Grape culture has a great future in California. Vines were first introduced by the Franciscans in 1771 from Spain, and until after 1860 “Mission” grapes were practically the only stock in California. Afterwards many hundreds of European varieties were introduced with great success. “The state has such a variety of soil, slope, elevation, temperature and climatic conditions as to reproduce, somewhere within its borders, any wine now manufactured” (United States Census, 1900); but experience has not as yet divided the state into districts of specialized produce, nor determined just how far indigenous American vines may profitably be used, either as base or graftings, with European varieties. Grapes are grown very largely over the state. Raisins do well as far north as Yolo county, but do best in Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and San Diego counties. The product is more than sufficient for the markets of the United States. Dry wine grapes do best in the counties around San Francisco Bay, on unirrigated lands; while sweet wine stocks do best in Yolo, San Joaquin and the counties of the raisin grape, and on irrigated lands. In 1900 California produced about three-fifths in value ($3,937,871) and in 1905 the same proportion ($6,688,620) of the wine output of the United States. The value of product more than sextupled from 1880 to 1900. In quantity the product was more than four times the combined product of all other states. The better California wines are largely sold under French labels. Brandies are an important product. They are made chiefly from grapes, and are used to fortify wines. It was officially estimated that in the spring of 1904 there were some 227,000 acres of vineyards in the state, of which exactly five-tenths were in wine grapes and four-tenths in raisin grapes.
Gold.—Between the pastoral period and the era of wheat was the golden epoch of Californian history. The existence of gold had long been suspected, and possibly known, in California before 1848, and there had been desultory washings in parts where there was very little to reward prospectors. The first perfectly authenticated discovery was made near Los Angeles in 1842. The discovery of real historical importance was made in January 1848 (the 24th is the correct date) at John A. Sutter’s mill, on the south fork of the American river near Coloma, by a workman, James W. Marshall (1810-1885). His monument now marks the spot. From 1848 to the 1st of January 1903, according to the state mining bureau, California produced $1,379,275,408 in gold. There were two periods of intense excitement. The first ended in 1854, at which time there was a decided reaction throughout the United States in regard to mining matters. The Californian discoveries had given rise to a general search for metalliferous deposits in the Atlantic states, and this bad been followed by wild speculations. At the time of their greatest productiveness, from 1850 to 1853, the highest yield of the washings was probably not less than $65,000,000 a year; according to the state mining bureau the average production from 1851-1854 was $73,570,087 ($81,294,270 in 1852, the banner year), and from 1850-1861 $55,882,861, never falling below $50,000,000. The estimates of other competent authorities differ considerably, and generally are somewhat less generous than these figures.
At first the diggings were chiefly along the rivers. These were “flumed,”—that is, the water was diverted by wooden flumes from the natural channel and the sand and gravel in the bed were washed. All the “gulches” or ravines leading down into the canyons were also worked over, with or without water. These were the richest “placers,” but in them the gold was very unequally distributed. Those who first got possession of the rich bars on the American, Yuba, Feather, Stanislaus and the other smaller streams in the heart of the gold region, made sometimes from $1000 to $5000 a day; but after one rich spot was worked out it might be days or weeks before another was found. In 1848 $500-700 a day was not unusual luck; but, on the other hand, the income of the great majority of miners was certainly far less than that of men who seriously devoted themselves to trade or even to common labour. Many extraordinary nuggets were found, varying from $1000 to $20,000 in value. The economic stimulus given by such times may be imagined. For several years gold-dust was a regular circulating medium in the cities as well as in the mining districts of the state. An ounce of dust in 1848 frequently went for $4 instead of $17; for a number of years traders in dust were sure of a margin of several dollars, as for example in private coinage, mints for which were common by 1851. From the record of actual exports and a comparison of the most authoritative estimates of total production, it may be said that from 1848 to 1856 the yield was almost certainly not less than $450,000,000, and that about 1870 the billion dollar mark had been passed. Just at this time came the highest point and the sudden fall of the second great mining fever of the state. This was a stock speculation based on the remarkable output ($300,000,000 in 20 years) of the silver “bonanzas” of the Comstock lode at Virginia City, Nevada, which were opened and financed by San Francisco capitalists. The craze pervaded all classes. Shares that at first represented so many dollars per foot in a tangible mine were multiplied and remultiplied until they came to represent paper thicknesses or almost nothing, yet still their prices mounted upward. In April 1872 came the revulsion; there was a shrinkage of $60,000,000 in ten days; then in 1873 a tremendous advance, and in 1875 a final and disastrous collapse; in ten years thereafter the stock of the Comstock lode shrank from $3,000,000 to $2,000,000. This Comstock fever belongs to Californian rather than to Nevadan history, and is one of the most extraordinary in mining annals.
First the “rocker,” then the “tom,” the “flume,” and the hydraulic stream were the tools of the miner. Into the “rocker” and the “tom” the miner shovelled dirt, rocking it as he poured in water, catching the gold on riffles set across the bottom of his box; thus imitating in a wooden box the work of nature in the rivers. The “flume” enabled him to dry the bed of a stream while he worked over its gravels. The hydraulic stream came into use as early as 1852 (or 1853) when prospecting of the higher ground made it certain that the “deep” or “high” gravels—i.e. the detrital deposits of tertiary age—contained gold, though in too small quantities to be profitably worked in the ordinary way. The hydraulic process received an immense development through successive improvements of method and machinery. In this method tremendous blasts of powder, sometimes twenty-five or even fifty tons, were used to loosen the gravel, which was then acted on by the jet of water thrown from the “pipes.” To give an idea of the force of the agent thus employed it may be stated that when an eight-inch nozzle is used under a heavy head, more than 3000 ft. may be discharged in a minute with a velocity of 150 ft. per second. The water as it thus issues from the nozzle feels to the touch like metal, and the strongest man cannot sensibly affect it with a crowbar. A gravel bank acted on by such tremendous force crumbled rapidly, and the disintegrated material could be run readily through sluices to the “dumps.” Hydraulic mining is no longer practised on the scale of early days. The results were wonderful but disastrous, for the “dumps” were usually river-beds. From 1870-1879 the bed of Bear river was raised in places in its lower course 97 ft. by the detritus wash of the hydraulic mines, and that of Sleepy Hollow Creek 136 ft. The total filling up to that time on the streams in this vicinity had been from 100 to 250 ft., and many thousand acres of fine farming land were buried under gravel,—some 16,000 on the lower Yuba alone. For many years the mining interests were supreme, and agriculture, even after it had become of great importance, was invariably worsted when the two clashed; but in 1884 the long and bitter “anti-débris” or “anti-slickins” fight ended in favour of the farmers. In 1893 the United States government created a California Débris Commission, which has acted in unison with the state authorities. Permits for hydraulic mining are granted by the commission only when all gravel is satisfactorily impounded and no harm is done to the streams; and the improvement of these, which was impossible so long as limits were not set to hydraulic mining, can now be effectively advanced. Quartz mining began as early as 1851. In 1908 about five-eighths of the gold output was from such mines. Quartz veins are very often as good at a depth of 3000 ft. as at the surface. A remarkable feature of recent years (especially since 1900) is gold “dredging.” Thousands of acres even of orchard, vineyard and farming land have been thus treated in recent years. Gold was being produced in 1906 in more than thirty counties. The annual output since 1875 has been about $15,000,000 to $17,000,000; in 1905, according to the Mines Report, it was $18,898,545. Colorado now excels California as a gold producer.
Mineral Products.—California produces more than forty mineral substances that are of commercial significance. Gold, petroleum, copper, borax and its products, clays, quicksilver and silver lead, in order of importance, representing some four-fifths of the total. From 1894 to 1902 the aggregate production increased from 20.2 to 35.1 million dollars; in 1908 it was $65,137,636. Metallic products long represented three-fourths of the total, but the feature of recent years has been the rising importance of hydrocarbons and gases, and of structural materials, and indeed of non-metallic products generally. The production of crude petroleum has grown very rapidly since about 1895. Oil is found from north to south over some 600 m., but especially in Southern California. The high cost of coal, which has always been a hindrance to the development of manufactures, makes the petroleum deposits of peculiar value. Their total output increased from 4,250,000 to 44,854,737 barrels between 1900 and 1908, and the value of the product in 1908 was $23,433,502. The Kern river field is the most important in the state and one of the greatest in the world. Those of Coalinga, Santa Maria and Lompoc, and Los Angeles are next in importance. Both in 1900 and in 1905 California ranked fifth among the states of the United States in the petroleum refining industry. Copper has risen in importance in very recent years; it is mined mainly in Shasta county; the value of the state’s total product in 1908 was $5,232,986. Gold mining still centres in the mountainous counties north of Tuolumne. This is the region of quartz mining. In borax (of which California’s output in 1904 was 45,647 tons) and structural materials San Bernardino has a long lead. More than nine-tenths of the borax product of the country comes from about Death Valley. San Bernardino marbles have a very high repute. California was the fourth state of the Union in 1908 in the production of granite. It furnishes about two-fifths of the quicksilver of the world. This has been mined since 1824; the output was greatest from 1875-1883, when it averaged about 43,000,000 pounds. The New Almaden mine (opened in 1824) in Santa Clara county produced from 1850 to 1896 some 73,000,000 pounds. The centre of production is north and south of San Francisco Bay. Californian coal is almost wholly inferior brown lignite, together with a small quantity of bituminous coals of poor quality; the state does not produce a tenth part of the coal it consumes. Of growing importance are the gems found in California: a few diamonds in Butte county; rock crystal in Calaveras county; and tourmalines, kunzite, the rare pink beryl and bright blue topazes in San Diego county. Chrysoprase, mined near Porterville and near Visalia (Tulare county), is used partly for gems, but more largely (like the vesuvianite found near Exeter, in the same county) for mosaic work; and there are ledges of fine rose quartz in the Coahuila mountains of Riverside county and near Lemon Cove, Tulare county.
A vivid realization of the industrial revolution in the state is to be gained from the reflection that in 1875 California was pre-eminent only for gold and sheep; that the aggregate mineral output thirty years later was more than a third greater than then, and that nevertheless the value of farm produce at the opening of the 20th century exceeded by more than $100,000,000 the value of mineral produce, and exceeded by $50,000,000 the most generous estimate of the largest annual gold output in the annals of the state.
Manufactures.—Previous to 1860 almost every manufactured article used in the state was imported from the east or from Europe. Dairy products, for example, for whose production good facilities always existed, were long greatly neglected, and not for two decades at least after 1848 was the state independent in this respect. The high cost of coal, the speculative attractions of mining, and the high wages of labour, handicapped the development of manufactures in early years. The first continued to be a drag on such industries, until after 1895 the increasing use of crude petroleum obviated the difficulty. Several remarkable electric power and lighting plants utilize the water power of the mountains.[4] Geographic isolation has somewhat fostered state industries. The value of gross manufactured products increased 41.9% from 1890 to 1900. In the latter year California ranked 12th among the states in the gross value of all manufactures ($302,874,761); the per-capita value of manufactured and agricultural products being $293,—$89 of the latter, $204 of the former. Of the wage-earners 61% were engaged in manufacturing. Fourteen industries represented from 41% to 45% of the employees, wages, capital and product of the aggregate manufacturers of the state. The leading ones in order of importance and the value of product in millions of dollars were: the manufacture of railway, foundry, and machine shop products (19.6 million dollars), lumber and timber industries (18.57), sugar and molasses refining (15.91), beef slaughtering (15.72), canning and preserving (13.08), flour and grist milling (13.10), the manufacture of malt, vinous and distilled liquors (9.26), leather industries (7.40), printing and publishing (6.86). In the second, third and fifth of these industries the state ranked respectively fifth, fourth and first in the Union.[5] The canning and preserving of fruits and vegetables is in the main an industry of the northern and central counties. In 1890 the state board of forestry estimated that the redwood forests were in danger of exhaustion by 1930. The redwood is a general utility lumber second only to the common white pine, and the drain on the woods has been continuous since 1850. The wood has a fine, straight and even grain; and though light and soft, is firm and extremely durable, lying, it is authoritatively asserted, for centuries in the forest without appreciable decay. It takes a beautiful polish. The colour varies from cedar colour to mahogany. A small southern belt in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties is not being commercially exploited. The annual lumber cut from 1898-1903 averaged more than 663,348,000 ft.; of the 852,638,000 ft. cut in 1903, 465,460,000 were of redwood, and 264,890,000 of yellow pine; fir and sugar pines contributing another 104,600,000, and spruce and cedar 17,670,000 ft. In 1900 California ranked 16th among the states in value of product ($13,764,647, out of a total of $566,852,984). The total cut was under ½ of 1% of the estimated stand. In Humboldt county, in the redwood belt near Eureka, are probably the most modern and remarkable lumber mills of the world. In 1900 it was estimated that lumbermen controlled somewhat less than a fifth of the timber of the state, and the same part of the redwood. After 1890 important shipyards were established near San Francisco. The most important naval station of the United States on the Pacific coast is at Mare Island at the northern end of San Francisco Bay, and the private Union Iron Works, on the peninsula near San Francisco, is one of the largest shipyards of the country. In 1905 more than one-half of the factory product was the output of four cities: San Francisco ($137,788,233), Los Angeles ($34,814,475), Sacramento ($10,319,416) and Fresno ($9,849,001); next ranked Oakland, Stockton, and San José.
The transportation facilities in California increased rapidly after 1870. The building of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific lines are among the romances of American railway history. They joined tracks near Ogden, Utah, in May 1869. The New Orleans line of the Southern Pacific was opened in January 1883; the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé completed its line to San Diego in 1885, and to San Francisco Bay in 1900. The San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake, with trans-continental connexions at the eastern terminus, was chartered in 1901 and fully opened in March 1903. Railway mileage increased 137.3% from 1870 to 1880, and 154.6% from 1880 to 1900. At the close of 1908 the total mileage was 7039.36 m., practically all of which is either owned or controlled by the two great trans-continental systems of the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé. From 1869 to 1875 registered mail exchanges were opened with China, Japan, Hawaii and Australia. There are now frequent mail connexions from San Francisco with Hawaii, Australasia, and eastern Asia, as well as with American ports north and south. The commerce of San Francisco amounts to some $80,000,000 or $90,000,000 yearly, about equally divided between imports and exports, until after 1905—in 1907 the imports were valued at $54,207,011, and the exports at $30,378,355 (less than any year since 1896). San Diego has a very good harbour, and the harbours of San Pedro (Los Angeles) and Eureka are fairly good and of growing importance. Grains, lumber, fish, fruits and fruit products, petroleum, vegetables and sugar are the leading items in the commerce of San Francisco. Other ports are of very secondary importance. Navigation on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was very important in early days, but is to-day of relatively slight importance in comparison with railway traffic.
Population.—The population of California increased in successive decades from 1850 to 1910 respectively by 310.3, 47.3, 54.3, 40.3, 22.4 and 60.1%. (The percentage of increase in 1900-1910 was exceeded in Washington, Oklahoma, Idaho, Nevada, North Dakota and Oregon.) In 1910 the total population was 2,377,549, or 15.2 per sq. m. In 1900 there were 116 incorporated towns and cities; and of the total population 43.3% was urban,—i.e. resident in cities (11 in number) of 8000 or more inhabitants. These 11 cities were: San Francisco (pop. 342,782), Los Angeles (102,479), Oakland (66,960), Alameda (16,464), Berkeley (13,214),—the last three being suburbs of San Francisco, and the last the seat of the state university,—Sacramento, the state capital (29,282), San José (21,500), San Diego (17,700), Stockton (17,506), Fresno (12,470), and Pasadena (9117). Eight other cities had populations of more than 5000—Riverside City (7973), Vallejo (7965), Eureka (7327), Santa Rosa (6673), Santa Barbara (6587), San Bernardino (6156), Santa Cruz (5659), and Pomona (5526).
Of the entire population in 1900 persons of foreign birth or parentage (one or both parents being foreign) constituted 54.2 and those of native birth were 75.3%. Of the latter six-tenths were born in California. The foreign element included 45,753 Chinese (a falling off of 25,313 since 1890), and 10,151 Japanese (an increase of 9004 in the same decade). Twenty-two foreign countries contributed over 1000 residents each, the leading ones being the United Kingdom (91,638), Germany (72,449), Canada (29,618; 27,408 being English Canadians), Italy (22,777), Sweden (14,549), France (12,256), Portugal (12,068), Switzerland (10,974), Japan, Denmark, and Mexico, in the order named. Persons of negro descent numbered 11,045. Almost all the Indians of the state are taxed as citizens. In 1906 of 611,464 members of religious denominations 354,408 were Roman Catholics, 64,528 Methodist Episcopalians, 37,682 Presbyterians, 26,390 Congregationalists, 24,801 Baptists, 21,317 Protestant Episcopalians, 11,371 Lutherans, and 9,110 members of Eastern Orthodox churches. A peculiar feature in the population statistics of California is the predominance of males, which in 1900 was 156,009; the Asiatic element accounts for a third of this number. Since 1885 the eight counties south of the Tehachapi Range, which are known collectively and specifically as Southern California have greatly advanced in population. In 1880 their population was 7.3, in 1890 17.2, and in 1900 20.1% of the total population of the state. The initial impulse to this increase was the beginning of the “fruit epoch” in these counties, combined with a railway “rate-war” following the completion to the coast in 1885 of the Santa Fe, and an extraordinary land boom prevailing from 1886 to 1888. The conjuncture of circumstances, and the immigration it induced, were unusual. The growth of the South, as of the rest of the state, has been continuous and steady.