84 RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 



east, the Scott and Trinity ridges on the south, and the 

 Coast Range on the west, and is shut in by snows during part 

 of every winter. Much of the merchandise sent out from this 

 point to mining camps in the vicinity, goes on pack-mules. 

 The goods imported by Yreka are hauled eighty miles, by 

 horses, from Redding, the end of the railroad. The town is 

 on the main road between the Sacramento and Willamette 

 Vallevs, and occupies a central position in the basin of the 

 Klamath River, and will probably maintain its importance, if 

 the railroad be built to run through it. The population, in 

 1870, was 1,063. 



59. Napa. Napa was laid off in 1848, by Nathan 

 Coombs, at the ford of Napa River, on the road from Benicia 

 to Sonoma. In those days there were no bridges or ferries, 

 and the ford and the head of navigation for sloops determined 

 the location of the town. Now the ford is never used, but 

 the investment of capital has made the town permanent. The 

 railroad runs through the town, and has been of great benefit, 

 It is now a beautiful and growing place. A Branch Insane 

 Asylum is being built near Napa. The population in 1870 was 

 1,879. 



60. Crescent City. Crescent City is a seaport, fifteen 

 miles south of the Oregon line, and in 1870 had 458 inhabit- 

 ants. The place was founded in 1853, with te expectation 

 that, because of its proximity to the mines of the Klamath and 

 Rogue River basins, it would become an important commercial 

 point for the imports of Southern Oregon and Northern Cali- 

 fornia. Its founders, however, were disappointed in this ex- 

 pectation. The people at the head of the Sacramento Valley, 

 knowing that an attempt was making to cut off a large part 

 of their trade, went to work industriously and made a good 

 wagon road to Yreka, and thus reduced the freights to that 

 place very much. The country westward of Yreka is rug- 

 ged, and as the people of Crescent City had not the capi- 

 tal to make a wagon road, their goods had to be transported 



