Los Angeles herald., 1891-03-21
SATURDAY, MARCH s1. 1891.
FROM THE CITY TO THE sEA-GRowrH.

pressed that the Mission Fathers who
laid out Los Angeles did not locate the
City of the Queen of the Angels by the
seashore at Santa Monica. Were the
thing to be done over again, in the light
of the present developments. this would
doubtless have been done. 1t is gen.
orally conceded that San Francisco is on
the wrong side of the bay. But she is
there to stay. If the prescience OF the
franciscan fathers had been as great as
their courage and perseverance, they
would doubtless have built La Ciudad
de la Reina de Los Angeles on the bluffs
of Santa Monica, carrying the waters OF
the Los Angeles river there in cemented
bitches. Our own city, however, differs
from San Francisco in onerespect. You
cannot build city across the bay, but
you can build over the lovely stretch OF
country that intervenes between Los
Angeles and the ocean.
And this is manifest destiny. There
are people now living, and middle-aged
people at that, who will see the cor
pOIdLt llulJb " hOb nhSCiCS OAhOANSS
Santa Monica, and they will see, be-
sides, unique and beautiful city reach
ing from the Los Angeles river to the
sea.
1t will not be a closely built, COM
pacted city, rank with overcrowded
quarters where squalor and poverty
form the basis for the elegant Corin-
THAN columns of wealth. 1t Will be
congeries of delightful homes, in which
the most gracious vegetation of earth
will be reproduced. To many persons
who are ignorant of the marvellous
growth that has characterized Los An
geles such talk would seem to be the
merest idle vaporing. But it is, on the
contrary, the most prosaic forecast of
the inevitable.
1t is only short time ago that Los
Angeles was 'dobie town of five or six
thousand inhabitants. A few modern,
American buildings, simply emphasized
the tumble-down character of nineteen
out of twenty edifices. The census OF
1880 gave us population OF only II 300.
The census of 1904 census which was
taken when ten thousand of our people
were at the seaside and mountain re-
sorts--gave US upwards of fifty thousand.
This is probably the most remarkable
urban growth recorded in the United
States during the past decade. The
agencies which produced this growth are
still in full play, and they are destined
to be reinforced incalculably. Within a
few years there is no question but that
we shall have another transcontinental
railway by the extension of the Salt
Lake branch OF the Union Pacific road
from Phoebe to this city 1t is equally GER
tain that the Carson and Colorado railway
will be extended to Los Angeles within
a very short period. The completion OF
these enterprises will open up the most
valuable mineral region on the Ameri-
can continent, both in the base and
precious metals, and they will furnish to
Los Angeles the cheap fuel that will en-
able her to become manufacturing city.
Somewhere beween the city and the sea
great smelling works will arise, the re-
fractory ores of Arizona will be reduced
by the abundant huxes which will be
furnished by the territory traversed by
these roads, But the main feature of the
great coming city will be ideal homes,
surrounded and made captivating by the
vine, the fig, the olive, lemon, pome-
granate and all the exquisite fruits and
fora which appeal to the imagination of
the poet and the esthete.
The railway situation of Los Angeles
is today one of exceptional thorough
ness. The Cent raj and Union Pacific
railways are as distinctively tributary to
our growth as they are to that of San
Francisco. We ship directly to the east
without the intervention of the Golden
Gate, via Lathrop and Sacramento. The
Sunset route is questionless Los An
geles road, and it embodies the shortest
route from Pacific to Atlantic tide-water.
Through this road we also enjoy the ad
vantages of all the ramifcations of the
Texas Pacific railway. The Atchison,
Topeka and Santa Fe railway is also
Los Angeles road, with a terminus in
this city and at tide-water at Redondo
Beach. This road also carries with it
the facilities of the Atlantic and Pacific
railway. We have thus already three COM
pleted transcontinental railways, with
another in the immediate perspec-
tive, and with the choice of
still another through the extern
sion of the Carson and Colorado road,
which will tap the Central Pacific at
Carson, thus shortening that route to
the east considerably over the present
circuit. Our local system OF railways is
probably the most complete possessed
by any city in the United States, OF per-
haps in the world. Headed by the Cal
ifornia Sout hern, it absolutely gridirons
the country, leaving no portion of Los
Angeles without ample transportation
facilities.
With the whole stretch of the conti-
nent behind US, with climate admit
tedly superior to that of the Riviera,
with spontaneity and variety of pro-