Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-01
Los Angeles as a Haiiroad Centr

Los Angeles as a Railroad Centre.
If one will examine the map, which we
print today on the ninth page of the
HERALD, the absurd denial of local
contemporary that Los Angeles is now
the largest railroad centre on the Pacific
Coast will be at once placed at rest. 1t
is the terminal focus of greater mum ber
of roads, overland and other, than Port
land or San Francisco, and prospectively
it occupies the situation which will de-
termins all new roads coming to the
Pacific Coast south of the 42d degree of
latitude to enter the State by way of Los
Angeles. There is nothing which can
overcome this fact. No more railroads
with enormous subsidies from the
government will be built under
the pressure of the cry of
'war measure" Hereafter all roads
seeking the Pacific Coast will be
built on commercial principles. The
cold, stern, calculating rule, "will il
pay?" is the basis upon which new en-.
terprises of railroad extension will be
carried out. Great chains of mountains
will not be pierced at tremendous cost,
out Of all proportion to the returns that
can be counted upon, for the purpose OF
running roads on straight line to Cali.
fornia. They will come by the cheapest
ropte, and that is by way of the depres-
/EoN in the continent which makes Los
Angeles the natural outlet to the Great
Salt Lake Basin. 1t is useless for San
Francisco to make the vain attempt to
obviate this positive physical fact. 1t is
written in indelible characters in the
Sierra Nevadas and the successive chains
of mountains that form the interior bar
rier to the northern portion of California.
No inducements which that city can
offer, opulent as she is, can weigh for a
moment against the physical barriers
which forever bar her out from another
direct road from the Great Salt Lake
valley.
Indeed, the intelligent people of San
Francisco know this. They know that
in railroad miles-that is, measured by
the cost Of their operation--they are
several hundred miles further away from
Ogden than they would be if the Central
Pacific, instead of facing tremendous
grades and curves and hundreds of miles
Of snow mountains, made the detour to
that city by way of Southern Utah and
Los Angeles. As early as 1852 the mer-
chants of that city recognized the fact
that Los Angeles possessed the key to
the interior trade of the Great Basin. At
that time their Chamber of Commerce
was greatly exercised over the question
of bringing the Salt Lake trade to that
city. Several meetings were held, and
at last q committee was appointed, with
Mr.. &. G. Sheath at it's head, to give the
question the most searching and serious
deliberation. That committee came to
Los Angeles. Here they found that the
merchants of Utah had established their
base of supplies from the Coast, and that
the major portion of the traffic of our
people was with the people of Salt Lake.
Mr.. Sheath delivered to the
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce an
elaborate and exhaustive report on the
subject of the interior trade, and con-
cluded with the declaration that the
natural route of that trade was from
Southern Utah to Los Angeles, and
thence by steamer to San Francisco
Here was an acknowledgment based upon
physical facts which have not changed
.ince. The trade Of the Interior Basin
was forced to San Francisco by the build
ing of the Central Pacific. But that coetly
route has had it's day, and trade will
hereafter return 10 its natural channel.
We see that this view of the situation
8 fully recognized by the action of two
yrsst railroad systems that are now
bout to extend their roads to this Coast
They have gone back to the natural
;hannel which had for time been set /
'side through abnormal conditions. II
here is any doubt that these roads will |
o. here, the mere reference to the
tier and conformation OF our
y will dispel it, and if