page_title: History of California
section_title: Early California transportation
hierarchical_section_title: History of California / History of California through 1899 / American period / Early California transportation
caption_attribution_description: English: Concord Coach no. 251An original Concord Stage Coach on display at the Wells Fargo History Museum in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park.
context_page_description: The history of California can be divided into: the Native American period; European exploration period from 1542 to 1769; the Spanish colonial period, 1769 to 1821; the Mexican period, 1821 to 1848; and United States statehood, from September 9, 1850 which continues to this present day.
  California was settled from the North by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years. It was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in pre-Columbian North America. After contact with Spanish explorers, most of the Native Americans died out from European diseases.
  After the Portolá expedition of 1769–70, Spanish missionaries began setting up 21 California Missions on or near the coast of Alta California, beginning with the Mission San Diego de Alcala near the location of the modern day city of San Diego, California. During the same period, Spanish military forces built several forts and three small towns. Two of the pueblos would eventually grow into the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose. After Mexican Independence was won in 1821, California fell under the jurisdiction of the First Mexican Empire.
context_section_description: Even before Mexico gained control of Alta California in 1821, the onerous Spanish rules in effect from 1770 to 1821 against trading with foreigners began to break down as the declining Spanish fleet couldn't enforce their no trading policies. The Californios, with essentially no industries or manufacturing capabilities, were eager to trade for new commodities, glass, hinges, nails, finished goods, luxury goods and other merchandise. The Mexican government abolished the no trade with foreign ships policy and soon regular trading trips were being made. The main products of these California Ranchos were cow hides (called California greenbacks), tallow (rendered fat for making candles and soap) and California/Texas longhorn cattle horns that were traded for other finished goods and merchandise. This hide-and-tallow trade was mainly carried on by Boston-based ships that traveled for about 200 days in sailing ships about 17,000 miles (27,000 km) to 18,000 miles (29,000 km) around Cape Horn to bring finished goods and merchandise to trade with the Californio Ranchos for their hides, tallow and horns. The cattle and horses that provided the hides, tallow and horns essentially grew wild. The Californios' hides, tallow and horns provided the necessary trade articles for a mutually beneficial trade. The first United States, English and Russian trading ships began showing up in California before 1816. The classic book Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. written about 1832 provides a good first hand account of this trade.,
  From 1825 to 1848 the average number of ships traveling to California increased to about 25 ships per year—a large increase from the average of 2.5 ships per year from 1769 to 1824. The port of entry for trading purposes was the Alta California Capital, Monterey, California, where custom duties (tariffs) of about 100% were applied. These high duties gave rise to much bribery and smuggling, as avoiding the tariffs made more money for the ship owners and made the goods less costly to the customers. Essentially all the cost of the California government (what little there was) was paid for by these tariffs (custom duties). In this they were much like the United States in 1850, where about 89% of the revenue of its federal government came from import tariffs (also called Customs or ad valorem taxes), although at an average rate of about 20%.
  Ships after 1848 provided easy, cheap, links among the coastal towns within California and on routes leading there. Nearly all cargo to California came by sailing ship until the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. The sea route was more than 17,000 miles (27,000 km) route from the east coast or Europe around Cape Horn in South America. This route averaged about 200 days by "standard" sailing ship or about 120 days by Clipper. One of the main problems that occurred during the gold rush was the lack of a paying cargo for ships leaving California. Food, supplies and passengers were the main cargo coming to California; but there were only a limited return trade of returning passengers, mail and gold. Many of the sailing ships that arrived in San Francisco Bay were abandoned there or converted into warehouses or landfill.
  The Panama and Nicaragua routes provided a shortcut for getting from the East Coast to California and a brisk maritime passenger trade developed, featuring fast paddle steamers from cities on the east coast, New Orleans, Louisiana and Havana Cuba to the Caribbean mouth of the Chagres River in Panama and the mouth of San Juan River in Nicaragua. After a trip up the Chagres River by native dugouts the last 20 miles (32 km) were completed to Panama City by mule back. The trip up the San Juan River in Nicaragua was usually done by small steam launch to Lake Nicaragua, a boat trip on the lake and a final 25 miles (40 km) trip by stage coach or mule back to San Juan del Sur or other city in the Pacific side of Nicaragua. After 1855 when the Panama Railroad was completed the Nicaragua route largely shut down.
  In 1846 the Oregon boundary 
caption: Concord stagecoach No. 251 in Wells Fargo livery
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