The San Francisco call., 1909-12-26
PROSPERITY MARKS
LARGE TERRITORY
Progress and Commercial Ac.
tivity Feature Entire District
South of the Slot"

Three transcontinental railway sys-
TENS, having in their control and under
their operation 10000 miles of track
age in the United States, have their
terminals in the region south of Mar
ket street Swaying at their wharves
are splendid steamships that ply, year
in and year out, between the Pacific
coast mainland of the United States and
the orient. and which receive and dis
charge their cargoes in the same local
ity. Scores of great manufacturing
plants send up clouds of steam and
smoke. Indicating the activity and en-
terprise of businessmen, advertising
the millions Of dollars invested in in
dustrial enterprises in the section,
Putting locomotives run up and down
the main and spur tracks to deliver
or to haul loads of costly freight to or
from warehouses. Glass A buildings,
with handsome exteriors of brick, and
equipped with all the conveniences for
the transaction of wholesale business
without regard to initial cost, stand in
imposing array in the territory south
of the slot" as it used to be known.
GREAT OUTLAY REPRESENTED
solid structures for other uses, rep
resenting a great outlay of money in
the aggregate, line the many streets
that run through the south of Market
district This is a section of hotels, OF
churches of various denominations, Of
warehouses that are filled to repletion
with the costliest array of wares and
goods that civilization requires for its
uses. Mingled with the other struc-
lures are temporary school buildings,
in which young Americans, whose par
ents were born in all lands under the
sun. are becoming sturdy Yankees.
The two longest commercial streets
in San Francisco, that can be easily
teamed over from one end to the other,
parallel one another not far from Mar
ket street, and serve to relax the pres
sure for room that otherwise would
congest travel on the city's main thor
oughfare.
scores of other streets lie almost
level: and. where the heights of Rim
con hill have interposed an obstacle
to the easy moving of horse drawn
freights. the city fathers have decreed
that deep cuts and overhanging bridges
shall make the hitherto inaccessible
streets equally convenient with all of
the great adjoining area.
To the east and to the south the
region south of Market street is washed
by the blue waters of the bay of San
Francisco. On the north is San Fran
cisco's main artery of travel Market
street On the west the boundary,
which is ordinarily accepted as mark
ing the line OF the Mission on its east
ern margin, is Ninth street. This sec
ton then is penned in by commercial
advantages on all sides, and its topog-
raphy invites commerce to its full ex-
tent and provides facilities for it's un-
obstructed and unlimited transactiehs.
NATURAL ADVANTAGES
Considered as whole, it may be
said that this region is the richest in
natural commercial advantages of any
portion of San Francisco. 1t might not
be an exaggeration to say that it has
more natural commercial advantages
than all the other parts of San Fran
cisco combined.
Upon its eligibility for commercial
endeavor the great captains of indus
try. they who as presidents are at the
head of the greatest lines OF railway
in the world, and coincidently con-
trolling the steamship lines that carry
on the commerce of the orient and the
west coast of America. through the
Golden gate. have placed the seal of
their approval The connections of
these contributary transcontinental
roads collectively embrace more miles
of steel tracks and serve vastly
greater proportion of the people of the
United States than the transcontinentaI
lines do in their own particular ter
ritory.
If nature had especially designed a
region in which wealth might be be-
slowed along the lines of the least re-
sistance, and under the most favorable
Of all conceivable conditions. nothing
better suited TO that end could be found
in all the world than the region south