Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
down rivers all the way into San Francisco Bay. The city of San Francisco became a hot-
bed of gambling, prostitution, drink and chicanery, earning it the moniker of 'Barbary
Coast,' an allusion to Africa's north coast where pirates preyed.
In the 1860s, California vicariously experienced a second mining boom after the discov-
ery of the Comstock silver lode in present-day Nevada. Exploiting this mother lode re-
quired deep-mining techniques, which in turn necessitated California's big-shouldered in-
dustrial companies, stocks, trading and speculation. In fact, San Francisco made more
money speculating on silver than Nevada did mining it: grandiose mansions sprouted on
Nob Hill, and California's new business tycoons became renowned for their unscrupulous
audacity.
In 1873 German immigrant and San Francisco store owner Levi Strauss received a patent
for his hard-wearing, riveted denim pants, originally designed for California's gold pro-
spectors - and, voilà! - American blue jeans were born.
Riches from Railroads, Real Estate & Oil
Opening the floodgates to massive migration into the West in 1869, the transcontinental
railroad shortened the trip from New York to San Francisco from two months to less than
four days. Nouveau-riche San Francisco became California's metropolitan center. Mean-
while, Southern California's parched climate, its distance from water resources, and relat-
ively small population made it less attractive to profit-minded railroad moguls, though
wheeling and dealing finally resulted in a spur line to LA during the mid-1870s.
By that time, rampant speculation had raised land prices in California to levels no farm-
er or new immigrant could afford. The railroad brought in products that undersold goods
made in California, while some 15,000 Chinese laborers - no longer needed for railroad
construction work or mining - flooded the labor market, especially in San Francisco. A
period of anti-foreign discrimination and unrest ensued, which culminated in federal legis-
lation banning Chinese immigration outright in 1882.
During the same period, agriculture diversified, with new crops - especially oranges -
being grown in Southern California for markets on the East Coast and abroad. As
California-grown oranges found their way onto New York grocery shelves, a hard-sell ad-
vertising campaign for the Golden State began. Folks back East heeded the self-interested
