The United States extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and just as New York is our leading seaport on the Atlantic, so San Francisco is the leading seaport on the Pacific.

San Francisco's history is inseparably connected with the development of the resources of California. In 1769 Spain sent an expedition overland from Mexico to colonize the Pacific coast, and Don Gaspar de PortolÁ, at the head of these colonists, was the first white man known to have looked upon San Francisco Bay.

Seven years later, in 1776, the Franciscan friars built a fortified settlement on the present site of San Francisco. The Mission Dolores, which is still standing, was begun the same year, and a little village slowly grew up around it.

At the close of the Mexican War, in 1848, California was ceded to the United States, and the Stars and Stripes were raised over the little settlement, whose name was soon changed from Yerba Buena to San Francisco.

In 1848, too, came the discovery of gold in California, and San Francisco suddenly grew from a Spanish village to a busy American town. The population jumped from 800 to 10,000 in a single year. A city of tents and shanties quickly arose on the sand dunes. Thousands of people were leaving their homes in the East to seek a fortune in the gold fields. Many came by water, either rounding Cape Horn or else traveling by boat to the Isthmus of Panama, crossing on foot, and reËmbarking on the Pacific coast. Others came overland in large canvas-covered wagons called prairie schooners.

These newcomers were men of all classes—ministers, lawyers, farmers, laborers. Some were educated, others were ignorant. While most of them were industrious and law-abiding, a considerable number were desperate and lawless men. These last caused much trouble. Gambling, murders, and crimes of all kinds were alarmingly common, and the city government was powerless to punish the lawbreakers. Finally, the better class of citizens formed a vigilance committee, which hung four criminals and punished many in other ways until law and order were established.

San Francisco has been called the “child of the mines.” It was the discovery of gold that first made it the leading city of the Pacific coast. From that day the production of gold has been steadily maintained. Nearly $20,000,000 worth is mined in the state of California each year, with a total production of over $1,500,000,000. Later the silver mines in Nevada were discovered and developed, and their immense output brought increased wealth to San Francisco.

As time went on, however, people began to see that California's real wealth lay not so much in her mines as in her fertile farm lands. These, combined with the wonderful climate, have made California a leading agricultural state.

The great central valley of California, about 400 miles long and 50 miles wide, lies between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Coast Ranges. Its farms, orchards, orange groves, and vineyards produce immense quantities of grain, and of grapes, and other fruits. Large numbers of cattle and sheep are raised. In the southern counties many tropical fruits are grown successfully. Irrigated groves of orange, lemon, and olive trees cover thousands of acres. Other important crops are English walnuts, almonds, prunes, and figs. Copper, silver, oil, quicksilver, and salt are also valuable products, while the forest-covered mountains supply excellent lumber. Such is the wealth of California's natural resources, and San Francisco is the great port and market of this rich back country.

As the Sacramento River flows into San Francisco Bay from the north and the San Joaquin from the south, the two offer cheap transportation up and down their valleys, being navigable to river steamers for over 200 miles.

The great bay of San Francisco is the largest landlocked harbor in the world. Here the navies of all the nations could ride at anchor side by side in safety. Though 65 miles long and from 4 to 10 miles wide, the bay is completely sheltered from dangerous winds and storms. It is connected with the Pacific Ocean by a strait called the Golden Gate, which is 2¾ miles long and over a mile wide.

Such advantages have made San Francisco a great commercial and financial center. Ships from San Francisco carry the products of California westward to all the countries bordering on the Pacific, while others sail to the Atlantic seaports of America and Europe.

The outgoing steamers are loaded with wheat, cotton, canned goods, oil, barley, prunes, flour, dried fruits, leather, machinery, lumber, and iron manufactures. Incoming steamers bring raw silk, coffee, tea, copra, nitrate of soda, tin ingots, sugar, rice, cigars, coal, burlap, vanilla beans, cheese, and manila hemp.

Already the foreign commerce of San Francisco amounts to more than $150,000,000 annually, and with the increasing trade of Japan and China and the shortened route to the Atlantic through the Panama Canal, the future of its foreign trade cannot be estimated.

In addition to her foreign trade, San Francisco has many growing industries at home. Printing and publishing, slaughtering and meat packing, are among the most important. The canning and preserving of fruits and vegetables is a leading industry of the city. The California Fruit Canners Association employs many thousands of people during the fruit season and is the largest fruit-and-vegetable canning company in the world. It operates thirty branches throughout the state, and its products are sent to all parts of the globe.

Though iron has to be imported,—there being little mined in California,—the city does a thriving iron business. In the early days there was need of mining machinery in the West, and San Francisco at that time began manufacturing it. She also has one of the greatest shipbuilding plants in the United States. The famous battleship Oregon, the Olympic, the Wisconsin, the Ohio,[234]
[235] and other ships of the United States Navy were built in San Francisco.

In 1906 a severe earthquake shook San Francisco, wrecking many buildings. Fire broke out in twenty places, and as the earthquake had broken the city's water mains, the fire fighters had to pump salt water from the bay and use dynamite to stop the progress of the flames. During the three days of the fire, four square miles were laid in ruins.

Because of occasional slight shocks in former years, the inhabitants had built their city of wood, thinking it safer than brick or stone. They had not thought of the greater danger of fire. This earthquake taught them a lesson. The few skyscrapers in the city had stood the shock remarkably well, and profiting by this experience thousands of modern structures—steel, brick, and reËnforced concrete—were built to replace the old wooden buildings. A far more modern and beautiful city has arisen from the ashes of the ruins.

The city occupies 46½ square miles at the end of the southern peninsula which lies between San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. The site of the city is hilly, especially in the northern and western parts. Market Street, 120 feet wide and the chief business thoroughfare, extends southwest from the water front and divides the city into two parts. The southern district contains many manufacturing plants and the homes of the laboring people. The streets here are level. North of Market Street lie three high hills—Telegraph Hill, Nob Hill, and Russian Hill. In this half of the city are the finest residences, Nob Hill having been given its name in the early days when the mining millionaires built their homes upon it.

The main business section is in the northeastern part of the city, facing the harbor, and is on level ground. It contains hundreds of new office buildings, many of them from eight to twenty or more stories high. Fine modern hotels and beautiful banks add much to the beauty of this part of San Francisco. The most important public buildings are the United States mint and the post office, which escaped the flames in 1906, the customhouse, the Hall of Justice, the new Auditorium, and the city hall. These last two face the Civic Center, which is being created at a cost of nearly $17,000,000.

At the foot of Telegraph Hill is the largest Chinese quarter in the United States. It was completely destroyed during the fire, but is now rebuilt and much improved. Its temples, joss houses, and theaters, its markets, bazaars, and restaurants, with their strange life and customs and their oriental architecture, attract crowds of visitors. There are now about 10,000 Chinese in San Francisco, but their number has been steadily decreasing since the Exclusion Act was passed, prohibiting Chinese laborers from entering this country. It was thought necessary to have this law in order to protect the American workingman on the Pacific coast, as the Chinese laborers who had already been admitted were working for wages upon which no white man could live.

At the foot of Market Street, on the water front, stands the Union Ferry Building, a large stone structure with a high clock tower.

Only one of the cross-continent railroads—a branch of the Southern Pacific—lands its passengers in the city of San Francisco. All the other roads, which include the main line of the Southern Pacific, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa FÉ, the Union Pacific, and the Western Pacific, terminate on the eastern shore of the bay and send the travelers to San Francisco by ferry. In consequence, San Francisco has developed the best ferry service in the world, all lines meeting at the Union Ferry Building.

North and south of the Union Ferry Building stretch eight miles of wharves and docks and many factories, lumber yards, and warehouses. At the docks, ships are being loaded and unloaded continually.

In March and April each year a fleet of forty or fifty vessels starts out for the Alaskan fisheries. San Francisco is the leading salmon port of the United States, distributing millions of dollars' worth of salmon yearly. Fisherman's Wharf, at the northern end of the water front, is full of interest, with its brown, weather-beaten fishermen and their odd fishing boats. To the south of the Union Ferry Building is “Man-of-war Row,” where United States and foreign battleships ride at anchor.

The cities of Alameda, Oakland, Richmond, and Berkeley are directly across the bay from San Francisco, on the east shore. Like New York, San Francisco is the center of a large metropolitan district, and the residents of these neighboring cities daily travel to their work in San Francisco on the ferries. For several years there has been talk of uniting these cities with San Francisco. If this plan were carried out, it would add over 350,000 to San Francisco's present population, which is between 400,000 and 500,000.

The University of California, in Berkeley, has nearly 7000 students, tuition being free to residents of California. The Leland Stanford University, 30 miles from San Francisco, is another noted institution in the state.

To the north of the Golden Gate is Mt. Tamalpais, 2592 feet high, overlooking the bay and San Francisco. To the south is the Presidio, the United States military reservation, covering 1542 acres. Here are the harbor fortifications and the headquarters of the western division of the United States Army. Fronting on the ocean beach and extending eastward for 4 miles is Golden Gate Park, the largest of San Francisco's many parks and squares.

Occupying part of the Presidio and facing the water at the northern end of the city is the site of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, held in 1915 to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal. That the citizens of San Francisco look to the future was shown at a gathering of business men in 1910, when more than $4,000,000 was raised in two hours for this Panama exposition. The climate of the city (averaging more than 50 degrees in winter and less than 60 degrees in summer), the beauties and wonders of California, the romantic history of the city, exhibits from many parts of the world—all these, the citizens knew, would attract thousands of visitors from afar and make known to the world the advantages and prosperity of the Far West and its chief city, San Francisco.

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW AND STUDY

1. Find by measurements on a map of the United States the distance of San Francisco from New York City in a direct line.

2. Find by consulting time tables or by inquiry of some railroad official how long it would take to make the journey from New York to San Francisco, and what railroad system might be used. Answer this question, applying it to your own city.

3. Who founded San Francisco, and what was it first called?

4. When and how did San Francisco become an American possession?

5. Of what was the great wealth of California supposed to consist at first? What is the great wealth of the state considered to be to-day?

6. What are the chief exports of the city, and to what countries are they sent?

7. What are the chief imports of the city?

8. What are the great advantages of San Francisco Bay?

9. When did the great fire at San Francisco occur, and what damage was done?

10. What benefit will San Francisco derive from the completion of the Panama Canal?

11. Why is the ferry system of San Francisco so important?

12. Name four cities across the bay from San Francisco, and tell how they are related to that city.

13. Tell something of the fishing industry of San Francisco.

14. Does the name “Golden Gate” seem appropriate to you? Why?

15. Name the chief industries of San Francisco.

16. Describe the location of the city.

17. Find out how many days' journey by steamship are the following places from San Francisco:

Honolulu	Shanghai
Manila	Yokohama
Sydney	Buenos Aires

---