and yet with a touch of ancient days, half hidden in foliage and
flowers, with orange and peach blossoms, are natural sanitariums where
people suffering from asthma and other throat and lung troubles are
surprising their home doctors continually by getting well. From Auburn,
Newcastle (center of the great Placer County fruit belt) Penryn and
neighboring stations, are shipped each year thousands of cars of green
fruit, principally peaches, to the Eastern markets. No other section of
the west ships so many cars of fresh peaches to market and its fame as
an orange growing section is growing rapidly.
[Illustration: THE PAVILION AT TALLAC, ANOTHER POPULAR LAKE RESORT]
The Overland Route joins the Road of a Thousand Wonders (between
Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles) at Roseville, a great railway center
to be, with fifty-seven miles of yards, round-houses of sixty-four
stalls, machine and car shops, club house, icing plant and hospital.
From Roseville to Sacramento the nineteen mile journey is made past
horse ranches (a notable one at Ben Ali), and great dairy farms.
Sacramento, the capital city of California, is a manufacturing and
wholesale center, with an ever increasing and diversified trade
extending up to central Oregon on the North, and to central Nevada on
the East. Its post office receipts, school attendance, and directory
returns, indicate the city has a population of practically 50,000. The
railway shops of the Southern Pacific cover twenty acres, and employ
3,000 people. The rich tributary country about Sacramento amounts to
600,000 acres in area. Its bank capital and resources are greater than
in many cities of over a hundred thousand people.
[Illustration: THE STEAMER “TAHOE” DAILY CIRCLES THE SAPPHIRE WATERS OF
THE LAKE]
Here was born the Central Pacific Railroad. Theodore D. Judah had been
employed by a California company to build a road from Sacramento to
Folsom (forty miles), but his eyes were ever turning Sierraward. At last
he gained the attention of Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins, and the
Crockers, and succeeded in interesting them in the stupendous project of
building a railroad, which, in a hundred miles was to rise from about
sea-level to almost half a mile; then to drop 3300 feet and then
crossing ten ranges of mountains, was to find a way to meet the western
end of a road from the Missouri, by the waters of Great Salt Lake.
[Illustration: LAKE TAHOE’S SHORES ARE RICH IN SHELTERED COVES WHERE THE
TRANSPARENT WATERS REFLECT THE PINES]
[Illustration: MOUNT TALLAC, ONE OF THE SNOW CLAD PEAKS THAT GUARD LAKE
TAHOE: 9,785 FEET HIGH, IT IS EASILY ACCESSIBLE AND THE SCENES FROM ITS
SUMMIT ARE OF GREAT BEAUTY]
[Illustration: FROM THE SMALLER ATTENDANT LAKES DROP MANY BEAUTIFUL
FALLS, WELL WORTH VISITING]
[Illustration: DONNER LAKE. SCENE OF A WINTER TRAGEDY IN EARLY
CALIFORNIA DAYS]
It was done. The story of the doing cannot be told here. It is one of
volumes, and simply the names of the men whose daring and genius solved
its problems may be mentioned. It was a combination predestined,
irresistible, a union of men for whom opportunity needed to knock but
lightly, who saw the grandeur of the task before them and rose to its
inspiration. Each had his allotted place to which he seemed peculiarly
fitted and each, through the sheer love of the work and indomitable
purpose made perfect his part in this modern conquest of America. Judah,
the great engineer, saw the work through, and then, in a few months,
died—but fame is his. Senator A. A. Sargent framed the laws that made
the work possible. Senator Leland Stanford was the great political
executive who handled the road’s relations with the Government—a many
sided, brilliant man, and a mighty pioneer, in farming, fruit growing,
and stock raising, as well as railroad building. Charles Crocker was the
master mind in the field, and organizer of men and affairs, and withal,
much beloved by all who knew him. Judge Crocker, the road’s first
attorney, was of inestimable value to it, but so noiseless, modest and
retiring, that his relations with the line are almost forgotten. Mark
Hopkins was the trained man of business, who directed the office
affairs, carrying in his brain every detail of the enterprise, and
working upon it night and day. Collis P. Huntington, famous in every
line of work he undertook, outlived his associates, and became one of
the world’s greatest builders and financiers. To Mr. Huntington and to
Edward H. Harriman (whose financial genius and constructive ability have
contributed more in high class, modern railways to the advancement of
the West than any other man), the empire beyond the Missouri and the
Mississippi owes more than to any other two.
[Illustration: SHY DEER WATCH THE PASSING TRAINS FROM THE LEAFY COVERTS
OF THE CANYONS]
Sacramento has many places of interest; the capitol building and its
fine grounds, Sutter’s Fort, and the Crocker Art Gallery being among
them. The city has beautiful tree lined avenues, fine houses with flower
gardens, lawns, and citrus and deciduous fruit, good urban and suburban
electric line service, railways radiating in four directions, and three
more—two steam and one electric—under construction; altogether a modern,
charming city with such unusual out of doors attractions as only
California can give.
[Illustration: NEAR NEWCASTLE THE WILDER SCENERY GIVES PLACE TO PEACEFUL
ORCHARDS]
Among public works is the handsome Government building, in which are the
post office, land office, weather bureau, and other Government offices.
In yards the magnolia blooms and the broad leaves of the plantain and
banana arrest the eye. Palms are plentiful and with variety; orange and
lemon trees are numerous. Camellias bloom in profusion.
The journey from Sacramento to San Francisco may be made over the ninety
mile direct route via Benicia or the longer way through Stockton. The
Benicia Route is through deciduous fruit sections, of which Davis and
Elmira are business centers and junctions respectively for lines through
the west side of the Sacramento Valley and up the beautiful Capay
Valley. The Overland Route from Elmira follows along the marshes of
upper Suisun Bay, where tens of thousands of wild ducks and wild geese
find a home.
At Suisun, a branch line leads to the Napa and Sonoma Valleys, famous
these forty years past for fruits and wine and rural loveliness. Suisun
has many fruit establishments. Beyond, fifteen miles, is Benicia, with
its Government post and arsenal.
[Illustration: UP AT SUMMIT THE DOMAIN OF KING SNOW, BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK
AT THOUGH FRIGID IN WELCOME, IS SWIFTLY LEFT BEHIND]
Thence the great double ferryboat, the Solano, swallows the train, and
moves across the picturesque Carquinez straits, a mile wide, to Port
Costa. This is the largest ferryboat in the world, and perhaps the only
double one. Its two paddle wheels may be made to revolve in opposite
directions, turning the boat around almost in its own length. As one
crosses, to the left lies Suisun Bay, to the right, San Pablo Bay. The
ferry unloads its trains at Port Costa, place of mammoth grain
warehouses with capacity for more than 350,000 tons. Thirty deep-sea
ships may unload here at one time.
[Illustration: THE TRAIN DROPS QUICKLY FROM THE REGION OF PINES AND
FROST INTO A FAIRYLAND OF PALMS AND FLOWERS]
A few miles beyond Port Costa is Vallejo Junction; thence the ferry boat
El Capitan carries passengers the intervening four miles to Vallejo, and
to Mare Island Navy Yard. From the train you may catch a glimpse of the
warships at anchor, of the wooded island where Uncle Sam has three
thousand employees, and of Vallejo, upon its hills facing it, a lively
city of 12,000 people.
The great tower opposite Vallejo Junction carries across the straits the
transmission wires of the electric companies that gather the weight of
falling water in the Sierra Nevada and deliver it to San Francisco and
the bay counties to move street cars, light cities, and keep the wheels
of industry whirring.
Along this water front from between Vallejo Junction and Oakland are
great manufactories. Here are the Selby Smelting works where something
better than alchemy brings gold from rough rock; here (at a safe
distance) are powder works and soap factories, steel and wire works,
sugar refining works, syrup, oil and borax refineries, canneries and
tanneries and various wood working establishments.
Past Richmond, a manufacturing city, and Berkeley, a beautiful residence
city of 40,000 people, the Overland Route leads to Oakland.
Berkeley is built upon the slopes of hills to a height of six hundred
feet. It is the seat of the University of California, and the location
of the State Asylum for the Blind, the Deaf, and the Dumb. The
University grounds are beautiful and under the Bernard plans, involving
an ultimate expenditure of $50,000,000, the buildings will have no
second place in American architecture.
[Illustration: BEAUTIFUL BLUE CANYON, SEEN FROM THE TRAIN. THE GORGE
LIES TREMULOUS BEHIND A VEIL OF SAPPHIRE DISTANCE, A PLACE OF LEGENDS.]
[Illustration: AT CAPE HORN THE ROAD RUNS CLOSE TO THE CLIFF]
The city is growing very rapidly and in the high average of its home
places is not excelled anywhere. The new tourist resort, the Claremont
Hotel, may be seen from the train.
Oakland, third city of the State, has a population of 175,000. The
cluster of cities of which it is the center—Berkeley, Alameda,
Fruitvale, Elmhurst, and others—has a population of 240,000. Oakland’s
bay water front extends fifteen miles and its estuary is being made into
a great ship harbor, along which many industries are growing. The city
is becoming a place of skyscrapers. It is a city, too, of homes; on the
Piedmont hills and around Lake Merritt are beautiful drives with all the
life of the country in the heart of the town.
[Illustration: AMERICAN RIVER GLEAMS LIKE A RIBBON OF SILVER FAR FAR
BELOW THE MOVING TRAIN]
Leaving Oakland, 16th Street, the Overland Route through the city skirts
the bay shore and at the long “made” ground of Oakland Pier the rail
journey ends.
[Illustration: THE SACRAMENTO, ONE OF CALIFORNIA’S TWO NAVIGABLE RIVERS.
THE TORPEDO FLOTILLA OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FLEET CAME TO SACRAMENTO UP
THE RIVER, IN 1908]
Another route from Sacramento to San Francisco is along the foothill
country of the Sierra, southward past Lodi and its great grape and peach
lands to Stockton. Stockton, at the head of the bay navigation, is a
prosperous city of 25,000 people with great natural resources near; gas,
coal, electric power, and a million acres of as fat and fertile lands as
may be found out of doors. Its manufactures are many and important,
including flour and woolen mills, harvesters and other agricultural
implements, mining machinery, street cars and railway cars, pottery and
briquettes. It is in the heart of a great dairy section.
Westward from Stockton there is a choice of two routes; to the north
along the bay shore through Lathrop and Tracy past Byron Hot Springs,
under the brow of Mount Diablo and thence through Martinez to Port
Costa; or westward and then northward through the vine and fruit valleys
surrounding Pleasanton, Livermore, Haywards, and the series of towns
that ends in Oakland.
[Illustration: SUTTER’S FORT, SACRAMENTO, STILL STANDS IN GOOD REPAIR, A
MUTE HISTORIAN OF THE DAYS OF INDIAN RAIDS, THE OVERLAND COACH AND THE
PONY EXPRESS]
Through the broad passageways of commodious ferryboats the last link,
the water link, in the transcontinental chain is forged. Every twenty
minutes the best ferry service in the world moves boats from each
terminal between Oakland Pier and San Francisco. In crossing San
Francisco Bay, to the left is noted Alameda Mole, with the Southern
Pacific suburban trains and ferries. To the right, and almost ahead, is
Yerba Buena Island (Goat Island), occupied by the Government naval
training school, while fronting us are the picturesque hills and long
waterfront, mast forested, of San Francisco.
Beyond Yerba Buena to the right is the bold rocky islet, Alcatraz (the
Government prison); farther, Angel Island, a military post, and yet
beyond the blue forest clad hills of Marin with Mount Tamalpais rising
above them.
San Francisco, the new San Francisco, is not to be described in detail
in this book. The story of it today with all the great progress made
within the last two years would nevertheless be ancient and inadequate
history within six months. The rebuilding of the entire business section
of a great city in so short a time and the rehabilitation of its
municipal utilities, is a marvel beyond description.
[Illustration: THE PATHS THAT LEAD DIRECTLY TO CALIFORNIA’S CAPITOL AT
SACRAMENTO ARE PLEASANT ONES, SHADED BY THE SEMI-TROPIC GROWTHS OF THE
CAMELLIA CITY]
The San Francisco of today is a greater San Francisco than ever before.
Imports have increased, trade expanded and new industries established
since the fire. The traffic of the railroads is greater than in the days
of the old San Francisco. The Southern Pacific is spending millions in
new terminal facilities and has completed a new water-grade route up the
San Francisco peninsula into the heart of the city at an expense of
millions more. By the construction of a bridge at Dumbarton Point across
the southern arm of San Francisco bay in 1908 the city has to all
intents and purposes, from a traffic standpoint, been placed upon the
mainland.
[Illustration: THERE IS NO FINER DUCK SHOOTING THAN ON THE SUISUN
MARSHES. CANVASBACK, MALLARD, TEAL, OR SPRIG, ALL UNFAILINGLY AWAIT THE
BAG OF THE STRAIGHT SHOOTER]
The business section of San Francisco, practically entirely recreated in
two years, is in itself a marvel; no other city in the world possesses
such an area of absolutely new business blocks with their equipments
consequently modern in every respect, from elevator service to methods
of lighting and heating. Nothing is out of date; all is new and the work
has been on so large a scale as to justify the gathering of the very
best ideas in construction at the command of the best architects of the
world.
Notably is the hotel service of the city superior through this
reconstruction. Scores of fine hotels have been built within the two
years and many more are under way. The opportunity to embody every
comfort and convenience, and the rivalry among the hotels to secure the
best, have resulted in a series of up-to-date homes for wayfarers
probably never equaled, for never elsewhere have circumstances been such
as to permit the complete modernization of a great business city within
two years.
Among the great hotels of San Francisco the Fairmont on Nob Hill is
architecturally the most commanding feature of the city and of
unsurpassed service. The Hotel St. Francis conducted on the same high
plane of hospitality is noted for the excellence of its service and is
in the heart of the down town business section, facing Union Square. It
is one-half larger than before the new era. The new Palace Hotel will be
opened in the fall of 1909 on the old site and is a magnificent
structure. San Francisco has now in its hotels and apartment houses
accommodations for 25,000 visitors.
San Francisco is the busiest of cities and among its features most of
interest to visitors is the construction under way. Many of the new
buildings are remarkable for their beauty, a great deal of marble having
been used.
[Illustration: THE SOLANO, THAT TAKES UP SO EASILY THE SECTIONS OF THE
“OVERLAND,” IS THE LARGEST FERRY STEAMER IN THE WORLD]
This cosmopolitan metropolis at the gateway to the Orient possesses now
as it always has during the past thirty years, that fascinating variety
in its life which has made it a place of great attraction for people
from all over the earth. Hither come ships of all the seven seas with
the flags of all the maritime nations flying over them; here, too, come
the peoples of every land from far Cathay to Alaska, from Siberia to the
Isles of Greece. Every nation favors California with immigration and
every nationality of importance is represented by a colony in San
Francisco of which the customs and manners help make up the cosmopolitan
life of the ever growing city.
The great out-of-door attractions, such as Mount Tamalpais, lifting its
volcanic crest 2596 feet above the city, the great Golden Gate Park with
its animal and plant life drawn from all quarters of the globe, the Seal
Rocks and Sutro Heights, Museum and Baths, the beautiful military
reservation of the Presidio commanding the Golden Gate, the islands of
the bay and the wooded Mann shores, the Muir woods, the old Mission
Dolores built more than a century ago, and the neighboring valleys
within short excursion distance laden with fruit and flowers; all these
and many other attractions help make San Francisco a lodestone for the
pleasure seeker.
The main line of The Overland Route ends at San Francisco where the
great liners of the Pacific Mail, Toyo Kisen Kaisha and other steamship
companies take up the work of transporting travelers by sea trails made
pleasant by the sunshine and blue, placid waters of the mid-Pacific, to
the islands of the South Seas and the great countries of the Orient.
[Illustration: THE OVERLAND LIMITED ENTERING THE YARDS OF THE OAKLAND
STATION]
[Illustration: OAKLAND IS A CITY OF BEAUTIFUL HOMES, MANY OF THEM
CLUSTERING AROUND THE SHORES OF LAKE MERRITT]
Nearly four thousand miles of lines northward to Portland, Oregon, and
southward to Los Angeles and beyond, carry Overland Route passengers to
all important cities of California and Oregon. Indeed, the end of the
transcontinental trip is at the open door to wonderland. North and south
are the attractions of mountains, shore and valley; the greatest of
coniferous forests, our highest mountain peaks outside of Alaska, the
deepest and wildest of mountain canyons, the oldest and greatest of
giant trees, the largest and most beautiful of mountain lakes; the long
beaches with wooded uplands and mountains beyond marked here and there
with resorts, flower embowered, delightful winter and summer; the
semi-tropic fruit orchards of a sunshiny country surpassing in extent
and variety those of any other section; altogether a wonderland not to
be matched in all the world.
“_Lo! here sit we by the sun-down seas_
_And the White Sierra. The sweet sea-breeze_
_Is about us here; and a sky so fair_
_Is bending above, so cloudless, blue,_
_That you gaze and you gaze and you dream, and you_
_See God and the portals of heaven there._
“O seas in a land! O lakes of mine!
By the love I bear and the songs I bring
Be glad with me! lift your waves and sing
A song in the reeds that surround your isles!—
A song of joy for this sun that smiles,
For this land I love and this age and sign;
For the peace that is and the perils pass’d;
For the hope that is and the rest at last!
* * *
“A rush of rivers and a brush of trees,
A breath blown far from the Mexican seas,
And over the great heart-vein of earth!
.... By the South-Sun-land of the Cherokee,
By the scalp-lock-lodge of the tall Pawnee,
And up La Platte. What a weary dearth
Of the homes of men! What a wild delight
Of space! Of room! What a sense of seas,
Where the seas are not! What a salt like breeze!
What dust and taste of quick alkali!
.... Then hills! green, brown, then black like night,
All fierce and defiant against the sky!
“At last! at last! O steed new-born,
Born strong of the will of the strong New World,
We shoot to the summit, with the shafts of morn,
On the mount of Thunder, where clouds are curl’d,
Below in a splendor of the sun-clad seas.
A kiss of welcome on the warm west breeze
Blows up with a smell of the fragrant pine,
And a faint, sweet fragrance from the far-off seas
Comes in through the gates of the great South Pass,
And thrills the soul like a flow of wine.
The hare leaps low in the storm-bent grass,
The mountain ram from his cliff looks back,
The brown deer hies to the tamarack.
* * *
[Illustration: THE GOLDEN GATE, IN AND OUT OF WHICH PASSES DAILY MANY A
WEALTHY ARGOSY]
“On, on, o’er the summit; and onward again,
And down like the sea-dove the billow enshrouds,
And down like the swallow that dips to the sea,
We dart and we dash and we quiver and we
Are blowing to heaven white billows of clouds.
* * *
“The Humboldt desert and the alkaline land,
And the seas of sage and of arid sand
That stretch away till the strain’d eye carries
The soul where the infinite spaces fill,
Are far in the rear, and the fierce Sierras
Are under our feet, and the hearts beat high
And the blood comes quick; but the lips are still
With awe and wonder, and all the will
Is bow’d with a grandeur that frets the sky.
“A flash of lakes through the fragrant trees,
A song of birds and a sound of bees
Above in the boughs of the sugar-pine.
The pick-axe stroke in the placer mine,
The boom of blasts in the gold-ribbed hills,
The grizzly’s growl in the gorge below
Are dying away, and the sound of rills
From the far-off shimmering crest of snow,
The laurel green and the ivied oak,
A yellow stream and a cabin’s smoke,
The brown bent hills and the shepherd’s call,
The hills of vine and of fruits, and all
The sweets of Eden are here, and we
Look out and afar to a limitless sea.
[Illustration: THE FERRY BUILDING, THE MARKET STREET (SAN FRANCISCO)
STATION OF THE SOUTHERN PACIFIC AND THE WESTERN TERMINAL OF THE OVERLAND
ROUTE]
“We have lived an age in a half-moon-wane!
We have seen a world! We have chased the sun
From sea to sea; but the task is done.
We here descend to the great white main—
To the King of Seas, with its temples bare
And a tropic breath on the brow and hair.”
—_Joaquin Miller._
Transcriber’s Notes
--Retained publication information from the printed exemplar (this eBook
is in the public domain in the country of publication.)
--Silently corrected several typos.
--Provided all images resized and oriented for use on a portable eBook
reader.