THE SACRAMENTO, ONE OF CALIFORNIA’S TWO NAVIGABLE RIVERS. THE TORPEDO FLOTILLA OF THE GREAT AMERICAN FLEET CAME TO SACRAMENTO UP THE RIVER, IN 1908
Another route from Sacramento to San Francisco is along the foothill country of the Sierra, southward past Lodi and its great grape and peach lands to Stockton. Stockton, at the head of the bay navigation, is a prosperous city of 25,000 people with great natural resources near; gas, coal, electric power, and a million acres of as fat and fertile lands as may be found out of doors. Its manufactures are many and important, including flour and woolen mills, harvesters and other agricultural implements, mining machinery, street cars and railway cars, pottery and briquettes. It is in the heart of a great dairy section.
Westward from Stockton there is a choice of two routes; to the north along the bay shore through Lathrop and Tracy past Byron Hot Springs, under the brow of Mount Diablo and thence through Martinez to Port Costa; or westward and then northward through the vine and fruit valleys surrounding Pleasanton, Livermore, Haywards, and the series of towns that ends in Oakland.
SUTTER’S FORT, SACRAMENTO, STILL STANDS IN GOOD REPAIR, A MUTE HISTORIAN OF THE DAYS OF INDIAN RAIDS, THE OVERLAND COACH AND THE PONY EXPRESS
Through the broad passageways of commodious ferryboats the last link, the water link, in the transcontinental chain is forged. Every twenty minutes the best ferry service in the world moves boats from each terminal between Oakland Pier and San Francisco. In crossing San Francisco Bay, to the left is noted Alameda Mole, with the Southern Pacific suburban trains and ferries. To the right, and almost ahead, is Yerba Buena Island (Goat Island), occupied by the Government naval training school, while fronting us are the picturesque hills and long waterfront, mast forested, of San Francisco.
Beyond Yerba Buena to the right is the bold rocky islet, Alcatraz (the Government prison); farther, Angel Island, a military post, and yet beyond the blue forest clad hills of Marin with Mount Tamalpais rising above them.
San Francisco, the new San Francisco, is not to be described in detail in this book. The story of it today with all the great progress made within the last two years would nevertheless be ancient and inadequate history within six months. The rebuilding of the entire business section of a great city in so short a time and the rehabilitation of its municipal utilities, is a marvel beyond description.
