416 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA 
cisco, with which city there is regular steamboat communica- 
tion. The town is one mile from dry land, on the edge 
whereof, immediately north of Suisun, Hes Fairfield, which 
is the county seat, and has about five hundred inhabitants. 
Fairfield is on the route of the projected Benicia and Marys- 
ville railway. . 
§ 291. Benicia.—Benicia is situated on the northern side 
of the Straits of Carquinez. It was laid out in 1847, and for 
a time it aspired to be the great commercial city of the coast, 
which aspiration it did not abandon until as late as 1853. It 
was twice made the state capital, and twice deserted by the 
legislature. It has about one thousand inhabitants. The 
houses are scattered about so far from each other that the 
town is called, in sport, “The City of Magnificent Distances.” 
A ferry-boat crosses the strait to Carquinez about six or eight 
times every day. The town site is composed of low bare hills. 
The climate js very windy. 
§ 292. 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 position of the ford determined the location of the 
town. Now the ford is never used, but the investment of 
capital has made the town permanent. If mere natural ad- 
vantages were to be taken into account, the town would be 
at Suscol, which is six miles nearer to the bay, and always ac- 
cessible by small steamers, while at low tide the boats must 
stop several miles below Napa. The population of the place 
is about one thousand. The houses are of wood and brick, 
and neatly built. — 
§ 298. Crescent City—Crescent City is a seaport of six 
hundred inhabitants, fifteen miles south of the Oregon line. 
The place was founded in 1853, with the expectation that be- 
cause 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 California, 
Its founders, however, were disappointed in this expectation. 
