Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
choice of legitimate employment, an estimated 12,000 Chinese laborers blasted through
the Sierra Nevada, meeting the westbound end of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
The Oscar-winning film
There Will Be Blood
(2007), adapted from Upton Sinclair's book
Oil!,
depicts a Californian oil magnate based on real-life SoCal tycoon Edward Doheny.
Fighting for Oil & Water
During the US Civil War (1861-65), California couldn't count on food shipments from the
East Coast, and started growing its own. California recruited Midwestern homesteaders to
farm the Central Valley with shameless propaganda. 'Acres of Untaken Government
Land…for a Million Farmers…Health & Wealth without Cyclones or Blizzards,' trum-
peted one California-boosting poster, neglecting to mention earthquakes or ongoing land
disputes with
rancheros
and Native Californians. Over 120,000 homesteaders came to
California in the 1870s and '80s.
These homesteaders soon discovered that California's Gold Rush had left the state badly
tarnished. Hills were stripped bare, vegetation wiped out, streams silted up and mercury
washed into water supplies. Cholera spread through open sewers of poorly drained camps
claiming many lives, and smaller mineral finds in southern California mountains diverted
streams essential to the dry valleys below. Because mining claims leased by the US gov-
ernment were granted significant tax exemptions, there were insufficient public funds for
clean-up programs or public water works.
Frustrated farmers south of Big Sur voted to secede from California in 1859, but appeals
for secession were shelved by the Civil War. In 1884 Southern Californians passed a pion-
eering law preventing dumping into rivers and, with the support of budding agribusiness
and real-estate concerns, passed bond measures to build aqueducts and dams that made
large-scale farming and real-estate development possible. By the 20th century, the lower
one-third of the state took two-thirds of available water supplies, inspiring Northern Cali-
fornia's own calls for secession.
Meanwhile, another equally precious natural resource - oil - was discovered by flat-
broke mining prospector and failed real-estate speculator Edward Doheny in Downtown
LA, near where Dodger Stadium stands today, sparking a major oil boom in California. In-
side of a year, his oil well was yielding 40 barrels daily, and within five years, 500 wells
were operational in Southern California. By the end of the decade, the state was producing
