Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-10-15
specially encouraging Pointers.

Specially Encouraging POINTERS.
Business in Los Angeles shows every
sign of picking up in all departments.
This is the universal testimony of business
men, bankers, merchants and real estate
agents, and the railway, school. and
gas statistics confirm the favorable esti-
mate. This city is the liveliest place on
the Pacific Coast, and most of the other
towns seem dead by contrast. Last week
building permits covering the erection of
buildings to cost $135 900 we're issued in
this municipality. We have conversed
with many persons who have been lately
all over the Coast States and territories,
and their story is all to the same purport,
and that is that Los Angeles leads them
all. OF course great city like San
Francisco locks lively, whether it is
really so or no, but there does not begin
to be the ratio of building, or even bust
ness activity there which prevails in Los
Angeles. The fact should not be forgot.
ten, besides, that we are completing
great public improvements, such as the
cable system, have just finished a superb
new city hall, and are making rapid
headway with a court house
which eclipses in beauty anything
on the Pacific Coast, the outlay on all of
which runs up to the millions of dollars
The people who are putting up these
costly and substantial buildings are 10
nearly every case those who are noted
for intelligence, who have travelled all
over the American Union, and who are
casting in their lot with Los Angeles
after a careful survey of the whole
national field. The great advantages of
this city as commercial center are be.
ing recognized more and more every
day. 1t is sometimes said that we can
not expect to have a really large city
without manufactures. This is mis-
take. Many cities of much renown owe
their greatness to commerce, and others
to manufactures. Trade itself is a big
element in urban growth. Leeds, Man
chester, Liverpool, Sheffield and Glas-
gov, are great manufacturing centers,
noted for their specialties, but they are
not London. You could take every
thing Of -distinctively manufacturing
character out of London and it
would still remain the greatest
city in the world. While Los
Angeles, as city sai gcneris, could
expect great growth independently of the
ordinary sources of urban development,
such as climate and favorable location AS
q resort for great mining and pioneer
populations, it is not true that we are
lacking in manufacturing resources. A
great number of modest and profitable
industries have sprung up here of late
years, and it is these that pay best. The
conditions for manufacturing in Los An.
geles have improved vastly of late. The
discovery Of immense beds of petroleum
all over this county, or at least over areas
sufficiently large to indicate their prac-
tically illimitable extent, is a great
element in our manufacturing outlook
1t meets the fuel proposition at least
measurably, and it's remaining difficulties
will be met from two widely separated
points, viz, Alaska and Utah. Senator
John P. Jones and Mr.. D. o. Mills have
announced it to be their purpose to supply
Southern California with cheap coal from
Alaskan measures that are practically
without limit. The Senator has placed
himself on record as being determined to
give the people OF Los Angeles this coal
at Sc ton. On the other hand, the COM
pletion of the Utah Central to Los An
geles-a project that the Union Pacific
Railway has had in mind for years, and
which will attain the stage of fruition
within the next two or three years
means more cheap coal. As all the base
metals, including iron, copper, nickel and
tin, are to be found in enormous quanti-
ties, and within easy distance of Los
Angeles, there is no reason in the world
why this should not be great manufac-
turing point in the near future.
Another pleasant feature of the stu
alton is the multiplication of transport
alton facilities. In very quiet way
Captains Ainsworth and Thorn pson
have been carrying out their great
scheme of improvement at Redondo
Beach. They have built q wharf there
which is already doing a big business.
They have constructed a railway, which
will doubtless shortly have a terminus
in the heart of the city. Similar devel-
opments will soon be chronicled at Long
Beach, while the cordislity with which
Senators Stanford and Hearst are united
in recommending liberal appropriations
for San Pedro harhor assure work on a
satisfactory scale of magnitude at that
point. Everything thus points in the
near future to both commerce and m anu
features, the whole brilliant scheme OF |
development being based upon one of the |
most superb systems of transcontinentel |
railway terminals in the world, and on
the Pacific ocean, which lapes our shores
for many miles.
There lie another feature of the present
situation in Los Angeles which will,
during the coming winter and spring,
result in marked activity in real estate
circles. Our lands are now the cheapest
in the State. They are just IS good as
they ever were, they have the same eli