USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > City of San Diego and San Diego County : the birthplace of California, Volume I > Part 21
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Scott delayed his return. Then came the news of the "Black Friday," signal of a financial crash, and when Scott came around for the neces- sary signatures the financiers had changed their minds about making the proposed loan. Scott sent word to San Diego that he could not carry out the plan.
Scott, as a matter of fact, had not given up the fight, but his hope now rested on the possibility of getting a subsidy from Congress, and that hope was shared by the people of San Diego, who devoted much time, money and effort in their work to bring about if possible the necessary legislation by Congress. Collis P. Huntington, how- ever, was making his influence felt against Scott, and the fight for a subsidy was a losing one from the start. As a matter of fact, there was much feeling at the time against the award of large grants to encourage railroad building, and Congress was acutely aware of this sentiment.
When the Texas & Pacific was chartered in 1872 three surveying parties had been sent out. The three routes which they took were the southern by Campo, a middle way, via Warners, and the northern, through the San Gorgonio Pass. Disposition of national legislators to arrive at a compromise in the railroad fight was based on the pos- sible use of the San Gorgonio Pass. San Diego saw that use of this route and the establishment of San Francisco as the western terminus, as proposed in the compromise, would not be to San Diego's ad- vantage.
That the San Gorgonio route would be to the distinct advantage of Los Angeles became apparent soon to the people of that city, who later gave Scott's opponents $400,000 to use it and no other.
While their motives were being argued San Diego sent several special representatives to Washington, and a number of long tele- grams were exchanged. In December, 1876, the Board of City Trustees and the Citizens Railroad Committee sent to Colonel Scott a telegram in which he was told that San Diego was relying on his pledges, and that it was his duty to demand the "direct route" into San Diego, and that San Diego would unanimously oppose any com- promise which did not include the direct line. Colonel Scott sent this reply :
"Have used my utmost efforts to secure to San Diego a railroad line on such route as can best effect the object : and if you can effect it in any better shape than I can, I should be very glad to have you take it up and adjust it with any party, or on any terms that you may think best. But in taking these steps, I shall expect you to relieve me of any possible obligation."
About a month later, in January, 1877. Gen. Thomas S. Sedg- wick, who had been engaged by the San Diegans to work in their behalf at Washington, sent a telegram to the Board of City Trustees in which he declared that in his opinion it was best for San Diego to support the proposed compromise to the subsidy bill then pending in Congress and that San Diego should make concessions to get a rail- road even though it came by the San Gorgonio route. "We are los- ing friends in committee by our persistence," he said, "and cannot
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count our present strength hereafter for any other move. By yield- ing we may get guaranteed bonds subsidy for whole line; and if Huntington does not build San Gorgonio line you will have the direct route, under the bill, by the time the through line is completed. The committee concede that the direct line must follow soon under any conditions." Sedgwick's telegram concluded thus :
"At this time shortness of route is not so important as results in developing Arizona and getting connections that will increase your commercial importance and population and trade many-fold in few years, which growth will enable you to build the direct route long before you will need it to cheapen freight. Why not help yourselves now, to strengthen yourselves hereafter? Unless the subsidy bill passes, there will be no road for you to meet."
The city trustees sent to General Sedgwick this answer, which was heartily endorsed by the people of the city :
"It is the deliberate and unchangeable conviction of San Diego, that the proposed connection north of here, in the hands of the Southern Pacific Company, would be an injury instead of a benefit to us, because :
"1. It places in control of one corporation for all time every approach to our harbor.
"2. Trade and population would be taken away from, instead of brought here, while the road is building. It is now moving from the northern part of the county to Colton.
"3. By occupying the only passes it would prevent extension of Utah Southern road and connection with Union Pacific.
"4. It would supersede construction of direct line from Ana- heim, increasing our distance from San Francisco to 650 miles.
"5. It would increase the distance from Yuma, by sixty miles. "6. Experience has taught us that the strongest promises in a bill do not protect us against subsequent amendments at the desire of the corporation. Legislation that fails to require immediate begin- ning at the end, and construction of so much road before next session of Congress as to remove the temptation to amend bill, is worse than worthless.
"7. Whatever supposed guarantees may be put in bill making the road a 'highway', it is well known by all engineers that the com- pany building the road holds in fact control of it; and no other com- pany can have equal use, or will build parallel road.
"8. Southern Pacific Company one year ago agreed to build on direct line, provided San Diego would consent that it should have the western end.
"So far from a San Diego standpoint: But we hold no petty local view; we supplicate no favors. The interest of San Diego is here bound up with national interest. We submit to impartial states- men the conceded truth that the proposed compromise diverts the nation's bounty from the original purpose of the Southern trans- continental legislation ; deprives all the millions east of San Diego to direct access to their nearest Pacific harbor ; and destroys competition for all time. San Diego's natural advantages are such, that in asking
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the nation's aid for the construction of a railroad to her port, she asks it upon a line, and upon terms that will contribute to the Nation's support and wealth for all time to come: while the compromise plan will be an intolerable and interminable national burden. For these reasons San Diego prefers No bill, rather than the San Gorgonio branch. Read again both our dispatches to Lamar."
Hope for the San Diego plan died hard, but went out at last in 1878. By that time, however, San Diego's population had dwindled away to a disappointing extent, many residents having seen the hand- writing on the wall that ordered San Diego to wait for her direct road. This exodus had, in fact, begun as soon as the Scott's failure abroad and of the "Black Friday" collapse had been received in San Diego. A good many persons in poor or moderate circumstances had started to buy land of Horton, and they appealed to him for aid, which he promptly gave, repaying dollar for dollar and taking back their contracts. San Diego's population had grown to more than 4,000, but this fell off to about 2,500. There were hard times not only in San Diego but elsewhere, so the city settled back and waited for new railroad plans. While it waited, its people went to work developing their home resources, so to this extent the loss of the direct railroad at that time was of some good even to disappointed San Diego.
There was some hope for a time, indeed, that Huntington might build the Southern Pacific to San Diego, but nothing came of that hope, and Huntington, it seems, gave little ground for it. In fact, he told friends that it was not to the interest of himself and asso- ciates to build to San Diego at the time. He made a visit here with some of those associates and they were well entertained by the people of San Diego-Horton put them up at the Horton House and "did not charge them a cent," as he said with some quaintness in later years. Horton says that Huntington offered to build the road from San Diego to Yuma if San Diego would give only half the property which it had agreed to let Scott have if his Texas & Pacific went through. And this half would have been a princely gift. But Hunt- ington apparently was making the offer only as a "feeler," at any rate. nothing came of it. E. W. Morse, a San Diegan who was a careful observer of events in the city and who made accurate reports of those events, has expressed the opinion that Huntington did not intend to build here and that his visit to San Diego was for "political effect." He says that Huntington never actually made any proposal. Telling of Huntington's meeting with the San Diego committee. Mr. Morse later said that Huntington declared that he was not ready.
"I told them." said Mr. Morse, "about General Rosecrans' trip to Jacumba Pass and what he said about the route. Mr. Huntington objected that it would take them down in Mexico, which he thought would make undesirable complications."
Mr. Morse suggested that he could make some such arrangement with Mexico as had been made by the Grand Trunk in skirting the Canadian border. On this Huntington took a non-committal attitude, although General Rosecrans continued to praise the proposed route, partly through Mexican territory. It is interesting to note that the
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San Diego & Arizona Railway, completed many years after by Mr. Spreckles, with the help of the Southern Pacific as a partner, took a route which ran through Mexican territory, dipping into the Southern Republic at Tijuana and emerging near Jacumba, in the mountains.
Mr. Huntington and his party left San Diego without submitting any proposal, and none was forthcoming later. This was followed by charges that Huntington was showing a spirit of vindictiveness. This feeling was not shared by Morse, who was in close touch with the situation and who was concerned with all the correspondence and negotiations connected with it. He attributed the attitude of the Huntington interests to the fact that they wanted the long haul into San Francisco and that if they had built to San Diego they would have been obliged to share the profits with a steamship line.
By 1879 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, stretching its rails across the continent in an ambitious plan not only to span the United States but to connect at the Pacific coast with a steamship service by which it might obtain a large share of the trade with the Orient, had been built as far as Santa Fe, New Mexico. To the heads of this great system the people of San Diego, still hopeful and confident that they might escape isolation in the development of transcontinental railway systems, went at last for relief. Ultimately they obtained it, only through no fault of their own to have disappointment embitter the cup of joy. They got the railroad connection but it soon de- veloped that it was nothing more than a connection, instead of mak- ing San Diego a great western terminal.
In the negotiations which led up to this end Frank A. Kimball of National City was the acknowledged leader ; and to him is largely due the credit not only for what San Diego actually got but for the far greater portion to which she was rightfully entitled by reason of her natural advantages and generosity. Frank A. Kimball and his brother. Warren C. Kimball, owned large stretches of land in and about National City, where they had resided for some time. The family had a "show place" at the time when Col. Thomas A. Scott and his distinguished party had visited San Diego in 1872. Some of the Scott party took luncheon there. Mr. Kimball even before that had been actively interested in the plans to obtain a railroad for San Diego.
In 1878 he corresponded with Commodore Vanderbilt and with Jay Gould, then at the height of their power, but got little satisfac- tion from either. Smythe's history tells in an interesting manner of the careful way in which the next step was taken.
"After six months of futile correspondence with the railroad kings," he writes, "Mr. Kimball called a secret meeting at the resi- dence of E. W. Morse on Tenth street in the spring of 1879. He and Elizur Steele represented National City, while Mr. Morse and J. S. Gordon represented San Diego. John G. Capron joined the secret committee at an early stage of the movement. It was decided that a vigorous effort should be made to induce one of the railroads then building across the continent to come to San Diego Bay. Mr. Kimball was selected, was elected to represent the committee in the East and started on his mission about the first of June, 1879. The
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sum of $450 had been raised in San Diego and National City toward the expense of his trip, and he raised the balance by putting a mort- gage on his house. He took with him the endorsement of the city authorities and of the Chamber of Commerce.
"Mr. Kimball went first to Philadelphia, where he soon concluded that there was no hope of doing anything with the Texas & Pacific. In New York he learned what he could of the intentions of Stanford and Huntington and came to the conclusion that the best hope of success lay with the Santa Fe, which was determined to strike the Pacific ocean somewhere and which, as he soon learned, was most favorably disposed to Guaymas, in Mexico."
Then he went to see Thomas Nickerson, president of the Santa Fe System, at Boston, and spent several months there, pleading San Diego's cause with Nickerson and with other officers and directors of the line. That he did a hard task well is evident from all the records of that time. Ultimately he got the Santa Fe financiers, who were then powerful but not in a perfectly commanding position in the railway world, as was later evident, to promise to build a road forty miles east from San Diego within eight months. The Santa Fe, of course, was to build west and to connect. On his side he had agreed to raise $10,000 cash to pay for a right of way, to give 10,000 acres of the great National Rancho and to get much additional subsidy. The Santa Fe sent out three representatives, including an engineer, the next month, to investigate and they reported favorably. Then came the first of a series of disappointments resulting from San Diego's dealings with the Santa Fe. The news came that the directors, instead of running their line through by the southern and direct route, had decided to go in with the Atlantic & Pacific as the result of overtures which had been made by that line, to take an interest in the Atlantic & Pacific across the northern part of Arizona. to share in the advantages which that would give the Santa Fe of connection with San Francisco, always predominant in the California railway field, and, finally to share in the rich land subsidy which the Atlantic & Pacific had obtained. The new railroad deal was car- ried out, and the first agreement which Kimball had negotiated was off. So, after several conferences of the San Diego committee, he was sent back to Boston. There he succeeded in getting another agreement from the Santa Fe. San Diego raised a magnificent sub- sidy whose value amounted later to more than $3.000,000. A syndi- cate was formed to handle the lands put in by Kimball and others. The Santa Fe agreed to run a line by way of Colton and to connect with the Atlantic & Pacific. An arrangement which was not made public at the time and which subjected Kimball to some very severe criticism later provided that the real terminal should be at National City : to this, however, National City and the Kimballs. by reason of their donations, were apparently entitled. as Smythe views the matter. At any rate the terminal was put there, and National City as a result had a boom which threatened to put it out in front of San Diego.
San Diego's subsidy to the Santa Fe was indeed a princely one. Practically all who could well do so contributed to it and the final list shows a total of $25,000, more than 17.000 acres of land and 485
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city lots. The Kimball brothers led the list with 10,000 acres, but there were many others who gave generously. The Bank of San Diego, for instance, gave $1,000; John G. Capron, who was active in the railroad negotiations of the time, gave $750; D. Choate, well known San Diegan, donated $400; Gordon & Hazzard's gift was $500; George Hyde's was $600 and twenty acres; George W. Mars- ton, ever eager to aid San Diego, was down on the list for $300; E. W. Morse, with whom the San Diego committee had kept in touch with Kimball while the latter was in the east, gave $750; Charles S. Hamilton gave $500; Col. A. G. Gassen contributed 300 acres ; David Felsenheld gave twelve city lots; A. Overbaugh's name went down for $500 and twelve city lots ; A. H. Wilcox subscribed $1,000; A. E. Horton was down for $250; the city of San Diego put in 4,500 acres and 124 city lots. And so it went until there was more than 250 individuals and firms on the long list-a truly remarkable evidence of civic pride, faith in San Diego and generous, patriotic desire to help in the city's advancements.
The contrast presented by what the Santa Fe did, finally removing its "terminal" at National City and abandoning all effort to make San Diego a great railroad point-"utter bad faith," Smythe calls it- is not a picture pleasant to San Diegans. It must be remembered, however, that those of the Santa Fe who would have gladly helped San Diego were not always in a position to do so. Those were days of two-fisted fighting in stock control of railroads; there was many struggles for such control of which there are few public records ; the Santa Fe passed from the hands of Nickerson and his associates into other hands: policies were changed by force of necessity. Yet at this day the soreness of the Santa Fe hurts to San Diego have barely disappeared, although its relations with the newer Santa Fe are of the pleasantest kind. The erection of the beautiful Santa Fe station at the foot of Broadway in time for San Diego's Exposition of 1915 and 1916 is a notable example of the cordial relations now exist- ing between the city and the great railroad system.
But to get back to the story. To complete the bargain with the Santa Fe, San Diego wanted to hand over to the railroad the lands which had been given to Colonel Scott's Texas & Pacific road, never built. There was a long delay in settling this-a delay extending over several years-and the upshot of it all was that the Texas & Pacific retained half of the lands. This seemed to be the best way out of it, and that was the way finally taken in 1880 when the case was finished before Judge McNealy in superior court.
In October of that year the San Diego end of the new road was chartered as the California Southern Railroad, to build from National City to San Bernardino. The officers were: Benjamin Kimball, who was soon succeeded by Thomas Nickerson of Boston, president, and M. A. Luce of San Diego, vice president. Other directors were George B. Wilbur and Lucius G. Pratt, who had come with engineer W. R. Morley from Boston early in the Santa Fe and Kimball negotia- tions : John A. Fairchild and Frank A. Kimball. Judge Luce was attorney. The preliminaries were arranged as quickly as possible, and actual construction was rushed. By June, 1881, the first rail had been laid at National City. A year and a half later and the road was
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through to Colton, which was reached by way of Oceanside and the Temecula Canyon, and in September, 1883, the line had been built to San Bernardino. While the road was being built there San Diego grew rapidly. Then came disastrous times in the winter of 1883-84, the winter floods rushing down Temecula Canyon and ripping out thirty miles of track.
The disaster-for it was nothing less-led many to believe that the line would never be rebuilt, and "thousands," to quote Judge M. A. Luce, left the city. The sum of $250,000 was set as necessary for the rebuilding work, and this at last was raised by putting a second mortgage on the property, and the line through Temecula Canyon was improved. It was, however, abandoned and a new line was run up the coast to San Juan Capistrano and Santa Ana, making a con- nection with the Santa Fe from Los Angeles and thereby creating a branch of the San Diego line. As Smythe says, "from that time for- ward the Santa Fe railroad ceased to serve the purpose which the people of San Diego had in mind when they contributed their subsidy -the purpose of developing a seaport as the direct outlet of a true transcontinental railway-but this was not fully appreciated at the time."
By that time, too, the Southern Pacific, rival of the Santa Fe, had apparently got stock control of the Atlantic & Pacific and had threatened to build a line from Mojave to Needles, making it appear that the California Southern would be left "up in the air" with one end dangling at the north without any transcontinental connection and necessitating the construction of 300 miles more of road even to con- nect with the Southern Pacific. The Santa Fe financiers, however, got back control of the Atlantic & Pacific.
Through trains from the East began to arrive over the California Southern late in 1885, and on November 19 of that year the city held a celebration which will be long remembered by old residents of San Diego. A newspaper account of the affair refers to it as "our day of jubilee," and such it was, with the whole city and many invited guests joining in the festivities. The day was started with a parade led by the City Guard Band, then newly organized, with sixteen pieces. C. A. Burgess being leader and J. D. Palmer drum-major. Then came the San Diego City Guard, the 7th Infantry Battalion of the National Guard of the state, Lieut. George M. Dannals command- ing. Then, in order, were Heintzleman Post No. 33, G. A. R., H. H. Conklin post commander : Chevalier Division, Uniform Rank, Knights of Pythias. E. T. Blackmer commanding: children of the public schools, members of the city board of trustees, "Father" A. E. Hor- ton, who was president of the day, with the speakers; officers of the Chamber of Commerce. officers of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. Atlantic & Pacific and California Southern ; foreign consuls : veterans of the Mexican War and merchants of San Diego. The grand mar- shal was Gen. T. T. Crittenden, and his aides were J. C. Sprigg, Jr., and W. J. Hunsaker, with these assistants: W. W. Bowers, M. D. Hamilton, H. H. Conklin and T. J. Arnold. Speakers at the Opera House included Horton. Bowers, S. O. Houghton. Thomas S. Sedg- wick, land agent of the Atlantic & Pacific: Joseph Winchester, British consul : S. C. Evans and L. M. Holt of Riverside and Dr. L. C. Gunn.
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Col. Blackmer read a poem written by Philip Morse which began with this stanza :
"Here at this southern gateway by the sea, United firmly with a bond of steel,
The East and West clasp hands, two oceans join- Two empires mingle with a common weal."
The echoes of the big celebration had hardly died down before the Santa Fe shops at National City were moved. That let down the curtain on San Diego's brightest hopes from the Santa Fe. The great wharves and warehouses which had been planned in the days when Nickerson was at the helm would have been started, Judge Luce has said, if Nickerson and his associates had been young and strong enough to meet the financial crisis which then was beginning to loom; but they passed out of control of the great Santa Fe system and left it to the hands of others, hoping, as Judge Luce adds, "to save the company from the receivership which, in the end, they were finally compelled to accept."
Yet as Judge Luce also says, it was San Diego alone of all the cities of California which brought the Santa Fe to the Pacific coast ; and that much satisfaction San Diego may cherish for what it is worth. It is true also that the coming of the Santa Fe to San Diego gave the city a great deal of beneficial advertising and brought many to the city : and even though the end of the boom of 1887-88 saw a great deal of the population fade away : San Diego had received a net gain of no small importance. That is plain to an unprejudiced ob- server. To many who had worked hard and hopefully against this combination of circumstances which resulted in so much disappoint- ment to San Diego, the outcome at the time served to be a cruel blow. Some years later indeed Judge Luce in a public address referred to it in such words as these :
"Thus in 1890 San Diego was again stripped of all its com- mercial hopes, and had nothing remaining to it as a resource for building a city except its attractive climate."
San Diego's hopes could not be utterly crushed, however, as will be seen elsewhere in this volume.
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