The streets that now lay squares from the water were then at the water’s edge and batteaus brought cargoes ashore. Long wharves—one was for years called the Long Wharf even after there were others built much longer—led out over the shallow water. These shallows were later filled and streets built upon them, and upon them arose warehouses, hotels, factories, lodging houses and business places.
The city grew rapidly in the direction away from the bay. But in its early days it was a city with no confidence in its own stability, and its buildings were accordingly unstable. A few minor earthquakes shook some of these down years ago and established in the minds of the people a horror of earthquakes. Frame houses became the rule.
In its ensuing life San Francisco developed the attributes of a city of gayety tempered by business. The population, for the most part, affected light-hearted scorn of money, or, rather, of saving money. It made mirth of life, habituated itself to expect windfalls such as miners and prospectors dream of, developed a moderate amount of business, and enjoyed the day while there was sunlight and the night when there was artificial light. The windfalls grew less frequent, mining became a costly and scientific process, and agriculture succeeded it. But, though it was only necessary to tickle the land with a hoe and pour water upon the tickled spot, to have it laugh with two, three or even four harvests a year, agriculturists continued scarce. The Chinese truck farms, some of which lay within the city’s lines, supplied the small fruits and vegetables. Across the bay white men farmed, and grapes, fruits, vegetables and flowers of prodigious variety and monstrous dimensions were grown. But Eastern men came to do the farming. The Californian who himself was an “Argonaut,” or whose father was an Argonaut, found no attractions in the steady labor of farming.
There followed a period of depression, ascribed by many to the influx of the Chinese and their effect upon the labor market, though the army of the unemployed were as a rule unwilling to do the work their Celestial rivals engaged in, that of truck farming, fruit raising, manual household labor, wood cutting and the like. A heavy weight settled on the city; business grew slack; the army of the unemployed, of ruined speculators and moneyless newcomers grew steadily greater, and for an era San Francisco saw its dark side.
But this was not a long duration. There was fast developing a new and important business, resulting from the development of the real resources of the State—the fruits, particularly the citrous fruits that grew abundantly in the warm valley. Fortunes were made in oranges, lemons, limes, grapes, almonds and pears. Raisins, whose size defied anything heretofore known, were made from the huge grapes that grew in the San Joaquin Valley. Sonoma sent its grapes to be made into wine. Capital flowed in from every side. Eastern men in search of health, others in search of wealth, came to the Golden State. No matter who came, where they came from, or where they were going, they spent a few days, or many, and some money, or much, in “‘Frisco.” The enterprise of the second edition pioneers quickly transformed the State and city.
AGRICULTURE BRINGS NEW WEALTH.
Luxury was startling. San Francisco’s mercantile community equaled the best, the stores and shops were as beautiful as anywhere in the world and proportionately as well patronized. Theatres, music halls, restaurants, hotel bars and the like were ablaze with lights at night, and patronized by a gay throng. Sutro’s bath, near the Cliff House, was a species of entertainment unequaled anywhere. The Presidio, as the army post is still known, as in the Spanish nomenclature, gave its drills, regarded as free exhibitions for the people. Golden Gate Park was an endless daily picnic ground.
The crowds in the streets of San Francisco were noticeably well dressed and usually gay, without that fixed, drawn, saturnine look noticeable among the people of the East. It is doubtful whether, upon the whole, the earnings of the San Francisco man equaled those of his Eastern brother, but his holidays were frequent and his joys greater. The grind of life was not yet steady—men had not become mere machines.
The climate of California is peculiar; it is hard to give an impression of it. In the first place, all the forces of nature work on laws of their own in that part of California. There is no thunder or lightning; there is no snow, except a flurry once in five or six years; there are perhaps half a dozen nights in the winter when the thermometer drops low enough so that there is a little film of ice on exposed water in the morning. Neither is there any hot weather. Yet most Easterners remaining in San Francisco for a few days remember that they were always chilly.
A PECULIAR YET DELIGHTFUL CLIMATE.