CALIFORNIA 



1067 



CALIFORNIA 



region, and in 1826 the first emigrant wagon 

 entered the state. Not until the Mexican War, 

 however, did the United States gain possession 

 of the country, which in 1846 was declared a 

 territory of the Union (see MEXICAN WAR). 



Discovery of Gold. Two years later came 

 the discovery of gold, and the rush of "forty- 

 niners" at once began. From all over the 

 world people flocked to the territory, and 

 within twelve years over 260,000 had arrived. 

 Most of them came from the East by wagon 

 caravans, over mountain passes and through 

 canyons which it seems incredible any wagon 

 could ever have crossed. The big covered 

 "prairie schooners," with their motto of "Cali- 

 fornia or bust," were familiar sights to people 



Some of the exports could go by boat, and 

 steamship lines were established which made 

 the 19,000-mile toilsome passage around Cape 

 Horn. But even more interesting were the 

 overland routes the Merchant's Express, which 

 had 2,000 wagons and 20,000 yoke of oxen for 

 freighting across the continent, and the Pony 

 Express, which relayed mail from Missouri to 

 San Francisco in the short space of ten days. 

 It was in connection with this latter business 

 that "Buffalo Bill" established his reputation 

 as a Wild West rider (see CODY, WILLIAM F.). 

 There were stage lines, too, which passed twice 

 a week from Saint Louis to San Francisco, and 

 made it possible to complete the trip from 

 coast to coast in three weeks. In 1869 the 



MOUNT SHASTA, AS SEEN FROM THE SOUTH 



throughout the Central United States. As was 

 natural, by far the larger proportion of these 

 early arrivals were men without families, and 

 the absence of home life, the sudden rise to 

 wealth or the black despair of failure, and the 

 roughness of existence in a section which had 

 prepared no laws to care for so large an influx, 

 led to widespread disorder, and many of the 

 mining camps were lawless places. Laws of a 

 sort there were, however, each camp making its 

 own, and horse-stealing or nugget-stealing was 

 looked upon as somewhat worse than killing 

 and punished accordingly. Nothing else gives 

 so clearly the impression of this whole reck- 

 less, melodramatic period as do ..the stories 

 of Bret Harte ; The Luck of Roaring Camp and 

 The Outcasts of Poker Flat show not only the 

 roughness but the sentiment and the un- 

 expected heroisms which characterized these 

 "forty-niners." 



One of the important things which these 

 early Californians had to do was to establish 

 communication with the rest of the world. 



Union Pacific Railroad was completed, and 

 the dangerous days of stage travel were over. 



Progress as a State. In 1850 California was 

 admitted to the Union with a no-slavery consti- 

 tution (see COMPROMISE OF 1850). When the 

 War of Secession broke out the state leaned 

 for a time toward secession, but the Federal 

 party triumphed and the state furnished to 

 the Union cause several companies of volun- 

 teers and almost a million and a half dollars. 

 The history of the state since the war has 

 been one of marked economic development. 

 Not only to people from the East, but to those 

 beyond the sea as well, it has seemed a land 

 of promise, and its population has grown stead- 

 ily. In its development nothing has played a 

 larger part than irrigation (which see). A 

 California International Midwinter Exposition 

 was held in 1894 at San Francisco, and showed 

 an illuminating record of progress. 



A number of disasters have at times done 

 more or less damage in different parts of the 

 state. The first was the earthquake of April 



