A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 45

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

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Between the Colorado and the Coast Range Mountains lay an inhospitable desert. Over this arid waste the immigrant looked forward with dread and foreboding. The trail, faint at best, was often obliterated by sand storms or cloud- bursts and the land marine was left to drift helpless on a chartless sea. If he missed a watering place his chances were desperate for reaching the next one. Unused to desert phe- nomena, the leceitful mirage might lure him from the trail, and in pursuing phantom rivers and lakes "Till they faded from his sight." leave him helpless 'to perish of desert thirst.

There is a legend that when the Southern Pa- cific Railroad was in course of construction across the desert in 1879. the builders came upon

a group of human skeletons. These were sup- posed to be the remains of members of a lost immigrant train of the early '50s. The sands of the Colorado desert were as pitiless to the weary immigrant as the drifting snows of the Sierras. These tragedies on the Colorado river route vir- tually ended with the building of the Southern Pacific Railroad across the desert. The road- bed marked the trail and the watering stations along the road relieved the thirsty traveler.

No thirst-tortured immigrant who crossed the desert waste between Yuma and the Pass of San Gorgonio could have been convinced by any form of argument that that "desert could be made to bud and blossom as the rose."

The first scheme for reclaiming the Colorado desert by irrigation was promulgated by Dr. O. M. Wozencraft half a century ago. His project was ridiculed as visionary and impossible. He tried to secure a large concession of land from Mexico lying just below the line. This was at the time when filibustering was active, and the Mexican government regarded the doctor's scheme with suspicion. The first successful at- tempt at reclamation of desert land was made at Coachella near Indio, Riverside county, in 1898. This was accomplished by means of artesian wells. The remarkable growth and the early date at which the vegetables grown could be put on the market convinced the unbelieving that with water not only could the desert be made to bud and blossom as the rose, but that farming it could be made to pay. The reclamation of what is now known as Imperial valley began in 1900.

The California Development Company had ob- tained concessions of land stretching along the southeastern borders of San Diego county and extending below the line into Lower California. The company constructed an irrigating canal which tapped the Colorado river on the Califor- nia side at several points below Yuma. This canal, seventy feet wide and six to eight feet deep, extended sixty miles. The first settler took up land in June, 1900, and the first plow- share was struck into the ground in the latter part of June. 1901. The rush to secure land. considering the location, was phenomenal. The wonderful fertility of the soil and the moderate

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price at which land with irrigating facilities could be purchased (all of which was heralded abroad by judicious advertising) brought in a rush of settlers unprecedented in colonization. At the close of 1901 less than 2,000 acres were under cultivation. In 1902, 20,000 acres were plowed and the work of extending the canal had been pushed until at the close of 1903, 100,000 acres could be irrigated. Early in 1904 it was estimated that the water system of the valley covered 125,000 acres. The influx of settlers had kept pace with the extension of the water system. Imperial, the largest town of the val- ley, had a population of 1,200. It had its hotels, stores, schools, banks and newspapers. Five other towns, Brawley, Holtville, Silsbee, Heber and Calexico in California and Mexicala below the boundary line, competed with Imperial, the metropolis, for the trade of the valley. In 1905 the population of the valley was estimated at 10,000. There were twelve school districts with school houses in each filled with pupils. The Southern Pacific in 1903 extended a branch line from Old Beach on its transcontinental road through Brawley and Imperial to Calexico. This proved to be one of the best paying branch lines owned by the company. The Imperial val- ley was proving to be a land of promise not only flowing with milk and honey, but with more substantial viands. In 1904 the first cloud dimmed its horizon. Trouble began between the United States and the California Develop- ment Company. The company by its filings claimed 10,000 cubic feet per second of the waters of the Colorado river. As the Colorado is a navigable stream and this amount being more than its normal flow, the government ob- jected. A bill was introduced in the house of representatives to have the waters of the river appropriated for irrigation. This bill was de- feated.

Two of the intakes of the canal were below the boundary line and consequently not under the jurisdiction of the United States. In Octo- ber, 1904, the water in the canal was low and intakes No. I and No. 2 filled with silt. There was a shortage of water and crops were suf- fering. The speediest way and the least ex- pensive to relieve the threatened water famine

of the valley was found to be the dredging of intake No. 3, the lowest one. Soon after the dredging, water began to rise in the Salton sink. It was discovered that water had made its way from the lower intake and canal into New river and from that into Salton sink. Nothing was done to stop the inflow. The rainfall of the winter of 1904-05 was the heaviest for many years. The waters rose rapidly in the Salton sea. The salt works at Salton were overflowed and destroyed. The Southern Pacific Railroad track was menaced. A dam of sand bags was built, but the rising waters compelled the com- pany to build what is called a "shoo-fly track." During the low waters of the first three years the company, at comparatively small expense, could have built head-gates that would have controlled the waters at the intakes. It was now getting beyond their control. The river had made broad channels of the intakes and the com- pany was aroused to the necessity of doing some- thing to prevent the flooding of the country. A dam 600 feet long and 100 feet wide, made of piles driven into the river bed and the inter- stices filled with brush and wire matresses, was constructed across the principal break. It was almost completed when, on November 29, 1905, the second greatest flood ever known swept down the Gila into the Colorado. The dam was carried away and the waters unrestrained flowed through the intakes.

The rainfall of the winter of 1905-06 was heavier than that of the previous year. The Colorado left its old channel and its waters poured into the Salton sink through the New and the Alamo rivers. In June, 1906, the New river at Calexico was ten miles wide and the waters of the Salton sea rose eight feet in fifteen days. The Alamo, the other branch of the Col- orado, was 1,160 feet wide and 80 feet deep. The soft lose silt melted like snow and was carried away by the turbulent waters. The irri- gating canals were swept away and the deep gulches cut by the rivers rendered it impossible to conduct the water from them to the crops. The condition of the crops in the valley at this time was very much like that of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner-"Water! Water! everywhere and not a drop to drink." On the very brink

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of immense rivers of water the crops were per- ishing from drought.

Part of the town of Mexicala was swept away by the flood and Calexico was endangered. The old channel of the Colorado from Yuma to the Gulf of California was left high and dry. The Salton sea was receiving all of the Colorado's immense volume of water, amounting to a flow of 20,000 cubic feet per second, and it had spread out over four hundred square miles. The responsibility for the disaster that had fallen upon Imperial valley rests largely with the di- rectors of the Canal Company. Their failure to provide controlling works of any kind at the in- takes was a mistake or an omission their en- gineer should not have made. The Colorado is a treacherous river, subject to sudden rises. The fact that three seasons had passed without head- gates to gauge the inflow to the canal had made the company careless, and when the necessity for such was forced upon it, the river was be- yond control.

The Southern Pacific Railroad Company has taken charge of the situation. Three times that company at great expense has been compelled to build new tracks to escape the encroachments of the Salton sea. The sites of Indio, Thermal, Mecca and Salton, stations on the line of the road, are inundated. The small farms of the settlers at these places have been ruined. An army of a thousand men are dumping rock into the breaks in the banks of the Colorado.

The expense involved in controlling the run- away river was immense during the month of Oc- tober, 1906. The Southern Pacific Railroad Com- pany was spending $10,000 a day in dumping rock into the breaks of the river bank. All the available rolling stock on the Tucson, Los An- geles and San Joaquin Valley divisions were called into requisition. Work on the different railroad lines was suspended and the entire energy concentrated upon the closure of the break. Rock was brought from the Southern Pacific quarries located at Casa Blanca, Bly, Declez, Ogilby, Pilot Knob and Calabasas. Some of these places were two hundred miles from where the dam was being constructed. Each source of supply was assigned a definite quantity of material for its daily output. Two hundred and eighty cars a

day, or enough rock and gravel to dump a car every five minutes day and night, was poured into the gap. At the same time a dike of nine miles along the Colorado river to prevent overflow was in course of construction. On the 24th of October water for the first time in months flowed down the old channel of the Colorado.

CITIES AND TOWNS.

OLD TOWN.

Old Town, now the first ward of the city, is the San Diego of history and romance. It is three miles northwest of the city proper. The surf line of the Santa Fe Railroad system passes through the lower portion of it. From 1850 to 1868 it was the county seat. Prior to 1850 it was all that there was of the city or town of San Diego. Here the first germ of civilization in California was planted. The first mission was established here, and here the first Indian convert was baptized.

Dana and Robinson made it famous in their books on life in the California of olden times ; and Helen Hunt Jackson has invested it with an air of romance by making it the scenes of the marriage of her hero and heroine in her story of Ramona. The house in which Ramona was married to Alessandro is still pointed out to the tourist.

The San Diego Sun of January 12, 1892, thus rudely tears away the veil of sentiment that Mrs. Jackson threw around her famous characters and shows them up as they were in real life: "The real Alessandro was a horse thief who was shot for his crimes by a San Jacinto man, who is still living. Ramona is a squaw of well-under- stood character, who lives upon her notoriety and her offenses."

ROSEVILLE AND LA PLAYA.

After Father Horton had called the attention of the coast to San Diego as a possible rival to San Francisco, additions, subdivisions and new cities around the bay became as thick as "leaves in Valambrosa." Besides San Diego, Old and New, Middle Town, and Horton's Addition, there were Caruther's Addition, Sherman's Ad- dition, Taggert's Addition, Roseville, La Playa,

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Manassee's Addition, Monumental City and Kimball City.

Major Ben. C. Truman, writing from San Diego in 1869, gives La Playa and Roseville this notice :

"La Playa, as a site for a city, is a good one, but unfortunately most of the owners of 50- vara lots of this metropolis (on paper) are the singular possessors of more money than brains. They have got some nice deep water in front of their burg, and the railroad must come here,' they say. Now they may slip up on this point, for if ground is not broke further up the bay, the railroad naturally would hunt a ter- minus opposite La Playa on Peachy and Aspin- wall Peninsula (Coronado) rather than span the river with an $80,000 bridge.

"Roseville is also a pretty place (on paper), but has no more chance of being a city than Marriott's Avitor has of being the means of transportation for the conveyance of Ben. Butler to ethereal realms. Roseville is a couple of miles further up the bay than La Playa, and is, for the most part, owned by a gentleman named Rose, one of the most sterling and public-spirited men in Southern California. Should La Playa ever be a great city, Roseville would have the honor to be its very respectable suburb."

The trustees of the San Diego Mutual Land Association, which association controlled the lands at La Playa and Roseville, in a column advertisement in the Bulletin of 1871 (a great spread in advertising for a real estate agency to make in those days) sets forth the great natural advantages of their location on the bay, to be- come "the most prominent business points of this harbor and which will eventually be made the terminus of the Southern Transcontinental Railroad." "One lot (says the advertisement ), 50 feet front by 100 feet in depth, will be given to persons contracting to erect buildings cost- ing from $250 to $500 within three months ; one block, 200 fect by 300 feet, will be given to any party contracting to erect a first-class hotel." "At La Playa the old landing of the hide drogh- ers (spoken of by Dana in his Two Years Be- fore the Mast), a substantial wharf 472 feet long by 30 feet in width, has been constructed having a depth of 16 feet at low tide."

"Whenever one hundred buildings have been crected upon land belonging to the Association the balance of the property may be sold as well as donated and the proceeds thereof expended in improvements, such as the erection of a town hall. markets, school houses, sinking artesian wells, construction of wharves and other pub- lic improvements."

Such liberal offers should have built up a great city on Point Loma, but the superior in- ducements of Horton's Addition drew the tide of immigration further up the bay. Roseville has a hotel and several business houses. Its wharf is the landing place for the launches that carry visitors and the residents to and from the Universal Brotherhood Headquarters on Point Loma. La Playa is the home of the Portuguese fisherman who supply the fish markets of San Diego. Truman's prophecy of thirty-five years ago has come true, neither place has become a city.

NATIONAL CITY.

The Kimball brothers in 1869 bought the Rancho de la Nacion, containing 27,000 acres. They subdivided a portion of it into farm lots, built a wharf and laid off a town on the bay four miles south of San Diego, which they named National City. They were quite successful in selling lots, and for a time there was a spirited and somewhat acrimonious rivalry between New Town and National City. The failure of the Texas Pacific Railroad disastrously affected it. as well as its rival. The California Southern Railroad, in consideration of a gift of 17,000 acres of land made by the Kimballs located its Pacific terminus at National City. Again the town was on the high tide of prosperity. The removal of the railroad shops began in 1892.

National City is the southwestern terminus of the Santa Fe Railroad system. The National City & Otay Railroad has its offices and shops here, where all the rebuilding and repairing of the rolling stock of the La Jolla, Cuyamaca and National City and Otay Railroads is done.

The city is lighted by electricity and an elec- tric car line connects it with San Diego. Bonds to the amount of $23,000 have recently been voted to erect a high school building. National

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HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

City has an excellent public library established in 1895. It is supported by taxation and contains 3,350 volumes.

CORONADO.

Coronado Beach, or Coronado as it is usually called, is a peninsula that divides San Diego Harbor from the ocean. Up to 1886 it was cov- ered with a dense growth of chaparral. E. S. Babcock originated the scheme of building a town and an immense tourist hotel on it. The Coronado Beach Company was organized and work begun. The brush was cleared off, streets graded, sewers laid and town lots thrown on the market in time to be caught by the boom. The lots advanced rapidly in value and Babcock's scheme proved to have "millions in it." The erection of the Hotel del Coronado was begun early in 1887, and completed in December of that year. The building covers seven acres of ground and can accommodate seven hundred guests. It is one of the largest caravansaries in the world. The dreary and desolate looking peninsula of twenty years ago is now covered with elegant residences, green lawns and flower gardens. It is reached from San Diego by a steam ferry that connects with an electric rail- road that runs to the ocean front of the hotel. a mile distant from the ferry.

The city of tents is one of the unique features of Coronado that has been in existence about ten years. The Tent City is located on the Coronado peninsula, which is six miles long but about six hundred feet wide where the Tent City is located. The city is nearly a mile in length; on one side of it is the Pacific ocean. on the other the bay of San Diego. Every mod- ern convenience of city life can be found there and the cost of living can be gauged by the size of the visitor's purse. There are tents of all sizes, wee little tents, middle-sized tents and great huge tents. At the height of the season there are about five hundred tents occupied. and a population of 1,500 to 2,000, when the season closes the tents are folded and laid away till the next season.

OCEANSIDE.

Oceanside 'on the surf line of the Santa Fe Railroad system is forty-one miles by rail north of San Diego. It was founded in 1884 and dur-

ing the boom grew rapidly. The Fallbrook branch railroad, once the main line of the Cali- fornia Southern, leaves the Surf Line at Ocean- side. The railroad to Escondido forms a junc- tion here with the Surf Line between San Diego and Los Angeles. The town is four miles from the Old Mission of San Luis Rey and has the rich San Luis Rey valley for its back country.

For a decade after the great boom of 1887 Oceanside stood still, then there came an awak- ening. Capitalists sized up the location and figured out a brilliant future for the town and surrounding country. In 1903 a new hotel, the Anchorage, costing $20,000 was built and a new steel wharf 1347 feet in length was constructed.

During the year 1905 a syndicate of which H. E. Huntington, the great electric railway mag- nate, is supposed to be the principal, purchased a large portion of the real estate included within the boundaries of the city of Oceanside. In the valley within a few miles of Oceanside the same parties have purchased over 125,000 of acreage. The Pacific Light & Power Company has filed on 50,000 inches of water in the San Luis Rey river and the construction of a storage reservoir has been begun. When the irrigation system is completed both the town and the country will enter upon a career of unparalleled prosperity.

The Oceanside free public library was estab- lished in December. 1904. The annual income of $640 is derived from taxation. The total number of volumes in the library is 850. H. D. Brodie is the librarian.

ESCONDIDO.

Escondido, Hidden Valley or Rincon del Diablo, The Devil's Corner, was formerly known as Wolfskill's rancho and comprises about 13 .- 000 acres of the San Marcos grant. In 1885 it was purchased by a syndicate of San Diego and Los Angeles capitalists, who subdivided it into small farms and laid off a town. The lands had a rapid sale. A large hotel, a bank building and a number of business blocks were built between 1886 and 1800. The farm lands have been planted to citrus fruits and raisin grapes.

When the settlement was begun in 1886 an irrigation district was formed and bonds issued. While the colony was prosperous the indebted-

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ness was easily borne by the people, but hard times came after the boom. Property values shrunk and shrivelled. The people were de- pressed. The outlook for redeeming the bonds and relieving themselves of the incubus of debt that bore so heavily upon them seemed. to be hopeless. But with the return of better times in 1904 hope revived and negotiations were begun with the bond-holders looking toward a cancella- tion of the bonded indebtedness. The holders of the bonds met them half way and a compromise was made and $500,000 worth of bonds were surrendered at 50 per cent of their face value. September 9, 1905, was a grand gala day in the valley. The last vestige of the old debt that had weighted down the people of Escondido had been lifted. Before a crowd of two thousand persons the redeemed bonds were burned and their ashes scattered to the winds.

The city of Escondido ranks second in size of the cities in the county. It has an active board of trade, a public library containing 1,200 volumes and an excellent high school.

LA JOLLA (THE JEWEL).

This famous watering place has grown in popularity with each succeeding year. During the year 1905 sixty dwellings were erected. The University of California established a biological station there, and both professors and students have carried on laboratory work, and some val- uable research work has been done. In the spring of 1905 a new building was erected for the station from funds donated by the citizens of La Jolla and San Diego. There are in it research rooms, a public museum, aquarium and a room for a library. Special gifts consisting of muse- um cases, a boat, "The Loma," library books and funds for running expenses and other outlays, aggregating $7,500, were donated last year.

FALLBROOK.

Fallbrook, on the western slope of the Coast Range mountains, is twelve miles in a direct line from the coast and sixty-one from San Diego by the railroad. Since the great flood of 1892, which destroyed the railroad in the Temecula cañon, Fallbrook has been the terminus of the eastern end of the road, which is now known as

the Fallbrook branch. . The older settlement is back a mile or two from the railroad. The town has grown up since the building of the railroad. It has two large hotels and several business houses.

PALA (SHOVEL).

Pala, once an asistencia or auxiliary of San Luis Rey Mission, is located in the upper San Luis Rey valley about seventeen miles from the coast and fifty miles north of San Diego. It is largely an Indian settlement. These descendants of the Mission Indians keep up many of the old customs and observances. The Mission capilla or chapel still stands in a fair state of preserva- tion. Services are held in it once a month. There is here some of the finest vine and fruit land in the county.

JULIAN.

Julian, fifty-five miles northeast from San Diego bay, in the mountain regions, is 4,500 feet above the sea level. It owes its origin to a inining rush. In February, 1870, gold was dis- covered near the ranch of M. S. Julian. The news of the discovery caused a rush and a town was built and named after the proprietor. A number of rich claims were located and for sev- eral years a considerable quantity of gold was taken out. The Cuyamaca grant owners laid claim to the mines. After a legal contest, last- ing five years, the miners won. Much of the country around Julian is adapted to stock rais- ing. There are some fine orchards of apples, pears, plums and peaches in the Julian district.

BANNER.

Banner is a mining settlement four miles east of Julian, but 1,500 feet lower. It is on the desert side of the divide in the San Felipe cañon, the waters of which sink into the desert. The town has several quartz mills, a store, post- office and school house.

RAMONA.

Ramona is located in the Santa Maria valley thirty-five miles northeast of San Diego city. It is the commercial center of the valley, which contains about 18,000 acres of tillable land.

The town has a population of about 200 and outside of the town there are 300 inhabitants. There are three country school districts in the

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valley and a grammar and union high school in the town. The Ramona Sentinel keeps watch and ward over the valley and records the deeds done in it.

Ramona Tent village is a popular mountain resort. Its altitude is 1,500 feet. All the con-

veniences of the city are combined with the de- lights of life in the country. Ramona has four general merchandise stores, one drug store and two hotels and a free public library, established in 1893. The total number of volumes is 653. Mrs. H. A. Miles is the librarian.

CHAPTER XL. SAN DIEGO CITY.

T HE act of the legislature incorporating San Diego as a city was passed March 27, 1850. It is a voluminous document, al- together too long for insertion here. I give the first section :

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A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 45

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184