In order to establish the Central Pacific with complete adequacy, the associates accordingly now turned to the western side of San Francisco Bay and took steps to provide terminal facilities in the city of San Francisco itself. Possibly this was because they had acquired or were about to acquire a controlling interest in the San Francisco and San José Railroad; possibly it was due to Carpentier’s influence, or perhaps it was merely a recognition of the advantages of a terminal location in San Francisco.
Unlike Oakland, the city of San Francisco had never received title to all its tide-lands from the state, and application had to be made to the legislature at Sacramento, direct. Early in 1868 the Senate Committee on Commerce and Navigation, of the state legislature, reported a bill granting to the Western Pacific Railroad Company and to the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, submerged and tide-lands in the Bay of San Francisco, from the foot of Channel Street to Point San Bruno, with the right to extend the railroads of said companies or construct branches thereof, and to purchase other railroads, and use the same for the purpose of reaching the place or places on said premises selected as termini for said railroads, and to maintain and operate the same by steam or other power from the present lines of said railroads to the said termini on said premises, and with all necessary and proper depots, side-tracks, etc.
The boundaries of this extraordinary grant are indicated on the map on page 96.[141]
The total length from the foot of Channel Street to Point San Bruno was a little over 8 miles. The maximum breadth was approximately 2½ miles, and the area was estimated by opponents of the scheme to be not less than 6,620 acres. The value of such a water-front on the principal city of the Pacific Coast was to be measured in millions of dollars, and its importance to the Huntington interests was not limited to a money value alone. The possession of the San Francisco water-front south of Channel Street meant the occupation of the only part of the city at which a first-class railroad could reach tide-water. The reason for this is that all railroads must come into the city of San Francisco from the south or the southwest on account of the shape of the peninsula, and no railroad can conceivably be allowed to cross the main thoroughfare. Market Street, or to penetrate the thinly settled residential districts in the north.
Boundaries of Railroad Tide-Land Grant, as proposed in 1868.
The bill provided that the Central Pacific, Western Pacific, Southern Pacific, and the San Francisco and San José railroads, which were the proposed grantees, should pay the fair market cash value of the submerged lands at the time of the passage of the act, being not less than $100 per acre for the lands lying north of Point Avisadero. But it was also provided that the surplus over $100 due for the land north of Point Avisadero might be spent in reclamation and improvement of the premises, and the companies were to receive patents if within five years not less than $1,000,000, in addition to such surplus, had been spent in this way. In plain English, the tide-lands were to be sold for $100 an acre, but in the case of some of them the beneficiaries might be required to spend additional amounts in improvements. The Senate committee defended its recommendation by saying that it was desirable to have the water-front improved, and that this was the way to have the thing done. It expected that the railroads would build a sea-wall; and observed that this wall, water-front, and docks would be subject to the control of the state harbor commissioners. How a rival railroad in the future would get access to the docks, it did not say.[142]
Scheme Opposed
Generally speaking, arrangements for the alienation of city water-front property into private hands are to be looked upon with suspicion unless extensive powers of control are reserved by state or city, and unless there is provision for the reversion of the property, including improvements, to the public at the end of a stipulated time not too far removed, on conditions and in a manner clearly stated. In the particular case in hand there were no such safe-guards to the public interest, except a general reservation of jurisdiction and control over the water-front by the State Board of Harbor Commissioners, and a provision that the grantees should charge no tolls or wharfage on the water-front sold to them. This was not enough. It was therefore fortunate under the circumstances that the improvident nature of the proposed contract was understood and its defects given full publicity by the San Francisco press. The San Francisco Bulletin commented as follows: