History of California, Volume VI, Part 49

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885-1890
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 816

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437

ORIGIN OF NAMES.

private efforts supplemented a natural expansion in moving the centre of a town to some addition, or for- mer suburb.16 This has been notably the case in the pueblos of the south, where the adobe dwellings of Mexican days generally form a quarter by themselves, designated as the old town, while the new or Ameri- can sections present the characteristic blocks of frame dwellings in the midst of gardens, or with a yard in the rear and a flower or lawn patch in front, radiating from brick-lined business streets.

Notwithstanding their recent beginning, the history of the great proportion of mining towns is traditional or obscure, owing to the erratic course of mining move- ments. Their origin is too frequently loosely ascribed to some sudden influx of diggers, guided by vague rumor; but these so-called first-comers had been often preceded by a band of workers who had for some time veiled their operations in secrecy, and these again by some prospector who was ever flitting on the outskirts of the districts, probing into virginal ground. Fre- quently the only record lies embedded in the name. Yet this, if a personal appellation, indicates, perhaps, only the trader whose store, as the general rendezvous, gave name to the spot. More generally it points to some incident or feature connected with the site or founding, for California names are certainly as signifi- cant as they are varied.17 They mark the progress of

16 At New San Diego, Horton's addition gained the supremacy. In S. F. the centre has moved away from Portsmouth square, and even the city hall here has been supplanted.

17 The earliest Spanish explorers by sea left their records along the coast as far as Trinidad, to which later English navigators added names like Point St George, always remembering such localities as Drake Bay. The Russians, who actually occupied the country, are only indirectly recalled in Russian River, Fort Ross, Sebastopol; Mount St Helena being their solitary christen- ing. The terms of French cruisers failed to remain, but coguate trappers blazed their path in the interior as marked by Cache, Butte, and as some have it, Siskiyou and Shasta, while a Danish confrère is remembered in Las- sen. In the south Mexican designations naturally predominate, and they certainly surpass all others for beauty. Observe the melodious San Juan, Santa Cruz, Tamalpais, Santa Rosa, the majestic Mendocino, Del Monte, the sweet Alameda, San Benito. True, the frequent recurrence of the San, and its feminine Santa, present a detracting monotony, for which are responsible

438

BIRTH OF TOWNS.

explorers from the time of Cabrillo and Drake to the era of missionaries and trappers. The Spaniards had

partly the friar element in exploration and management, partly the religious custom of applying the name of the saints which figure for every day in the calendar alike to the new-born babe, or to the discovered site of the pro- posed town. The sacred prevails also without the saint, as in Los Angeles, Trinidad, Sacramento. The descriptive profane appears in Caliente, Posas, Gatos, Pescadero, Sauzalito. The ito is a common diminutive ending, often caressing in import. Spaniards have not neglected the devil and his ilk, as in Monte del Diablo, but the application differs from the American in being of superstitious source. Bare terms like Pájaro, bird, an:l Soledad, solitude, are peculiar. A certain concession is shown, especially by intelligent Amer- icans, for Indian names, partly in justice to the original lords of the soil, partly from a taste for the antique and melodious, and native words are not deficient in liquid beauty. Instance the soft intonation of Sonona, Tehama, Wyeka, Inyo, Napa, Yolo, which are compact; while Chowchilla, Tuolumne, Suisun, Klamath, savor of the barbaric. Americans have not always preserved these, or even Spanish terms, uncorrupted. To Wyeka they have added the r so widely lacking among aborigines, and made it Yreka; of Uba, Yuba; San Andreas of San Andrés; Tulare instead of Tulares or Tular; Carquinez in place of Carquines, es being the Spanish plural. The K initial here applied by the original recorder was due to ignorance. Some appellations, as for the islands Angeles and Yeguas, have been translated into Angel and Mare islands.

In the northern half of the state American designations prevail, save in occasional deference to Indian and Spanish, the latter usually due to pioneers dating before 1849, who had acquired a smattering of or liking for Spanish forms. The terms are as a rule both appropriate and expres- sive, although tinged too much by the looseness and hairbrained reckless- ness of the flush times, with their characteristic abjuration of elegance. Like the Spaniards, they displayed a bent for the supernatural, while sub- stituting the satanic for the saintly. Never, indeed, was the devil better remembered, even though the spots dedicated to him harbored little of the complimentary. Instance especially the Geyser regions. Other common and characteristic terms were drawn from the prevalent drinking and gambling, as Whiskey, Brandy, and Drunkard's bars, Keno, Euchre, and Poker flats, etc., with Fiddletown of cognate revelry. The general ap- plication of nicknames among comrades was widely recorded, with the striking trait of the victim, as Jim Crow, You Bet, after a man using this expression, Red Dog, from the owner of such an animal, Ranty Doddler; also Greenhorn, Loafer Hill, Chicken Thief Flat. Nationality was frequently added, as Yankee Jim's, Dutch Flat, Hoosier, Buckeye, Nigger Bar, Greaser and Chinese flats. The superstitious element occurs in the many Horseshoe bars and Last Chance. The repulsive have often been transformed into neater shape, as Lousy Level or Liar's Flat into Rice's Crossing; yet Shirt-tail Cañon lingered. Scholarly affectation has been left unchallenged in Alpha and Omega, and puritan selections are revealed in Havilah and Antioch. The common Rich gulches and bars point to strokes of fortune. Gold Hill, Ophir, and Eureka have also been frequently applied, though replaced by less hack- neyed terms to prevent confusion. Localities denoting disappointment are equally numerous, as Pinch-em-tight, Bogus Thunder, Liar's, Humbng, and Poverty flats, the latter two being frequently paraded, although the better known of these places have proved misnomers; indeed, they were frequently applied by lucky finders to frighten away rivals. Many are the spots com- memorative of misfortunes, as Murderer's bars and gulches, Hangtown, Gouge Eye, Dead Man's Gulch. These are relieved by a large sprinkling with natural features, as Otter, Grizzly, Jackass, Wildcat, with ironic allusions, Red Bluff, Green Mountain, Deadwood, Blizzardville. Honorary and patriotic names

439

NOMENCLATURE.

time to stamp little more than the southern coast region with a nomenclature characterized by saintly form and melodious and stately ring. A portion of the Indian terms preserved by antiquarian taste and sense of justice fall not behind in liquid beauty. Both have been to some extent corrupted by Americans, who filled the north and interior with their expressive and descriptive terms, tinged in the mining region by the loose and reckless spirit of the flush times, with their predilection for slang and nickname, blunt terse- ness and waggery. Camp, bar, flat, run, slide, are among the peculiar affixes here supplementary to the hackneyed ville, city, ton, burg.

The large proportion of camps have disappeared with the decline of mining. Some fell as rapidly as they had risen, when the rich but scanty surface gold which gave them life was worked out. Everything partook of the precarious and unstable marking this era of wild speculation and gambling. Never was there a place or people where the changes of life, its vicissi- tudes and its successes, were brought out in such bold relief as here. The rich and the poor, the proud and the humble, the vile and the virtuous, changed places in a day. Wild speculation and slovenly business habits, together with the gambling character of all occu- pations, and the visitations or benign influences of the elements, and a thousand uncalculable incidents usually

abound, as in Rough and Ready, after Gen. Taylor; Fremont, Jackson, Car- son, Visalia, after Vice; with home associations in Washington, Boston, Ban- gor, Alabama; Timbuctoo has a humorous twang, and Bath an English aspect. The hackneyed form of ville is due more to the personal ambition of founders than to poor taste; burg is less frequent than the addition city and town, which are so grandiloquently applied even to petty collections of huts. Nomenclature is frequently accorded paragraphs, especially in country jour- nals, and in most instances commentators allow themselves to be deluded by casual resemblances to words in foreign languages. They actually hunt vocabularies for terms to fit their hobby, as marked notably by the calida fornax explanation for California, the Narizona or arida zona forms for Ari- zona, Orejones for Oregon, instead of recurring to the more likely aboriginal sources. Compare Argonaut, July 26, 1879; Alta Cal., June 29, 1870; Sept. 17, 1871; Aug. 22, 1886, etc .; Sta Rosa Democ., Nov. 12, 1870; Russ. River Flag, June 20, 1870; Hittell's Res., 422-8; Id., Mining, 44-6; Cath. World, ii. 800; Hayes' Cal. Notes, ii. 48. Taylor, Eldorado, 151, was particularly struck by Hell's Delights and Ground Hog's Glory. Helper's Land, 150, 176, etc .; Williams' Pac. Tourist, 205; Hearne's Sketches, MS., 4-5.

440

BIRTH OF TOWNS.

classed in the category of luck, were constantly lifting up one and pulling down another, inflating this town or district and shrivelling that. Brick stores and flashy residences displace the cloth tents and rude cabins of the mining camp that suddenly displays its treasures in bright abundance; and almost in a day sometimes when the pockets of the placers appear abruptly empty the town collapses, the houses are deserted. Some lingered for years the victims of countless ordeals, of sweeping fires, which befell almost every town in this inflammable land; 18 of undermining and removal to more favored localities.19 Finally yielding, they left as record of the struggle long lines of tottering edi- fices and unroofed cabins, with here and there crum- bling walls of brick to signal the extent of the defeat,20 and around, the desolate aspect of denuded slopes and barren gravel plains, with gaping pits and decaying tree-stumps, and rivers turned from their ancient course. Another proportion survived, partly as cen- tres for later hydraulic and quartz operations, though chiefly as farming villages, at times under the veil of a new name; and in humbler though more assured prospects, others outgrew their period of mining and gambling, roughs and vigilants, to rise to staid busi- ness centres, affecting piety and learning.21 Agricul- ture had here its beginning in garden patches, with powerful auxiliaries in the water ditches of mining

18 Yankee Jim's and Ophir were burned down in 1852, the latter succumb- ing under the blow. Downieville suffered in the same year $500,000. Towns not distant for nearly the same amount in 1858. And so the torch circulated. Sec under counties and towns, and compare with S. F., with damages ranging as high as a half-score millions. Helper, Land of Gold, 26, etc., assumes the fire losses during 1849-55 at over $45,000,000. Others raise it to $66,000,000 by 1852. Not only were houses as a rule of combustible material, but people were careless, with a large criminal admixture.

19 For no site in the gold region was safe in early days from miners' in- roads. Farming land and highways were washed away, and entire town sites, leaving propped walls and caving streets, a certain amount of damages being alone recoverable.

20 These remains, once plentiful, are growing scarce under the utilizing efforts of adjoining settlers.

21 Hangtown being changed to the more attractive Placerville, for obvious reasons. Others to avoid confusion with namesakes, or under the ambitious efforts of new founders.

441

RISE OF AGRICULTURE.

days, which assisted to change the industries of entire counties within a few years.

Even the central El Dorado and Placer are becom- ing known as vinicultural rather than mining districts. Alpine relies upon her pastures, and most of the gold belt depends upon tillage; while in the extreme south San Diego and Los Angeles unfolded quartz deposits. The Santa Bárbara region was by the drought of one season transformed from a stock-raising to a predomi- nating farming range. The current of population began in 1850 to turn back to the momentarily aban- doned coast slopes, filling first the central bay valleys, then with a reflux the river bottoms near the mines; till under the growing occupation of land it swept also over the south and grouped elsewhere around ports, and timber, and fishing-grounds. In many regions, especially the south, it was stemmed a while by dis- puted land titles, due greatly to intriguing new-comers; but whatever personal injustice they inflicted by usurpation of ranchos, they infused a new energetic spirit into the easy-going Hispano-Californian com- munity, lifted stagnant pueblos into flourishing cen- tennial cities, and with irrigation and other undertak- ings transformed arid plains into waving fields and golden orange groves.

Aside from mining camps, lingering or transformed, California possesses a wide range of settlements, from the missions, pueblos, and harbors, sites of Spanish origin, through the series of agricultural and manu- facturing centres, inland ports and entrepôts, suburbs and resorts, to the recent railroad stations and hor- ticultural colonies. Sea-ports, which antedate in a measure even the ancient pueblos as entrepôts for the first foundations, have been widely reënforced by land- ings since the early fur-trading times. While gaining in local trade they have declined in general importance, as compared with the only two good ship harbors of

442

BIRTH OF TOWNS.

San Francisco and San Diego.22 A fact due to im- proved coast and interior traffic, inland ports had their beginning properly in Benicia, the first to receive large vessels and assert itself as a harbor town. Sacramento and Stockton, so far petty landings, followed, each becoming the centre of a host of tributary river land- ings, Sacramento having, however, to share its trade with the upper heads of navigation, notably Marys- ville.23 All of these prominent places were beset by a number of rivals, eager for their prospective prizes. Benicia, risen as a competitor of San Francisco, had in time to yield to the adjacent Vallejo both its trade and aspirations, and Marysville having in time to divide its gains from Sacramento with towns above.

Many of these aspirants attained only to the rank of paper towns, of which speculative California has probably had a larger proportion than any other coun- try of its size,24 owing to the unparalleled unfoldment of settlements, the consequent opportunity for entre- pôts in different directions, and the abundance of money for investments. City building became a busi-

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

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

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

443

THE BOOMING BUSINESS.

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

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

444

BIRTH OF TOWNS.

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

During the last three decades the railroad has risen as arbitrator in the fortunes of many of these towns. By passing them by it has drawn away their trade and left them to lingering decay, as illustrated notably by San Juan Bautista, and several towns of the San Joaquin Valley. 25 It has build up instead numerous thriving stations, among which towns like Modesto, Merced, Bakersfield, and Hollister have been so effect- ively fostered as to secure the important dignity of county seats to swell their expanding trade resources. In other cases it has revived many languishing settle- ments, as for example, Calistoga, Oroville, Sauzalito, and opened the way in the southern deserts for flour- ishing and reclaiming oases.

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

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

445

STARTLING SURPRISES.

the chiefly horticultural settlements started on coop- erative principles to overcome the early difficulties of such undertakings, marked by costly irrigation canals, non-productive planting periods, and manufacturing adjuncts. These vanquished, each member assumed independent control of his allotted share, associated with his neighbors only by a general and voluntary interest in certain branches, and in sustaining the in- dispensable canals. Many owners of large ranchos are profiting by the success of these ventures, which with proper management is almost assured,26 by open- ing ditches and occasionally planting tracts, and then selling the land in small lots, with the expectation of profiting also by the formation of a village by each cluster of colonists. There are a number of these set- tlements round Fresno, and in the three southern counties along the coast; and with the now growing reputation of California as a wine region, so well suited for them, they are assuming wider proportions and importance.27 They form one of the many star- tling surprises with which this country has abounded, from the first glittering harvests of gold to the suc- ceeding and richer crops from waving fields; in the spreading fame of balmy clime and fertile soil, once overshadowed by supposed deserts and aridity; in the variety of its magnificent resources and the grandeur of its scenery, with giant trees and geysers, with caves and mountain clefts; in the birth of towns and expan- sion of resources and wealth, at times swift in rise and fall as the terror-inspiring justice of the vigilance committees, at times slow and majestic as befits the dawning of eternal empire.

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

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

CHAPTER XVIII.

CITY BUILDING.

1848-1888.

THE GREAT INTERIOR-RIVER AND PLAIN-SUTTERVILLE AND SACRAMENTO- PLAN OF SURVEY-THE THRICE SIMPLE SWISS-BETTER FOR THE COUN- TRY THAN A BETTER MAN-HEALTHY AND HEARTY COMPETITION-DEVEL- OPMENT OF SACRAMENTO CITY-MARYSVILLE-STOCKTON-PLACERVILLE -SONORA-NEVADA-GRASS VALLEY-BENICIA-VALLEJO-MARTINEZ- OAKLAND AND VICINITY-NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CITIES.

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

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History of California, Volume VI, Part 49

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe Publication date: 1885-1890 Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers Number of Pages: 816

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885-1890
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 816