290 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



can on the north. Here is a magnificent water power rushing past their 

 open doors every day in the year, and the company intend to take advan- 

 tage of it in several of their shops as soon as they can make the necessary 

 arrangements. 



But while the railroad shops are the prominent manufacturing interests 

 of Sacramento, they are by no means the only one, and the others should 

 not be lost sight of. For instance, there are three great and extensive flour- 

 ing mills right in our midst. These mills send broadcast all over the world 

 some sixty million pounds of flour annually, or about three hundred thou- 

 sand barrels. The millers in Sacramento have several advantages of loca- 

 tion. In the first place, owing to the fact of a lesser tariff for freight, wheat 

 can always be bought here at $1 a ton less than the ruling rates at San 

 Francisco. It takes about a ton and a half of wheat to make a ton of 

 flour, and so it follows that flour can be manufactured here about 15 cents 

 a barrel cheaper than in San Francisco. That, then, gives millers here 

 an even chance on ocean shipments, while they have immeasurably the 

 best of it on all inland consignments. Besides, these mills are right on 

 the direct line of railroad and river travel. 



Sacramento has also three iron foundries, which turn out large quanti- 

 ties of most superior work. She possessed a woolen mill, which became 

 noted for the excellence of its goods all over the coast, but which was 

 unfortunately burned down. For many years a beet sugar factory was in 

 operation, and its buildings stand to-day reproachful monuments to mis- 

 management. There is no reason why a beet sugar factory should not 

 pay well here if properly conducted, in the hands of a skillful and skilled 

 foreman. Every imaginable advantage can here be found. Sacramento 

 also possessed an extensive smelting works, but that, too, was in the hands 

 of men new to the management of such an establishment, and fire subse- 

 quently finished the disasters which incompetency had inaugurated. 



The manufacture of brick is a very extensive industry in Sacramento 

 Count}'. The supply of the best soil to be found anywhere for this pur- 

 pose is inexhaustible, and Sacramento County brick has a name all over 

 the coast. Here, again, transportation facilities, both by land and water, 

 are unsurpassed. There are half a dozen breweries in Sacramento City 

 which do a thriving business. As Sacramento is one of the great hop 

 countries of the world, the brewers have their materials at their very doors. 



Scores of other manufactories might be enumerated — carriage, buggy, 

 and wagon manufactories, furniture manufactories, manufactories of sashes, 

 doors, and blinds, extensive sawmills, potteries, box factories, soap factories, 

 and many others. But the space to be devoted to this article is limited, 

 and the purpose thereof is not so much to show what we now have, as to 

 concisely present to the outside world all the manifold advantages which 

 Sacramento offers for the establishment of profitable manufactories of all 

 kinds. 



The object, then, being to place the manifold advantages of Sacramento 

 as a manufacturing center prominently before the eyes of intending immi- 

 grants and expectant capitalists, it is not so much desirable to present 

 before them what we have already in the line of manufactories, as to show 

 them the reasons why Sacramento offers them inducements for the estab- 

 lishment of such manufactories that cannot be rivalled anywhere. Some 

 of these inducements might be enumerated thus: 



Availability. — Sacramento is the center almost of the State. It is ironed 

 by railroads and lapped by rivers. Twenty-seven trains dart past it every 

 day. It is the pivot of traffic, the magnet of travel. Freight from the four 

 centers has to pass through this capital city of the Golden State, and the 



