STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 289 



eight thousand volumes. The Crocker art gallery is also the property of 

 the city. It is a hrick and iron building, three stories high, and in it are 

 contained some of the finest paintings and statuary in the Union, together 

 with an extensive cabinet of minerals, the property of the State. 



The city has four flouring mills, four planing mills, two box factories, 

 one broom factory, one cannery, two wineries, seven carriage manufactories, 

 two spice mills, three potteries, and five foundries. 



Sacramento is lighted with gas and electricity, most of the street lighting 

 being furnished by the latter means. The waterworks is the property of 

 the city, and the water takers are charged at a rate to afford a revenue 

 slightly in excess of the amount necessary to meet the running expenses of 

 the works. The water is pumped directly into the city mains from the 

 Sacramento River. The pumps are of the latest pattern, and the pressure 

 is exerted by their power. 



The State Capitol Park embraces twenty-five acres of land, and the city 

 plaza two and a half. Both parks are lawned, and planted with the 

 choicest varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowering and ornamental plants, 

 and fountains are appropriately placed. During the summer months 

 semi- weekly open-air concerts are given at these parks by brass bands, 

 and are universally attended. 



In 1839 Captain John A. Sutter established a fort, now included within 

 the city limits, but the city was not laid out until 1848, after the discovery 

 of gold. The thousands of gold seekers who arrived in the country came 

 up the river to Sacramento in steamers and sailing vessels, and from that 

 point proceeded by land to the mines. A canvas town was at first estab- 

 lished on the river bank, and soon the substantial buildings of a city were 

 erected. With the run of California cities, Sacramento has experienced 

 its great fires. On November 2, 1852, most of the business portion was 

 burned, and again on July 13, 1854, a great fire swept over the same 

 ground and destroyed all that had been rebuilt after the 1852 conflagration. 

 The city is now protected by an efficient paid fire department. 



SACRAMENTO AS A NATURAL TRADE CENTER. 



By C. K. McClatchy, Managing Editor Sacramento Daily Evening Bee. 



Sacramento, situated as she is, the center and metropolis of the richest 

 portion of California, the very heart of a vast railroad system, and with 

 magnificent water power right at her very doors, presents advantages to 

 intending investors in manufactures equaled by no city on the Pacific 

 Slope. That this is so is amply proved by the presence here of the vast 

 shops of the Southern Pacific Company, in which they build their own 

 cars, locomotives, and general rolling stock, and do their own repairing. 

 Notwithstanding they were offered all the land free near Rocklin they could 

 use, and right on the line of the railroad, the shrewd Directors — with an 

 eye to the advantages of the present and the wonderful probabilities of the 

 future — wisely decided to obtain land in this city, where every conceivable 

 convenience would be right at their very hands. The result has been that 

 to-day their buildings occupy some thirty acres; that there are employed 

 therein over two thousand men, with a payroll of $120,000 per month. 

 This alone should be sufficient to demonstrate the inducements which Sac- 

 ramento offers as aids to manufacture. These shops are situated within a 

 stone's throw of the Sacramento River, and within easv reach of the Ameri- 

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