Show 4 speare r 51 1 1 parade at al angels camp california prepare ed hy the Nat national tonal Rocie society tY we hington hing too D C burvice CC T HOLD they are not worth a I 1 dollar that is what daniel webster thought of california and other southwestern lands when it was proposed that we tak take ethem them as indemnity after the war with mexico what thy lie he added can there be between the people of california and the eastern states webster gave that opinion of california in the senate only 88 83 years ago today it is the wealthiest state west of the mississippi and has some people one of them said to a visitor it took my folks years to get to california they landed in virginia about 1650 and moved west with the frontier my father got here in the up in humboldt county at a for ty biners ball for which men grow full beards a sweet bright eyed lady said my dress must be all of years old it was old when my mother brought it around the horn from nova scotia her men fought grizzly bears and klamath indians panned gold and cut timber to build schooners ners only once in 15 or 20 years did they get down to san francisco and then by sea no railroad reached northwest california till long after she was grown my father was general mariano vallejo the last mexican officer to command this post proudly asserted senora luisa V emparan of sonoma he was born at monterey here are his silver mounted saddle his sword spurs and pistols after america acquired california he became a patriotic influential citizen of the united states in such ways came the whites who people this land divergent races from sources far apart many came from foreign lands in napa county you see how french italian and german grape growers form yet another racial strain in 1880 one third of all people then here had come from foreign lands a fact which was profoundly to influence the human and economic geography of this oldest and largest of all pacific coast states seek quiet country lanes that lead to long established homes of both native american and foreign stock and you sense the social maturity of 0 this complex yet mellow land monterey was a seat of spanish culture before washington D C was even surveyed russians had built fort ross and were growing wheat and trading counterfeit wampum for otter skins before peace ended the war of 1812 ever since hubert howe ban crofts painstaking researches writers have told and retold the story of early california and they still make use of Ban crofts incomparable source material preserved now at the state university in berkele berkeley Y to see what the white man has done with work tools and science in developing this region as it is now consider the place where his labors began ride through the mother lode country where the first pick marks on this now lush opulent land were made by the gold seekers every hillside gully and stream bed shows the scars of shafts tunnels and frantic digging ruined huts and hall half deserted ghost towns dot these gold fields from which bearded men in red flannel shirts gouged nuggets and panned the yellow dust melancholy columbia is adumbrative of all these early camps in its old wells fargo stagecoach office you see the clumsy scales on which records prove more than in gold was weighed in boom days people lived and worked here now the village is shrunk to a bare ghost towns are numerous all through sierra foothills you find these fading towns with such names as rough and ready slug gulch you bet and grizzly flats at Hang town now placerville Placer erville vule long stood the big tree on whose stout limbs two men could be strung up at once in tuolumne county Is the cabin of bret harte whose characters in Tennes sees pardner and the outcast of poker flat were drawn from hereabouts another shack is labeled mark twains kwains cabin violent murderous and thieving though life in these diggings digging was twain was able later to say Alv always do right it will gratify some and astonish the festl in those halcyon mining days he wrote the jumping frog of calab eras county each spring now the once hedonic town of angels camp stages a jumping frog contest entries come even from distant arkansas guests with what pope called nice foppish gusto look with gluttonous avidity on the fat legs of these prize winning frogs though from these gop hered hills some gold seekers took their dizzy millions the real contribution of the gold rush to Cali fornias destiny is often overlooked think of the blacksmiths carpenters cowboys farmers doctors lawyers and teachers who came with the gold hunting horde they cleared land built towns and roads sent east for wives raised husky sons of the golden west and spread the raw cahuas canvas for this 1936 picture of northern california at work few comparatively got rich in the mines that economic production anyway they simply found the gold at first and took it in time mining settled down to a business of deep shafts stamp mills smelters shelters sm elters timbered tunnels roads and towns all this meant more food machinery lumber transportation clothing amusements to supply these farms to grow meat and grain developed towns with factories schools and music halls grew up to take care of mines of farms of each other law grew too from this pioneer experience the doctrines of appropriation pria tion and use the laws of mining water rights and grazing students of jurisprudence say it is seldom that the customs of a people have had their origin development and final adoption by a legislature all within one lifetime as came to pass here sutter founded sacramento john A sutter suiter swiss adventurer built a trading post on land given him by the mexicans that was the beginning of sacramento in 1839 it was a strategic location soil was rich the river afforded easy transport to san francisco new town was right in the path of settlers coming from the east through emigrant gap sure swift steps in the rise of that town epitomize the american conquest ot of this region first sutter fought the indians then hired them to farm his lands run his cattle and work about his fort kit carson and john C fremont came here for fresh horses into Sut lers fort now sacramento in 1811 1841 drove the first immigrant wagon train to cross the plains from here men went in 1847 to rescue the donner party snowed in and fighting starvation Sut lers hired man digging to build a sawmill found gold at coloma in 1848 and started the great stampede this lawless horde robbed and ruined sutter he died poor others held the fort and traded furiously they charged 84 64 to shoe a horse 2000 a ton to haul freight to the mines it cost a pinch of gold dust to buy a drink of whiskey and only men with big hands were hired to tend barf bar dance halls hails never closed even t today one advertises itself as bon ton dance hall beautiful girls galore miners coming to celebrate brought their gold in an old sock or in yeast cans modern youths buy a strip of tickets each good for a dance with a taxi girl a state in 1850 that year more than miners swarmed through Sut lers fort from the east about it a wild lawless town was growing a town of tents and rough boards of saloons eating places stores and blacksmith shops most goods came first to san francisco by sea and then up the sacramento river state almost divided once jumping from monterey to san jose vallejo and benicia the state stale capital got to sacramento in 1854 many a bitter battle has been fought at this capital none more exciting than that which once almost divided california california into two states only the diverting advent of the civil war prevented this from missouri came the pony express in 1860 next spring riders carried Lincol ns inaugural address through from st joe in seven days and seventeen hours the fastest trip on record then a half ounce letter cost 5 one now is flown by overnight plane for six cents building east from sacramento in 1869 the central pacific met the union pacific railroad at promontory point in utah senator stanford drove a golden spike isolation was ended men and goods moved west at unheard of low rates at speed thought miraculous today sacramento railroad shops are among the worlds largest about the old fort where pioneer blacksmiths shod mules filed saws and whittled out pick handles for the miners rises now a busy city of more than factories including colossal canneries of fruit and vegetables |