San Andreas independent., 1857-04-18
The Pacific Railroad.


opening wagon road, mail route, tele-
graph, &C., between St. Louis and San
Francisco, has given great impetus to
Railroad interests. The amount appro-
priated at the last session of Congress, to
be expended in these improvements,
amounts, in the aggregate, to 81, 200, 900;
this includes the mail contract, which runs
six years, at $500, 900 per year. The ap-
preparations for the telegraph line, boring
Artesian wells, &c., are not yet explicitly
defined. The Missouri Republican says !:
"PAcIFIc RAILRoAD-The bill which passed
the Senate yesterday, after having previously
passed the House, (Missouri Legislature, gives
to the North Missouri Railroad $l,50O0OO of
State credit, instead of 200, ,O00 as published
yesterday
"OvERLAND NAIL TO SAN FRANcIsco.-By a
| law of the late Congress, the Postmaster Cen
eral is authorized to establish regular coach
mail, between the Mississippi and San Francis
CO. Where it is to begin is not known. He is
empowered to contract for either monthly,
semi-monthly, or weekly mail across the plains,
by the most feasible route, taking one or the
other of two wagon roads just established by
Congress For the monthly service, $500, 900
is appropriated semi-monthly, $3.50, 900, and
the weekly, 100000. When that is done, it
will not be long before daily mail is COM
menced and by such time, the overland route
will be the shortest and the most popular. Let
the department give the people of the West a
little chance-let them be placed on the same
footing with the ocean mail steamers, in being
allowed compensation for carrying the mails
and one of the sources of corruption employed
by the owners of those lines of vessels every
year, will be cut off. Give our people a fair
chance. and they will carry the mails in less
time than the steamers, and for less money than
is expended every few years in getting renew
al OF contracts to the ocean steamers"
These improvements must terminate in
San Francisco ST. Louis has already ad-
vanced the road far to the westward, and
1t makes no difference whether the road
goes straight through, or radiates north or
south, it must enter San Francisco south
OF the Bay-it must go through Patter-
sons Pass, Livermore Valley and San
Jose, to San Francisco. A Railroad can
never be built through Pacheco's Pass
The Coast Range at that Pass is a hun
dred times more difficult to cross over than
the Sierra Nevadas on the Big Tree Road.
There are five Passes in the Coast Range,
now generally travelled list: the +" Estrel-
la" leading through from the Mission of
San Miguel, which would direct the road
to the sea coast at the head of the Salinas
Plains. End; Santa Anna Pass, at the
head of st. Johns Valley, near the rancho
of Quien Sabe. Sd; Pacheco' s Pass, north
of the rancho of San Felipe, Gilroy Town
ship; and Coral Hollow, Patterson's Pass
and Livermore's Pass, each leading into
the extreme head of San Ramon Valley.
west of the residence Of Robert Livermore.
We are acquainted with all these Passes
have travelled three of them more than a
dozen times each-and will assert from
positive seeing and feeling" that the
best route for Railroad to cross the
Coast Range, by over hundred per cent,
is Pattersons Pass. This Pass is on al
most direct airline from Stockton to San
Jose; we say this without knowing wheth-
er the recently surveyed Stockton and San
Francisco Railroad Route, threads through
this Pass or not.
But the pith of all this bobbery about
railroads, conventions, &C., resolves itself
into these questions Shall the ST. Louis
and San Francisco railroad pass through
the Big Tree route, and thence to Stock
ton or to Sacramento? Shall the road
terminate On the North side of the Bay
of San Francisco, and build up another
city, or shall it end where the bill says it
must terminate, and aid and continue a
city already built? If the latter, it must
pass through Stockton; if the former, Sac
ramento, to Benicia, and there build up
rival to San Francisco. We are not fight
ing, IN this matter, for our little clap
board camp" but for the Big Tree road
and our county. If Mokelumne Hill will
do the same, we are with them. In
few years more, fifteen or twenty stages
per day, will pass through this county, en-.
tering California along the Telegraph line,
over the Big Tree route, soon to be fol-
lowed by the Iron Horse" pouring the
intelligence, the virtues, the wealth and
the commerce of the Eastern States
into our golden State-where the hardy
sons of bleak New England will find land
of perpetual sunshine-continuous with
singing birds and springing flowers, and all