Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-12-28
SATURDAY. DEC. 2s, 1889.
Encouraging the New Railroad
Connections.

SATURDAY. DEC. 2s, 1859.
the New Railroad
Connections.
The meeting of representative bodies
to give public expression to the senti-
ments of our people in relation to the
projected railroad extensions to this city
from Utah may not have any positive
effect upon the corporations in question,
but it will show our goodwill and our
readiness to extend to them all the ter
minal and other facilities that lie in our
power. The Importance to Los Angeles
Of opening up the vast mineral regions in
Nevada and southeastern California that
will be tapped by these lines is possibly
not duly appreciated by all Of our peo-
pie. Yet we feel assured that, as great
as have been the benefits conferred upon
us by the railway enterprises already in
operation here, they are not nearly as
immediate in their bearing upon our
commercial and industrial prosperity as
will prove the railway extensions that
are now projected. Whilst the Santa Fe
and it's auxiliaries and the Southern Pa
cific with it's immense ramifcations have
had the effect of opening our country to
a new and welcome era of growth and
prosperity, yet the projected extensions
will bring to us an accession of instru-
mentslities, which, coDjoined with oui
great agricultural and horticultural re.
sources, will symmetrize, round out and
complete our facilities for permanent
progress and development in all branches
of industry.
We have often adverted to the fact
that Los Angeles is the natural outlet
and entrepot of the Great Interior Basin
1t is the natural gateway to this Coas
from the midland States, snd cannot
hereafter be overlooked by any railway
corporation seeking to enter the State Of
California. These are, of course, very
important facts. But to build up greai
commercial and manufacturing city here
something else besides soil products
is necessary. 1t is indispensable
that we should have cheap fuel. This
desideratum will be supplied by the new
roads, which will pass through region
unsurpassed in the quality of its cosland
the extensiveness of its measures. With
cheap fuel there is no limit to the vari
ETY. and extent of manufacturing indus
tries that can be profitably established
here. Perhaps, however, the most i'm
portant industrial pursuits that will
naturally grow up here from
the new railroad connections will
be those that are connected
with the treatment of ores. There il
really no limit to the possibilities of this
peculiar industry, for the whole eight
hundred miles of country the new lines
will tap abound in mineral districts thai
have long lain dormant simply because
it would not pay to transport their ores
by wagon. The employment which these
establishments will give cannot be lin.
tied. A single establishment engaged in
separating the precious metals from oret
will require thousands OF operatives tc
do it's work, and these establishments
may be duplicated indefinitely, for there
is really no limit to the supply Of ores
that can be had from the scores of rich
districts of southeastern Nevada and
California.
1t will therefore be seen that the ad
vent of these railroads means a grea
increase in our industrial population
other than agricultural. 1t means the
accession Of profitable manufactures in
all classes of metals. The effect, Of
course, of this vast accession of manufac.
turing population will be naturally to
favorably react upon the agricultural in.
dustry, and to settle up our farm country
with a speed that will astonish even
those who have given the most earnest
and intelligent thought to the subject
If the railroads already operating here
have Occupied our city population in ten
years, those that we now 90 confidently
llook for will assure Los Angeles popu.
lation of at least quarter of a million
souls in another decade. But perhaps
the most benefcent feature of the new
era which is dawning upon US is that
which enables us to contemplate mil.
lion of inhsbitants in this immediate
section, devoted to diversified industries
each favorably reacting upon the other,
and all ensuring q prosperity of even
permanence and OF enduring increase in
the couara1 woo1fh