taken by individuals were few, Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, Judah and Charles Crocker subscrib- ing for one hundred and fifty each; Glidden & Williams, one hundred and twenty-five shares; Charles A. Lombard and Orville D. Lombard, three hundred and twenty shares; Samuel Hooper, Benjamin J. Reed, Samuel P. Shaw, fifty shares each; R. O. Ives, twenty-five shares; Edwin B. Crocker, ten shares; Samuel Bran- nan, two hundred shares; cash subscriptions of which 10 per cent was required by law to be paid down realizing but a few thousand dollars with which to begin so important a work as a railroad across the Sierra Nevada .*
The total amount subscribed was $158,000, scarcely enough to build five miles of road on the level plains if it had all been paid up. None of the men in the enterprise was rich. Indeed, as fortunes go now, none of them had more than a competence. Charles Crocker, who was one of the best off, in his sworn statement, placed the value of his property at $25,000; C. P. Huntington placed the value of his individual possessions at $7,222, while Leland Stanford and
*Bancroft's History of California, Vol. VII., p. 541.
* Bancroft's History of California, Vol. VII.
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his brother together owned property worth $32,950. The incubus that so long had pre- vented building a Pacific railroad was removed. The war of secession had begun. The southern senators and representatives were no longer in congress to obstruct legislation. The thirty- second and the thirty-fifth parallel roads south- ern schemes, were out of the way or rather the termini of these roads were inside the confeder- ate lines.
A bill "to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean and to secure to the govern- ment the use of the same for postal, military and other purposes passed both houses and became a law July 1, 1862. The bill provided for the building of the road by two companies. The Union Pacific (which was to be a union of several roads already projected) was given the construction of the road to the eastern boundary of California, where it would connect with the Central Pacific. Government bonds were to be given to the companies to the amount of $16,000 per mile to the foot of the mountains and $48,000 per mile through the mountains when forty miles of road had been built and approved by the government commissioners. In addition to the bonds the companies were to receive "every alternate section of public land desig- nated by odd numbers to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of the railroad on the line thereof and within the limits of ten miles on each side of the road not sold, reserved or otherwise disposed of by the United States." Mineral lands were exempted and any lands unsold three years after the completion of the entire road were subject to a preëmption like other public lands at a price not exceeding $1.25 per acre, payable to the company.
The government bonds were a first mortgage on the road. The ceremony of breaking ground for the beginning of the enterprise took place at Sacramento, February 22, 1863, Governor Stanford throwing the first shovelful of earth, and work was begun on the first eighteen miles of the road which was let by contract to be finished by August, 1863. The Central Pacific company was in hard lines. Its means were not sufficient to build forty miles which must be
completed before the subsidy could be received. In October, 1863, Judah who had been instru- mental in securing the first favorable legislation set out a second time for Washington to ask further assistance from congress. At New York he was stricken with a fever and died there. To him more than any other man is due the credit of securing for the Pacific coast its first trans- continental railroad. In July, 1864, an amended act was passed increasing the land grant from six thousand four hundred acres to twelve thousand eight hundred per mile and reducing the number of miles to be built annually from fifty to twenty-five. The company was allowed to bond its road to the same amount per mile as the government subsidy.
The Western Pacific, which was virtually a continuation of the Central Pacific, was organ- ized in December, 1862, for the purpose of building a railroad from Sacramento via Stock- ton to San José. A branch of this line was constructed from Niles to Oakland, which was made the terminus of the Central Pacific. The Union Pacific did not begin construction until 1865, while the Central Pacific had forty-four miles constructed. In 1867 the Central Pacific had reached the state line. It had met with many obstacles in the shape of lawsuits and unfavorable comments by the press. From the state line it pushed out through Nevada and on the 28th of April, 1869, the two companies met with their completed roads at Promontory Point in Utah, fifty-three miles west of Ogden. The ceremony of joining the two roads took place May 10. The last tie, a handsomely fin- ished piece of California laurel, was laid and Governor Stanford with a silver hammer drove a golden spike. The two locomotives, one from the east and one from the west, bumped noses and the first transcontinental railroad was completed.
The Southern Pacific Railroad company of California was incorporated in December, 1865. It was incorporated to build a railroad from some point on the bay of San Francisco through the counties of Santa Clara, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Los Angeles to San Diego and thence easterly through San Diego to the eastern boundary of the state there to
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connect with a railroad from the Mississippi river.
"In July, 1866, congress granted to the At- lantic and Pacific Railroad company to aid in the construction of its road and telegraph line from Springfield, Mo., by the most eligible route to Albuquerque in New Mexico and thence by the thirty-fifth parallel route to the Pacific, an amount of land equal to that granted to the Central Pacific. By this act the Southern Pa- cific Railroad was authorized to connect with the Atlantic and Pacific near the boundary line of California, at such point as should be deemed most suitable by the companies and should have therefore the same amount of land per mile as the Atlantic and Pacific."*
In 1867 the Southern Pacific company de- cided to change its route and instead of build- ing down through the coast counties to go east- ward from Gilroy through Pacheco's pass into the upper San Joaquin valley through Fresno, Kern and San Bernardino to the Colorado river near Fort Mojave. This contemplated change left the lower coast counties out in the cold and caused considerable dissatisfaction, and an at- tempt was made to prevent it from getting a land subsidy. Congress, however, authorized the change, as did the California legislature of 1870, and the road secured the land.
The San Francisco and San José Railroad came into possession of the Southern Pacific company, San Francisco donating three thou- sand shares of stock in that road on condition that the Southern Pacific company, after it se- cured the San José road, should extend it to the southeastern boundary of the state. In 1869 a proposition was made to the supervisors of San Francisco to donate $1,000,000 in bonds of the city to the Southern Pacific company, on condition that it build two hundred miles south from Gilroy, the bonds to be delivered on the completion and stocking of each section of fifty miles of road. The bonds were voted by the people of the city. The road was built to Soledad, seventy miles from Gilroy, and then stopped. The different branch roads in the San José and Salinas valley were all consolidated
under the name of the Southern Pacific. The Central Pacific and the Southern Pacific, al- though apparently different organizations, were really one company.
The Southern Pacific built southward from Lathrop, a station on the Central Pacific's line, a railroad up the valley by way of Tehachapi Pass to Los Angeles. While this road was in course of construction in 1872 a proposition was made to the people of Los Angeles through the county board of supervisors to vote a subsidy equal to 5 per cent of the entire amount of the taxable property of the county on condition that the Southern Pacific build fifty miles of its main line to Yuma in the county. Part of the subsidy was to be paid in bonds of the Los Angeles & San Pedro Railroad, amounting to $377,000 and sixty acres of land for depot purposes. The total amount of subsidy to be given was $610,- 000. The proposition was accepted by the people, the railroad company in addition to its original offer agreeing to build a branch road twenty-seven miles long to Anaheim. This was done to head off the Tom Scott road which had made a proposition to build a branch road from San Diego to Los Angeles to connect with the Texas Pacific road which the year before had been granted a right of way from Marshall, Tex., to San Diego, and was preparing to build its road. The Southern Pacific completed its road to Los Angeles in September, 1876, and reached the Colorado river on its way east in April, 1877. It obtained the old franchise of the Texas Pacific and continued its road eastward to El Paso, Tex., where it made connections with roads to New Orleans and other points south and east, thus giving California its second transcontinental railroad. This road was com- pleted to El Paso in 1881.
The Atlantic & Pacific road with which the Southern Pacific was to connect originally, suffered from the financial crash of 1873 and suspended operations for a time. Later it en- tered into a combination with the Atchison, To- peka & Santa Fe and St. Louis & San Francisco railroad companies. This gave the Atchison road a half interest in the charter of the Atlantic & Pacific. The two companies built a main line jointly from Albuquerque (where the Atchison
* Bancroft, VII., p. 594.
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road ended) west to the Colorado river at the Needles. Their intention was to continue the road to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The California Southern and the California Southern Extension companies were organized to extend the Atlantic & Pacific from Barstow to San Diego. These companies consolidated and completed a road from San Diego to San Bernardino September 13, 1883. The Southern Pacific interfered. It attempted to prevent the California Southern from crossing its tracks at Colton by placing a heavy engine at the point of crossing, but was compelled to move the en- gine to save it from demolition. It built a branch from Mojave station to connect with the At- lantic & Pacific in which it had an interest. This gave connection for the Atlantic & Pacific over the Southern Pacific lines with both Los Angeles and San Francisco. This was a serious blow to the California Southern, but disasters never come singly. The great flood of January, 1884, swept down through the Temecula Cañon and carried about thirty miles of its track out to sea. It was doubtful under the circumstances whether it would pay to rebuild it. Finally the Southern Pacific agreed to sell its extension from Barstow to the Needles to the California Southern, reserving its road from Barstow to
Mojave. Construction was begun at once on the California Southern line from Barstow to San Bernardino and in November, 1885, the road was completed from Barstow to San Diego. In October, 1886, the road passed un- der control of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. In the spring of 1887 the road was ex- tended westerly from San Bernardino to meet the San Gabriel valley road which had been built eastward from Los Angeles through Pasa- dena. The completed line reached Los Angeles in May, 1887, thus giving California a third transcontinental line.
After many delays the gap in the Southern Pacific coast line was closed and the first trains from the north and the south passed over its entire length between Los Angeles and San Francisco on the 31st of March, 1901, nearly thirty years after the first section of the road was built.
The Oregon & California and the Central Pacific were consolidated in 1870. The two ends of the road were united at Ashland, Ore., in 1887. The entire line is now controlled by the Southern Pacific, and, in connection with the Northern Pacific and the Oregon Railway & Navigation Road at Portland, forms a fourth transcontinental line for California.
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE INDIAN QUESTION.
I T IS quite the fashion now with a certain school of writers, who take their history of California from "Ramona" and their infor- mation on the "Indian question" under the rule of the mission padres from sources equally fic- titious, to draw invidious comparisons between the treatment of the Indian by Spain and Mex- ico when mission rule was dominant in Cali- fornia and his treatment by the United States after the conquest.
That the Indian was brutally treated and un- mercifully slaughtered by the American miners and rancheros in the early '5os none will deny; that he had fared but little better under the rule
of Spain and Mexico is equally true. The tame and submissive Indians of the sea coast with whom the mission had to deal were a very different people from the mountain tribes with whom the Americans came in conflict.
We know but little of the conquistas or gentile hunts that were occasionally sent out from the mission to capture subjects for conversion. The history of these was not recorded. From "The narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Berings strait with the Polar expedition; performed in his majesty's ship Blossom, under command of Capt. F. W. Beechey, R. N., in the years 1825-26-27-28, we have the story of one of these
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conquistas or convert raids. Captain Beechey visited California in 1828. While in California he studied the missions, or at least those he vis- ited, and after his return to England published his observations. His observations have great value. He was a disinterested observer and gave a plain, straightforward, truthful account of what he saw, without prejudice or partiality. His narrative dispels much of the romance that some modern writers throw around mission life. This conquista set out from the Mission San José.
"At a particular period of the year also, when the Indians can be spared from agricultural con- cerns of the establishment, many are permitted to take the launch of the mission and make ex- cursions to the Indian territory. All are anx- ious to go on such occasions. Some to visit friends, some to procure the manufactures of their barbarian countrymen (which, by the by, are often better than their own) and some with a secret determination never to return. On these occasions the padres desire them to induce as many of their unconverted brethren as possible to accompany them back to the mission; of course, implying that this is to be done only by persuasion; but the boat being furnished with a cannon and musketry and in every respect equipped for war, it too often happens that the neophytes and the gente de razon, who super- intend the direction of the boat, avail them- selves of their superiority with the desire of in- gratiating themselves with their master and re- ceiving a reward. There are besides repeated acts of aggression, which it is necessary to pun- ish, all of which furnish proselytes. Women and children are generally the first objects of cap- ture, as their husbands and parents sometimes voluntarily follow them into captivity. These misunderstandings and captivities keep up a per- petual enmity amongst the tribes whose thirst for revenge is insatiable."
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