Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-11-12
The Real Outlook

Of a boom. There has never been
greater mistake, and We shall briefly tell
why. We will preface our remarks with
the true statement that in 1889, the city
of Chicago, which now contains eight
Thousand inhabitants. was al
mere village of four thousand souls. itl
was located in swamp, snd nothing to
spesk of was grown in its neighbcr-
hood. But Chicago had position, and
the building of the illinois Central
Railway shertly justified the confidence
ef those who had early cast in their lot
with the nascent metropolis. These
people knew that lakes we're not created
as mere incident Of chance; and they
saw, in their minds eye, the wonderful
water system, which constituted the
great claim of the drowsy and putrid
Chicago of fifty years ago crowded with
the argosies of continents commerce.
Los Angeles, like Chicago, has posi-
tion. She is on the shortest line, in the
territory of the United States, between
Pacific aud Atlantic tidewater. While
she has no Lake Michigan before her,
she has the boundless spread of
the Pacific ocean in her front. The COM
parison in that respect is like duckpond
to a lake. The possibilities of oriental
commerce are as yet merely in their in
fancy. In the roadstead of San Pedro
Los Angeles has port which will shortly
become one of the best on the Pacific
Coast, and far preferable to many of the
natural harbors which subserve all the
purposes of commerce on the Atlantic
Coast and IN Europe. The government
of the United States and the Southern
Pacific Railway will hereafter emulate
each other in improving its facilities.
Instead of the single Illinois Central,
which was the great original impetus
in the growth of Chicago, Los An
geles has a number of transcontinental
railway which will be rapidly added
to. She is already one of the greatest
railway centers of the world. She is as
truly the terminus of the Central and
Union Pacific railways as is San Fran
cisco. In addition, she is the terminus
of the Sunset route and of the Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe systems. Through
these roads she commands all the
facilities of the Texas Pacific and of the
st. Louis and San Francisco Railway.
The Union Pacific will shortly have a
more direct terminus in Los Angeles
through the Utah Southern Railway, a
project which will be completed in the
near future. The Carson and Colorado
road will also shortly reach this
city, while the Salt Lake and
Los Angeles Railway is scheme
which is certain to materialize soon.
In addition, We have innumerable local
railways which traverse every portion of
Los Angeles county.
All this has been done during the last
fifteen years. In April, 1873, the writer
made stage coach trip from Los An,
geles to San Bernardino. At that time
he and single fellow-passenger were the
only inmates of the coach. He had the
same experience coming down. The
population of the county at that time was
about eight thousand. 1t is now quite
one hundred and sixty thousand. Where
Pasadena now stands there was simply a
single edfice, the old San Pasqual ranch
house. The moiety of that ranch
had recently been sold to the Indiana
colony for fraction over eight dollars
an acre. Pomona, Santa Ana, Orange,
Westminster and score of other pros.
porous communities, had no existence.
South of Anaheim, where Santa Ana and
Tustin City now stand, there were not
half dozen houses until San Juan Cap
istrano was reached. The city of Los
Angeles itself was sleepy 'dobetown OF
about five thousand inhabitants.
What magical change has come over
this imperial land Who can set limit
to the changes of the future? If, start
ing with few stage lines, we have seen
such wonderful Transformation, what
may We not see, in decade, as the re-
suit of our superb railway development?
The railways which we're tributary to
the growth of the young Chicago, ira.
versed country in which corn and a
few other of the cereals were the princi-
pal staples. The manifold tributary rail.
ways of Los Angeles run through region
in which the products are manifold
almost beyond the power of enumeration.
These roads are instruments in the de-
velopment of products without end of
section where the orange and the vine,
the pomegranate and the potato, the
cereals and fruits of the temperate zones
flourish side by side with the banana
and Japanese plum.
We have said nothing about the climate
OF this matchless region. Superadded to
our partial inventory it forms an attrac-
ton which would of itself, aided by our
unrivaled transportation facilities, make
this county one Of the most heavily pop
ulated regions OF the globe.
1t does not lie in the power of man to
arrest this region in its onward and up
ward course. We have now reached the
stage at which manufactures are being
added to our other sources of growth.
Speed the good work. The time has at
last arrived for the development of nat
ural gas, with which the earth hereabouts
abounds, and for fully developing the
Irv,t I1H- Ill G-11 81