IllV clliU iW«a,'»M\\\v<.-..M. ^ _J THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAiN DIEGO. ILLUSTRAa^ED, AND CONTAINING BICGPxAPPIICAL SKETCHES PROMIXEXT MKX AXl) PIONEERS. Sax Diego. Cal. LEBERTHON & TAYLOR. iSS8. Entered iccordi^g to Act of Eoijgress, ii? tl?e Year 1888, by In the Office of tbe Librariarj of Congress, at WasMogtoij. "^^=^ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE PACIFIC PRESS, Printers, Electrotypers, and Binders, Oakland avu San Francisco. RREKACK. I HAVE been asked to sketch the history, topography, resources and progress of the city and county of San Diego, up to date. To do so in full is to write a ponderous book whose size would at once seal its fate. To sketch the whole in brief and readable form, giving due importance to all parts, omitting unimportant details fit only for an • advertising pamphlet, is a greater task than to write the whole in full. Neither history nor geography is of any value if one-sided. There is little use in writing anything unless written in a way that will make the reader believe it. The day has long passed when a one-sided tale about California can be palmed off on an intelligent reader. As a mere matter of policy, to say nothing of honesty, such writing is unwise. A fair account of the whole necessarily requires the statement of some cold facts. It is difficult to see any reason why these should not now be given. They are certainly a part of our history. Heretofore they have generally been concealed. Surely the time has come when all may afford to laugh at them. If a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things, so is the memory of the dark and stormy waves a pleasure when the bark is once safe in port. There is little credit in a fight won against no enemy; slight glory in a field where there were no odds. The trials of San Diego really brighten the triumph of to-day, and form a setting for the jiicture that it would be foolish not to use. T. S. VAN DYKE. .San Diego, March i, iSSS. BIOOR^PMICAL. The biographical sketches of the prominent and pioneer citizens of San Diego that appear in this volume, have all been prepared from data furnished by those interested. If we have, in some instances, enlarged and embellished this material, it has been bo- cause we believed that the suljjects were deserving of it. It wouKl be diflficult in any jiart of the country to find a group of men more worthy of praise, to whom the community where they make their home owes more, than the older citizens of San Diego. For many long jears they waited patiently for the coming of the day that was to bring a realization of their hopes; when the world was to acknowledge what they had long contended, that here on the shores of the Bay of San Diego was the fitting place for a great city — a metropolis. That day has come, and is it to be wondered at that they feel proud of their constancy, their failh in the future? T. T. LEBERTHON, A. T.VVLOR, Editors and Publishers. San Diego, Cal., .^Tarch i, i8S8. 547183 LISRARf CONTENTS. FACE. The Early Days 9 Progress of Farming, etc 13 Beginning of Fruit and Vine Culture 16 Rise of San Diego City iS The Long Sleep 21 The Awakening 25 The Bay Region 30 The Interior 34 The Lower Coast Division 39 The Northern Division 44 The Mountain Division 4S Water 52 Production 5b The Climate 66 Out-of-door Amusements 72 Miscellaneous 75 Morse, Whaley & Dalton Building 210 First National Bank 211 The Consolidated National Bank of San Diego 213 The Pierce-Morse Block 214 Villa Montezuma 214 (0 LIST OK BIOORARMIES. PAGE. Biographical Sketches 83 A. E.i^orton S3 E. W. iMorse 87 Judge O. S. Witherby 91 M. Schiller 93 Thomas Whaley 96 Hon. James McCoy 102 Andrew Cassidy 104 Robert Kelly 106 Colonel C. P. Noell 109 J. S. Mannasse 112 Charles A. Wetmore 114 George B. Hensley 118 William E. High 1 20 Aaron Paiily 122 D. Choate 125 Judge McNealy 1 29 Robert Allison 131 Philip Morse 133 R. G. Clark 136 Daniel Cleveland 139 George W. Hazzard 142 William Jorres 145 Charles J. Fox, C. E 147 A. Klauber i ^o S.Levi 152 Bryant Howard 1 54 John S . Harbison 1 56 Col. Chalmers Scott 1 159 Charles Hubbell 162 George William Barnes, M. D 1 70 O. S. Hubbell 164 Joseph Faivre , 167 Thomas L. Nesmith 172 Mrs. Mary J, Birdsall , 175 D. Cave, D. D. S , 176 Dr. W. A. Winder , 1 79 Judge M. A. Luce iSi (vii) .viii LIST OF BIOGRAPHIES. George A. Cowles 1 84 Dr. r. C. Kemondino iS? N. H. Conklin 190 R. A. Thomas 192 Judge John D. Works 194 L. S. McClure i97 Governor Robert \V. Waterman 1 99 Col. W. H. Holabird 203 Col. John A. Helphingstine ■ 206 Willard N. Fos 208 CHAPTER I. THE EARLY DAYS. HE BAY of San Diego was dis- covered in 1542, by Cabrillo, and named in 1602 by Vizcaino, who a survey of it at the From the survev of made tmie. \'izcaino over a century and a half rolled over its unbro- ken face until the ships of Padre Junipero Serra anch- ored within it. It was several ) ears before the Indians were lullv subdued, but they finally succumbed to the peaceful arts of the missionaries. Soon after the establishment of other missions in Caliiornia, and the quieting and gathering in of the greater part of the Indians around the missions, settlers from Spain and Mexico began to come in, and later on a few from the United States, England, and elsewhere. Nearly all of these settlers obtained grants of large tracts of land from the Mexican Go\'ernment, which have since been the cause ot much litigation, envy, and quarreling. These grants were simply Mexican homesteads, gi\'en to settle the country just as the United States homesteads are given, for practically nothing. Instead of selling a man, as the United States then did, all the land .0; lo CITY AXD COrXTY ( ^F SAN DIFj; O. he wanted for $1.25 an acre, the Mexican Government gave it to him by the square league. The grants were made large partly as an inducement to the settler to go into such a wild and remote country, but mainly because the raising of cattle for the hides and tallow being the only in- dustry, a large range was absolutely necessary for profit as well as the sujiport of the band of retainers necessary for profit and safety. Instead of abusing the owner of a grant as a monopolist and a robber, the man who felt bad because he did not own a slice of it, should have remem- bered that he or his father or grandfather might have had it just as easily. But they preferred the luxuries of civilization to a rude life in a foreign country, both wild and remote, and which, as everyone then believed, would never be anything but a wild cattle range. The man who endured years of privation for its sake, coulci scarcely be blamed for wanting something for it. In some respects these large holdings have been an injury to California. But it is equally certain that the results have not been one-sided. Such improvements as have been made at Coronado Beach, Escondido, and many other places in Southern Cali- fornia, would have waited fifty years, had the land been half covered with ordinary farms. Riverside, Pasadena, and nearly all that is of much value in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties, owes its value to the fact that the control of the water, highways, and improvements of all kinds were in one hand. Nevertheless the first effect of these large grants was to retard settlement. The county of San Diego, in common with the rest of Southern California, was then believed to be a veritable desert of sand, cactus, and horned toads, fit only for stock range at the rate of about one hundred acres to each animal. The owners of the large ranchos, who knew better than this, stillbelieved the land fit only for stock range; and as they practically owned all the outside range, they naturally looked with jealousy upon the incoming of any farmers either to over- stock the ranges or to make cultivated fields, upon which the cattle would trespass and cause trouble. Hence, it was for the interest of all these large owners to keej) up the cry that the land was of no use for anything but stock, even had they not really believed it. Under these influences the county remained virtually an open stock range, covered with many thousands of cattle and horses, for about twenty years after the admission of California to the Union. A very few persons had come in and attempted farming, some on large and some on small scales, but made a poor headway against low prices, wild cattle and their own ignorance of the land's peculiarities. Much quarrel- ing and bad feeling between the new settlers and the old necessarily re- sulted. On the one hand the ranchero claimed that his lines embraced all available Government land in his vicinity, and ate out the crops of the granger with his cattle. In this he was aided by the sheep-man, THE EARL Y DA VS. ii who had for some time bee« a ijower in the hind and who wanted all the public grazing for himself On the other hand, too many a ' ' granger ignored all lines, declared all grants frauds, denounced his Government for recognizing vested rights, scjuatted in force upon what was uncjues- tionably within the grant lines, and shot the ranchero's cattle not only in his grain fields, but in the iiills. The cattle shot in the fields were left where they lay, but the beef upon which some of the new settlers kept fat came from the hills. The "granger" increased so fast under the impetus given by the founding of New San Diego, the fact — first proved by J. S. Harbison, of Sacramento, who brought the first bees into California and into this county — that enormous quantities of fine honey could be raised here, and the fine climate, that he soon became a power in the land. The squatter, or ' ' esquatero, " as he was contemptously called by the sheep and cattle-men, finally walked off with the country, as he eventually will with the great cattle ranges of the great western basins. About 1870 he worked through the Legislature a law which broke up the old free range system which had been in use in all the new States of the West in their early days. Under this system damages for trespass by cattle could be had only upon proof that the land was protected by a fence of a certain size. The new law, or "no-fence law," as it was called, made the common law of England, by which e\'ery man must- keep his cattle on his own land, the law of this county. This law soon reduced the raising of cattle and horses to a minimum, because it was too expensive at that time to fence the large ranchos, and because the free range upon which cattle had heretofore run was prac- tically destroyed. The sheep interest did not suffer, but improved in consequence of the law. Being under the care of a herder day and night, sheep could not trespass, and the amount of free range on public land was increased by the withdrawal of the cattle and horses. From this time sheep-raising, bee-keeping, and general farming became the leading industries, though on a few^ of the large ranchos, such as Santa Margarita and Santa Rosa, the cattle were retained. The ranchos remained, however, closed to settlement, as the owners did not care to admit a few small farmers, and there was then no probability of getting settlers enough to make subdivision profitable. El Cajon, San Dieguito. and La Nacion were for many years the only ranchos open to settle- ment, and the farmer had to seek such spots as lay around the grants or in the small valleys in the surrounding hills. Some very valuable tracts, such as Poway, Fallbrook, and San Pasqual, never were included in grants and were speedily taken up. Hundreds of other small tracts were scattered over the land in pieces of from one hundred to a thou- sand acres or more, and of these the s'.naller ones were gradually settled, until it became neiu'ly impossible to find forty acres of good, 12 CfTY AXn COrXTY OF SAX DIEGO. aral)le ( iox-ernnifnt land west of the desert di\ide. San Jacinto was ojjened to general settlement in 1882, Escondido in 18S6, Ex-Mission / in 18.S5, Santa Maria in 1886, San Marcos in 1887, Temecula in 1883. But many of the large grants still remain closed, though it will be but a short time liefore all of them are upon the market in small tracts. CHAPTER II PROGRESS OF FARMING, ETC. iF ever a country needed good plowing it was San Diego County. If ever a country failed to get it, it was this same San Diego. The long tramp, tramp, tramp, of immense bands of sheep over the ground while it was wet had packed it to the hardness of an adobe brick. Even the alfileria and burr-clo\'er, which endure more ill treatment than almost any other vegetation, failed to reach half their natural size. In many places they were nearly destro)-ed by being eaten otf while growing, and foxtail and other kinds of poverty grass and rank weeds were in their places. The desolate appearance gi\'en the land by the bands of sheep, can scarcely be imagined to-day by those who look only upon the cultivated vineyards of El Cajon, or the alfalfa fields of San Jacinto. " Tickle the earth with a plow and it will laugh with a harvest," some well-meaning goose had written of California, in the days gone by. Unfortunately for the land this was true in many seasons. In fact, in three seasons out of ten, grain sown upon an old road or abandoned brick-yard will do about as well as anywhere. In two years more out of ten, the mildest scratching will suffice. As the great California weather prophet remembers only his predictions that turn out correct, so the new farmer remembered only his successes, and scratching in grain with a cultivator, harrow, or even a brush-drag, became the rule. Even where a gang plow was used, there was no plowing, the plows being so numerous that no team could draw them if deeply set. For )-ears the single j)low was never seen in use, except to make a road or break brushy ground. Many defended this style of farming on reasoning that appeared sound. " If it is a good year I will get a good crop anyhow, no matter how carelessly put in. If it's a bad year, I won't get a crop no matter how well it is put in. By scratching I can get in four or fi\e times as much ground as I can with good ]:)lowing, and the chances of a good season are always six out of ten." The crops raised under this system were sometimes enormous, exceeding the heaviest yields ever known east of the Rocky Mountains, and when combined with a good price, often yielded a hea\'y return 2 (13) 14 CITY AXD COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. over expenses. But in the lont;' run this style has been a failure. It soon made the soil foul with weeds, cheat, etc., reducing the quality and quantity of the grain, so that it became necessary to lose an occasional year by summer fallow. And in the years of light or average rainfall, the want of good plowing told too heavily. In the mountain belts, where there was always rain enough in dry years, there was too much in }'ears when there was enough along the coast. Fine crops were raised there in such severely dry years as 1877 and 1883, but the cost of hauling to market was too great. The smaller farmers, who sowed small areas with grain, did better work and had better crops. But their work was generally a failure in the long run for another reason : The big farmers did everything by machinery and hired labor, and it was beneath the dignity of the small farmer to do otherwise. There was not a cradle, flail, or threshing floor among the Americans in the whole county; and if a man had only twenty acres of grain, he must have it cut with a header and threshed with a threshing machine, no matter how much spare time he or his boys might have. When harvest came a small army of ravenous hands and horses would descend upon him, generally on Saturday night, so as to insure rations for Sunday. Instead of cutting around the field with a cradle to make a way for the header, the ponderous machine smashed its own way around the first swath or up the center of the field. The knives, sharpened apparently but once a year, tore and stripped many a stalk instead of cutting it, and many a head of grain was so badly cut that it fell under the machine instead of in the receiver. From fifteen to twenty per cent of the crop was thus wasted, and there was no gleaning of the stubbles except with the live stock. When threshing- time came around, the same wasteful extravagance was repeated on a still greater scale. By the time the farmer had his grain sacked and hauled to market, he was often in debt and seldom much ahead. In many other respects, San Diego County farming was about the worst in the world. Make no machinery that you can buy, and do nothing yourself that you can hire anyone else to do, seemed to be the cardinal principle. Nearly all were farming, not for something to eat or use on the farm, but for something to haul many miles to market to sell at a low price, to buy provisions at a high price, to haul all the way home again to eat. Never did it take men so long to learn anything. One man would lose a hundred chickens by wild cats and cayotes before he would learn to shut the coop at night. Another would lose his gar- den or young \-ines two or three years in succession before discovering that a rabbit-proof fence was the first and not the last requisite. Other farmers seemed to forget e\erything they ever knew before. Men who, in Illinois, planted corn forty inches apart in rows straight both ways and culti\ated it constantly until it was too high to drive through, PROGRESS OF FARMING. ETC. 15 planted it here in rows but twenty inches apart, crooked both ways, and never afterward touched it. The same was done with potatoes and all kinds of produce planted in hills or rows. And though Heaven rewarded their folly as it deserved, yet year after year, as the spring came around, they went through the same old ceremony, as if trying a new experiment in a new country. The same thing may be seen to-day in too many places. Yet, in spite of all this carelessness, coupled with high rates of interest and high prices for all manner of goods and machinery, the farmers of this county generally lived better, had more spare time, more spare change, and fewer mortgage foreclosures than the farmers of any other State. The absence of rain, hail, etc., in summer and the difference in the cost of getting through the winter, more than overbalanced all else. For several years, beginning about 1869, bee-keeping was im- mensely profitable, and in the warm days of winter and spring, the air above the spangled earth was a steady hum. About 1878 the price of honey began to decline, with a decided falling off in the certainty of production. The use of glucose for adulteration, in the East, has proba- bly broken the price. The decline in production has been explained in various ways, all of which are unsatisfactory. These styles of farming continued up to about 1880, when slight changes lor the better were noticed, and from that time to the present, the inflow of new-comers, with the advance of new ideas and principles worked out in the coun- ties north of us, has brought about a decided revolution, which is fast spreading. CHAPTER III. (fftj^:^^ BEGINNING OF FRUIT AND VINE CULTURE. OR a long time it was supposed that fruit and grapes, as well as garden-stuff, could not be grown in California without irrigation. The irrigation facilities of this county, being generally expensive, were not developed to any extent. Even in the few places where water was cheaply obtained there was no encouragement to raise anything. A wagon load of any kind of fruit would drug the Saa Diego market and shipping it farther was out of the ques- tion. Some made a few dollars by selling to their neighbors; but most of the neighbors preferred to wait until they could get it lor nothing. To raise fruit or even vegetables for one's own use was not only expensive but vexatious, on account of birds, rabbits, squirrels, etc. , which concentrate upon an isolated patch of anything green in summer; and the farmer soon concluded it was cheaper to buy from someone else, or go without, than to bother with such things. A few, however, as far back as ten years ago, had orchards and gardens not excelled to-day. At Fallbrook, the place of V. C. Reche, was a perfect oasis of the richest green ; apricots, oranges, lemons, peaches, apples, quinces, and what not of the finest quality, abounded. At Julian, Mr. Madison and others were raising deciduous fruits and berries of the finest kind. On Mesa Grande, Mr. Gedney was doing the same; others throughout the county were beginning to follow them. Around San Diego Bay, especially in and around National City and Chollas Valley, fine orchards and gardens twelve years ago had answered the sneers of those who said that the land w-as fit only for stock. A few vineyards at long intervals already foretold the coming^ land of the grape, and at the old missions a few old trees proved abun- dantly what the olive could do with half an opportunity. Irrigation was confined to a few spots on the river bottoms or low- lands and was of the old-fashioned kind, a drenching of the ground every few days, with no cultivation whatever. The greater part of the water was used only by Indians, and where used by the whites was principally for corn, melons, garden produce, or grapes, which were then (16) BEGINNING OF FRUir AND VINF CULTURE. 17 supposed to need plenty of water even on low ground. Some irri- gatioii with windmills was attempted in a few places, and was as near a success as windmill irrigation pumping against a long lift can be. But the quality of the fruit, especially oranges and lemons, was inferior, because water was used as a substitute for cultivation, and the best varieties were not yet planted. In the North the plow had for years been creeping from the low-lands, which for a time were supposed to be the only lands available for culture, farther up the slopes. It had been discovered that the slopes and uplands were not only better for vines and many kinds of fruit, but would, with close and constant cultivation, retain moisture enough during the summer to raise fair crops of grapes, deciduous fruits, and other produce. This discovery spread South through the different counties, and about 1880 began to dawn as a new idea in San Diego. Some people imagined that they were the discoverers, others that this power of the soil was confined to their special locality. By 1882 the idea had become widespread, and from that time truly dates the rise of fruit culture in San Diego County, although in some favored localities good fruit had been grown without irrigation many years before. In 1882 R. G. Clark produced in El Cajon the first raisins cured in , the county; their quality was so fine that they attracted the immediate attention of Riverside growers, who at once bought a large tract of land in El Cajon. Geo. A. Cowles and others in different sections had in the meantihie set out vineyards, and the following year sustained the reputation of the raisins so well that it has scarce been questioned since. About the same time oranges and lemons from the National Ranch and Janal began to excite wonder at the fairs of Riverside and Los Angeles. The lemons were soon conceded to be superior and the oranges puzzled the best judges. With the exception of specimen fruits raised in this way by people who could afford to play with them, little has been done until the past two or three years. The local market was too small and shipping long distances at a profit in small quantities was out of the question. Now, thousands of acres are coming into bearing, and thou- sands more are planting. The oil-press is at work turning out the finest of olive oil; and hundreds of tons of raisins are yearly dried. It will be but a short time before the railroad will run refrigerator cars and then the great market of the world will call fortli a pent-up energy that is now little dreamed of The cajjacity of the count}- in the way of raising fruit is immense; but until there are transportation facilities, people will not plant to any extent. This failure to plant, of course, delays the building of railroads, etc. Each one reacts for a time upon the other, but the see-saw is finally broken and the outlet is furnished. 2 CHAPTER IV. RISE OF SAN DIEGO CITY. 'HE first settlement made in California was on San Diego Bay. In July, 1769, the first mission in California was built at Old San Diego, now called Old Town, some three miles west of the present city, and the old ruins on the hill above the town are the oldest relics of the first year of civilization in this State. Old Town is also the oldest munic- ality in the State. In January, 1835, the city go\ernment was organized. Ten years afterward the city lands, to the extent of forty-seven thousand acres, were sur\'eyed and mapped and granted to it by the Government of Mexico. This grant was afterwards confirmed and patented by the United States, and hence the magnificent proportions of the present city limits. For many years the only business done at Old Town was the ship- ment of hides and tallow. The population was then almost entirely Mexican, though a \'ery few Americans and other foreigners were there. When California was admitted as a State and divided into counties. Old Town became the county seat and remained so for many years. A k\v more Americans came about the same time; some of the most prosper- ous and respectable of the present citizens of San Diego, E. W. Morse, James McCoy, O. S. Witherby, Thomas Whaley, Joseph Mannasse, aiul others were among the first to settle there. For many years Old Tcjwn contained all the life upon San Diego Bay, and the old plaza and old adobe buildings surrounding it could tell high tales of the olden time if they could talk. Until after the establishment of New San Diego, it remained substantially a Mexican town. Spanish was the principal language spoken, and the tinkle of the guitar, the jingle of spurs, and the clink of coin on the monte blanket were the principal sounds of civilization. The country was then full of cattle, which, after the inflow of the gold-seekers in the North, brought for years a good price. Money (18) RISE OF SAN DIEGO CITY. 19 was abundant,- coming easily antl going easily, and kept well in circula- tion through the active medium of cards and horse-races. The old Spanish settlers were lavish and reckless, borrowing at any rate of interest, and many of the best ranches thus passed into the stranger's hand. As early as 1850, an attempt was made to colonize the present site of San Diego. Several houses were then built near the present Govern- ment barracks. The barracks were built about the same time for a depot of military supplies, the soldiers being then quartered at the old mission. San Diego was then the base of military supplies for Fort Tejon, Fort Yuma, andother i)oints to which wagon trains were run from S in Diego. About this time the first wharf on San Diego Bay was built at this point by William Heath Da\is, for which he received a grant of land around it from the city. This first settlement was made without any railroad expectations and solely on the strength of harbor and climate. The old Californian of that day saw the importance of these and sought even then to realize on his foresight. But he shared the common fate of foresight when not sufficiently backed with such little aids for waiting as youth and wealth. The excitement soon died out, most of the houses were moved up to Old Town, the wharf speedily fell before the teredo, and the cayote and wild cat were again left in possession. In the year 1867, foresight again appeared upon the scene in the more substantial shape of A. E. Horton. For twenty-six cents an acre he bought one hundred and sixty acres where the central part of San Diego now stands, and laid out the city. In the meantime two or three railroads had been projected, one of them as far back as 1854, but little had been done beyond organizing a company. Soon after the founding of the new city by Mr. Horton, the projected Memphis and El Paso Railro'ad began to look like a certainty and the first ' ' boom ' ' in San Diego began. Railroad meetings were the order of the day, the steamers brought many new-comers from the North, and many of the present old residents came here first upon the strength of the bright prospects. The new city grew rapidly to a town of tweh-e or fifteen hundred, when suddenly the shining bubble burst. There was then but little settlement in the back country to support a town, and but for the numerous quails and rabbits about town, there would have been more than one slim larder in the new city. In 187 1 the Texas Pacific Railroad was organized and the luxuriant mushroom of brief hope again sprung up. A handsome subsidv was voted Colonel Scott for the road, ten miles of it were graded — much oi which may still be seen — strangers poured in, and the population rapidly grew to nearly four thousand people. During this time the Horton House, Horton's Hall, Horton's Bank, and se\eral other buildings, beside a large wharf, were built by Mr. Horton, and \arious enterprises and 20 CITY AXn COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. churches were aided by his Hberality. Many buildings were built which look highly respectable beside the more modern ones qf to-day. Some of these were very large for the size of the city at that time, and some on an extravagant scale, such as the building now occupied by Hamil- ton z II THE LONG SLEEP. 23 In 1881 Frank A. Kimball, of National City, who had been about the most tireless and hberal of all workers in behalf of the bay region, and has received for it the least credit of anyone, proposed to go to Boston to see if he could not induce the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to come to San Diego. He was answered with a general guffaw from all the wise ones, and many of the leading citizens refused to contribute a cent toward his expenses. His reply was that he w-as able to pay them himself. He went and bearded the great lion in his den, amid the sneers of the public, who never can learn that it is very unsafe to say what a man cannot do when he tries. He met nothing but rebuffs and cold shoulders. Nothing daunted he sat down for a prolonged siege. To his splendid offer of seventeen thousand acres of the best land on the bay, belonging to himself and his brother, Warren Kimball, over half of the National Ranch, capital at last bent a listening ear and sent out two directors of the road — Messrs. Piatt and Wilbur — to investigate. The investigation was satisfactory; the donations of land were increased by several thousand acres from other parties. The California Southern was organized and finished to Coltdn in San Bernardino County in 1882. During the building of this railroad the population of San Diego increased by some fifteen hundred people. National City, the terminus of the road, grew to a population of about one thousand. Bright hopes were held in both places, but in both they were doomed to a blight as speedy and severe as ever before. The railroad had no Eastern con- nection; almost every man in San Bernardino and Los Angeles Counties and on the line of the Southern Pacific Railroad made a specialty of abusing San Diego and warning travel away from it. For over a year after the completion of the road the through travel from Colton scarcely averaged five passengers a dav, of which two or three were either ' ' drummers " or " dead heads. ' ' So slight was the amount of busi- ness that in running through the huge flocks of geese and ducks which then used to rise beside the train in Santa Margarita X'alley, the train was stopped, as a matter of course, if any game were shot from the car. On one occasion the engineer shot with a pistol at an acre or two of geese some three hundred yards away, and accidentally hit one. He stopped the train and w^alked leisurely over and bagged it. Meanwhile National City lost about one-half its newh" acquired population and San Diego more than all that had come in. To crown the trouble 1882-83 '^^'^s a very dry winter on the coast, with a general failure of crops on all the unirrigated low-lands. In the fall of 1883 the vacant buildings in both San Diego and National City seemed to be fully one-half of the whole number, while the streets of San Diego seemed more deserted than ever. On the 1 6th of February. 1S84, the greater part of the railroad in 3 24 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN DIRGO. Temccula Canon and Santa Margarita was washed out by a flood. It had been built too low by Boston engineers, who thought it never could rain in San Diego, who sneered at all advice of old settlers, and were too wise even to examine the drainage area of the stream or look at the rain records of the country. Such destruction has rarely been seen, and nearly nine months were required to place the track on better ground and get trains running. Then were dull times indeed. The rebuilding of the road had little or no immediate effect in helping matters. There was little increase of travel for some time, until it became known that the road would be extended to a junction with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at Barstow, on the Mojave Desert. CHAPTER VI. THE AWAKENING. 'HROUGHOUT the long line of lovely days that dawned and died on San Diego Bay without shining on a new roof or a happy face, the interior of the country was steadily settling. But stores in the country kept such even pace with the growth that there were few if any more wagons in town in 1884 than in 1875. Con- siderable trade was of course done, but mainly with eight or ten-mule teams and two or three wagons that loaded quietly and departed; making little stir upon the streets of San Diego. Settlers crept from National City up the Sweetwater Valley and from San Diego to El Cajon, which rancho was opened to settlement as early as 1869. The mines discovered near Julian about that time brought in many miners; a little town was started there, and a few settlers took up some of the rich little valleys around it. The tracts of Go\'ernment land surrounding the large ranchos were soon sought out by the new-comers. They scaled the rugged hills that sur- round Bear Valley, climbed the heights of Mesa Grande and e\-en the high Volcan and Palomar. A few of these were ex-boomers from San Diego who saw more money in bees than in corner lots. Some were old forty-niners from the North in search of anything new. Others were restless wanderers moving farther West and looking for a home of any kind in this farthest West. Many others were people more or less impaired in health, in search of a mild and comfortable climate where they could make a living by some light out-of-door work. In this way the American population outside the city of San Diego increased from a few hundred in 1868 to some twelve thousand or nearly five times that of the city in 1884. Yet the effect upon the city was almost inappre- ciable. In the early part of 1885 work was begun upon the extension oi the California Southern to Barstow. This was quickly construed to mean that the great Santa Fe railroad system would make San Diego its Pacific terminus. In the spring of the same year the first one of the series of extensive water s}'stems that are shortly to make San Diego County the most attracti\-e county in the State, was begun on the San (25) 26 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. Diego River on a scale so immense that the usual number of sages made the usual number of predictions about what cannot be done by people who are determined to do something. During all these years that San Diego was waiting and watch- ing, the counties of San Bernardino and Los Angeles were increasing in population at a much greater rate than San Diego County, and with a far greater proportion of people of wealth. From very early times people had been coming to California on account of its climate. But for many years their numbers were very iow and contined to the class of decided invalids. After the completion of the Central and Union Pa- cific lines a few began coming to spend the winter just as the many went to Florida. For a long time the impression among them was that they must flee as a matter of course at the opening of the spring, just as they would from Florida. San Diego from its first start had a few of these. In the winter of 1875-76 for a few weeks the Horton House and all the adjacent lodging-rooms around the plaza were full and a large and fashionable boarding-house kept by J. O. Miner on the Cajon had at one time some twenty-five guests at twelve dollars a week. This travel resulted in no settlement or improvement except a very temporary one in the pockets of hotel and livery stable keepers, barbers, saloons, etc. But in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties there was a decided difference. The early de\'elopment of water there and its surprising results captured a goodly proportion of the visitors, many of whom bought and built, while the fairest portions of San Diego, for lack of water development, which was here more costly, showed nothing of what they can readily do. The new settlers on the north quickly dis- covered that instead of paying a high price in summer for the luxur}- of the winters they had actually gained quite as much by the change from the Eastern summer as by the change from the Eastern winter. A remarkable feature of the whole was that though few, if any, of the fine vineyards or orchards or beautiful places paid anything on the in- vestment, and most of them, owing to the lack of transportation to market, were a dead loss, yet the owners were perfectly satisfied. Not one in fifty could be driven out of Southern California. If anyone wished to sell it was only to get money to buy another place with, and for everyone who wanted to sell a dozen were ready to buy. There the lands commanded a price which purchasers with eyes wide open plainly saw was far too great, if values are to be measured by the interest that can be made from the land. There w^as then for lack of transportation little prospect that it ever would pay full interest on the investment. Yet they bought and improved and the faster prices rose the more nu- merous and eager became the buyers. It was plain that they were in fact buying comfort, immimity from snow and slush, from piercing winds and sleet-clad streets, from sultry days and sleepless nights, from thun- THE A 1 1 'AKJ'hXrNG. 27 der-storms, cyclones, malaria, mosquitoes, and bed-bugs. All of which, in plain language, means that they were buying climate, a business that has now been going on for fifteen years and reached a stage of progress which the world has never seen before and of which no wisdom can forsee the end. The proportion of invalids among these settlers was \-ery great at first; but the numbers of those in no sense invalids but merely sick of bad weather, determined to endure no more of it, and able to pay for good weather, increased so fast that by 1S80 not one in twenty of the new settlers could be called an inwalid. They were simply rich refugees. In 1880 the rich refugee had become such a feature in the land and increasing so fast in numbers that Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties began to feel a decided "boom." From 1880 to 1885 Los Angeles City grew from about twelve thousand to thirty thousand, and both counties more than doubled their population. But all this time San Diego was about as completely fenced out by a system of misrep- resentation as it was by its isolation before the building of the railroad. Much of this misrepresentation was simply well-meaning ignorance; but the most of it was— pure, straight lying so universal from fhe editor to the brakeman on the cars and the bootblack on the street that it seemed to be a regularly organized plan. So thorough was its effect that at the ■opening of 1885 San Diego had felt scarcely any of the great prosperity under full headway only a hundred miles north. But when the extension of the railroad to Barstow was begun and recognized as a mo\'ement of the Santa Fe railway system to make its terminus on San Diego Bay, the rich refugee determined to come down and see whether a great railroad was foolish enough to cross himdreds of miles of desert for the sake of making a terminus in another desert. He came and found that though the country along the coast in its un- irrigated state was not as in\'iting as the irrigated lands of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, there yet was plenty of water in the interior that could be brought upon it. He found there was plenty of "back country" as rich as any around Los Angeles, only it was more out of sight behind hills and table-lands, and less concentrated than in the next two counties above. He found a large and beautiful bay surrounded by thousands and thousands of acres of fine rich slopes and table-U.nds, abounding in the most picturesque building sites on earth. He found a climate made, by its more southern latitude and inward sweep of the coast, far superior to that of a hundred miles north, and far better adapted to the lemon, orange, and other fine fruits. He found the only harbor on the Pacific Coast* south of San Francisco; a harbor to which the proud Los Angeles herself would soon look for most of her supplies by sea; one which shortens bv several hundred miles the distance from the lands of the setting sun to New York; a harbor which the largest 28 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. merchant vessels can enter in the hea\'iest storm and he at rest without dragging an anchor or chafing ])aint on a whart. The growth of San Diego now began in earnest, and by the end of 1885 its future was plainly assured. A very few who predicted a popu- lation of fifty thousand in five years were looked upon as wild, even by those who believed most firmly in its future. Even those who best knew the amount of land behind it and the great water resources of its high mountains in the interior believed that twenty-five thousand in five years would be doing well enough. Its growth since that time has ex- ceeded fondest hope. It is in truth a surprise to all and no one can truthfully pride himself upon superior sagacity, however well founded his expectations for the future may be. At the close of 1885 it had probably about five thousand people. At the close of 1887, the time of writing this sketch, it has fully thirty thousand with a more rapid rate of increase than ever. New stores, hotels and dwellings are arising on every hand from the center to the farthest outskirts in more bewild- ering numbers than before, and people are pouring in at double the rate they did but six months ago. It is now impossible to keep track of its progress. No one seems any longer to know or care who is putting up the big buildings, and it is becoming difficult to find a famil- iar face in the crowd or at the hotels. It may well be doubted if any city has ever before had such a growth of the same character. Mushroom towns there have been of course. Mines and railroads have built up some towns with great speed. But the buildings, the improvementii and the people have all shown that it was but a temporary gathering liable to dissolve at any time. Not so with San Diego. The hundreds of costly residences, the thousands of less expensive but still luxurious homes, the scores of solid business blocks, the great wharves, machine shops, and ware- houses, the miles of street railway, water and gas pipes, tell of a dififer- ent class of people from those that settle ephemeral towns. The electric lights, the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent in grading the streets, cutting down hills and filling up low ground, the perfect system of glazed- pipe sewers costing four hundred thousand dollars, indicate a people ■ who are not building for to-day. The shipping in the harbor, the millions of feet of lumber landed every week, the loaded wagons and cars that daily .start for the interior, have no temporary look about them. The number of the new residents who are very wealthy is certainly such as no new city ever before received in so short a time. The whole bay region of which San Diego is the center is enjoying to a great extent the same prosperity and settling with the same class of people. Some forty miles of steam-dummy road now run in various di- rections around it and extensions of fully forty more are under construc- tion. An electric road is now running to the farthest end of University THE A WAKENING. 29 Heights and will have miles oi branches; while a cable-road is about to climb the table-lands far out into the outskirts. The fine lands about National City are fast being covered with fine residences and the new water works, costing over six hundred thousand dollars and now com- plete, will hasten its progress. Coronado Beach has reached a stage of development that few ever dreamed of seeing, yet Pacific Beach, a few miles above it, is already close upon its heels with great and crjsth' improvements, and the first day's sales of lots there amounted to two hundred thousand dollars. Three things now appear certain: — First, that the San Diego Bay region is, for a certain ciass of people, the most desirable residence on earth. Second, that it is to be the greatest summer resort as well as the greatest winter resort on either coast of America. Third, that it is to be the harbor and distributing point not only for its own interior. Lower California, which, under the work of the Inter- national Company of Mexico is now fast settling, but for San Bernar- dino County, and also for Los Angeles as soon as the short line of the Santa Fe, now graded to Santa Ana, is done. The whirligig of time brings in its revenges but it is surely a strange freak of the wheel that turns into San Diego's back country the two counties that ha\e so long retarded her growth by the oft-rej^eated story that she had ' ' no back country. ' ' Yet the great Maker of har- bors has so decreed. CHAPTER VII. THE BAY REGION. ^AN DIEGO BAY is the only harbor in California south of San Francisco. There are several roadsteads, fondly called harbo7-s by the dwellers on the shore, where a ves- sel may anchor in foir weather, and discharge by lighters. But by the word harbor, the great world means a place that a vessel can enter with safety, tie up at a wharf and ? 1?J£t^< discharge her crew. A place where vessels have to hold (yj '5\ themselves ready to put to sea at any moment for safety C^' cannot be made a harbor by any stretch of fancy or Gov- ernment funds. San Diego bar has twenty-three feet of water at low tide, and is so smooth that the largest vessels pass over it during the heaviest storms ever known. During the great storm of February, 1878, when the wind reached the highest point ever registered by the signal service at San Diego, the Hassler, a large steamer of the United States coast survey, lay during the whole storm directly upon the bar, taking soundings and surveying the harbor. During that same storm the coast line steamer Orizaba had to pass every stopping- place between San Diego and San Francisco, and lie off San Francisco three days be- fore daring to cross its bar. At San Diego is often seen what is a rare sight at any seaport in the world, a full-rigged ship of the largest size entering under full sail, sailing all the way up the channel, turning around and sailing up to the wharf — all done without a harbor pilot or steam tug. And this is dooe too by foreign vessels, whose pilots have never before entered the bay. The bay of San Diego is about twelve miles long, and from one mile to two and a half miles broad, with abundance of deep water for thousands of vessels. It has miles of good wharfage front, completely landlocked and sheltered. The report of the United States coast survey furnishes the most incontestable proof of all these facts, as well as much other interesting information about it. It is certain to be not only the principal port of Southern California, but will be the Pacific port of a line of steamers to China, Australia and Japan, being some five hun- dred miles nearer than San Francisco. The completion of any of the (30) d II THE BA Y REGION. 31 canal or shij) railroad schemes on the Isthmus will also be certain to se- cure it a large commerce. Surrounding this bay are miles upon miles of slope and table-land of fine quality lying in almost perfect shape for town sites, \'illas, and ornamental places, where beauty and profit may go hand in hand. Next in size to San Diego is National City, four miles farther up the bay, also in the full enjoyment of the new prosperity. It, too, has a long and excellent water front, with plenty of wharf room in deep water. It is the terminus of the railroad, and has all the railroad shops, stores, and general offices. Its present population, including suburban places on the adjoining slopes and in the neighboring valleys, is about three thousand, which is rapidly increasing. It is situated upon the National Rancho, one of the most valuable ranches in the county. To the wise liberality of the owners in giving about seventeen thousand acres of the choicest part of this tract to the railroad, San Diego County is indebted for getting it much sooner than it would otherwise have come. From the National Rancho have come most of the choicest products, that.hax'e shown what the county can do; the lemons that ha\'e captured all the premiums at the fairs of Riverside and Los Angeles; the oranges that took the premiums at New Orleans over the best of Florida; while its raisins, olives, and deciduous fruits are surpassed by none in the State. The area of choice land surrounding National City, sweeps around the southeast side of the bay to the Mexican line in almost unbroken slope toward the water, terminating on the east in the high rollinj^ Otay mesa, containing some five thousand acres of fine land; on the south in the rich valley of the Tia Juana Ri\'er, and on the ocean side in a large alluvial tract of rich, warm soil, forming the upper end of the peninsula that forms the bay, part of which is now known as Coronado Heights. On this are also situated the new towns of Oneonta and South San Diego. This peninsula then runs northward for several miles in a long strip that shuts out the sea completely. Opposite the city of San Diego, it widens out into a large tract of about twenty-fi\e hundred acres, almost divided by an arm of the bay called Spanish Bight. Upon the southern division of this, containing some eleven hundred acres, and over a mile in its narrowest diameter, a remarkable improve- ment is now almost complete. Within two years, nearly a million and a half of dollars have been expended in preparing this for residence. The whole has been cleared of the nati\e \'egetation, laid out and mapped, and water piped across the bay. A large steam ferry connects it with the main-land; a steam motor road carries the \-isitor across it in a few moments, where bath-houses are so arranged that he may bathe winter or summer, either in the surf or the bay, at his pleasure. A $1,000,000 hotel, first-class in e\ery respect, and lighted by electricity, 32 CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO. has just been built, waterworks and a perfect system of small pipe sewers are complete, everything' needed for comfort or convenience, for either resident or traveler, is being provided as fast as money can do it; and Coronado Beach will soon be known as the most remarkable water- ing-place in America, if not in the world. There have been $2,600,000 worth of lots sold here within a year. The high promontory on the north, known as Point Loma, runs out into the sea, sheltering the bay from the western winds, has abun- dance of good land upon its slopes and top, but is as yet but slightly settled, though a town called Roseville has been laid out in a very at- tractive and sheltered portion of it. When water is piped to it, and the street railroad now in progress reaches it, the southern slopes of this promontory will make fine residence property and be in high demand. Just beyond where Point Loma joins the main-land, lies Old Town. From here the land widens and slopes more gently away from the bay until it spreads out into San Diego proper. Old Town is now connected with San Diego by a steam motor railroad, which will be extended to Roseville and along the north shore of the bay. This will make a continuous line of horse and steam motor railroad around the bay. Within some twelve miles of the bay, on the north, south, and east, there are fully one hundred thousand acres of arable table-land or mesa, most of which will in a few years be irrigated in the ways hereinafter mentioned. A little beyond Old Town is the new and beautiful suburb known as Pacific Beach, with the new villa sites of Morena lying midway between. Pacific Beach is in the hands of a company bent on making it rival even Coronado. A stupendous hotel, a fine college, electric lights, bath-houses, street railroads, and all else needed to make it attractive, are under way to be completed as fast as money can complete them. A few miles farther up the shore is La Jolla Park, a very picturesque spot. And on the western slope of the northern side of Point Loma lies Ocean Beach, also a new and at- tractive watering-place. From all the shores and table-lands around the bay, a wide and varied prospect opens upon one, but the best is from the highlands of Point Loma back of Roseville. There the great ocean, its smooth face unmarred except by the high, rocky ridges of the Coronado Islands, thirty miles away, seems almost to embrace one, stretching so far and so vast, north, south, and west, with the bright waters of False Bay running around one on the north, and San Diego Bay reaching far inland on the south. For miles the placid face of San Diego Bay lies shining in the bright sunlight, broken here and there by a wharf, ship, or sail-boat, the plunge of the pelican or rolling of porpoises. Along the inner shore lie the two cities, fast spreading toward one another in a line of houses, and far away in the south can be seen the line of set- THE BA Y REGION. .33 tlenients in the Otay and Tia Juana X'allcys. 0\cr tlic table-lands that slope from the bay, chains of lofty hills rise tier after tier, looking- down upon the vast ocean up to the high, pine-clad lines of the distant mountains that bound the great desert. High, rocky spurs studded with bowlders, towering peaks of bare gray granite, soft, grassy slopes and timbered highlands roll away skyward into lofty ridges clad in cedar and oak. On the south, far away into Mexico, the whole dissolves in a hazy mist from which rise in long blue waves the outlines of its high mountains and table-lands. On the north, over one hundred miles away, lie the great, snowy tops of the San Bernardino Mountains, and a little to the east of them the yellow sides of Palomar swell a mile skyward into a long blue line of timber. And over it all lies an almost eternal sunshine, unbroken often for weeks by the faintest cloud, and over it ever plays a gentle breeze that never fails to fan one, yet never loses its temper. CHAPTER VIII. is generally sand, nations beneath; THE INTERIOR. «HE general character of all the coast of Southern Cali- fornia is about the same, a long line of table-lands, more or less wavy and sloping away from the sea, more or less cut with valleys, ravines, creeks, or rivers, or interrupted by some range of low hills. This table- land, or mesa, as it is generally called from the Spanish for table, is the part of the country which was last lifted from the sea, and in the deeper valleys there is still some salt and alkali, though the slopes and top of the mesa proper are very free from it. The formation gravel, bowlder, clay, and silt in all sorts of alter- but the top soil is nearly always of fine gray or red granite, sometimes both, though sometimes an adobe, which again is often mixed with fine granite. These mesas reach from five to twelve or fifteen miles from the coast, and are often found far in the interior as benches around some broad valley or plain. Where irrigable they command the highest price of all lands. Their value is generally dependent upon their elevation above the valleys or sea, the higher ones being generally more desired, and their value, not only for resi- dences, but for fruit-growing, is constantly rising. Over such a table-land you pass for some twelve miles in going from San Diego to the interior. Some of it looks hard and sterile, but nearly all of it is good land, needing only good plowing to equal the best valley land. Its climate, free by its elevation from frosts in winter nights, is tempered by the coast breezes from the heat of sum- mer noons. Yet most of it is far enough from the coast to be free from the freshness of the sea, and is lifted to a point that gives a grand, far- reaching view of ocean and mountain. This mesa reaches far away to the north, broken by the canon of the San Diego River, and far away into the south to the Mexican line, broken by the Sweetwater and Otay Valleys. Some twelve miles back of San Diego, this mesa falls suddenly off about two hundred and fifty feet into a broad valley called El Cajon. In and around this valley and its connections are some twenty thousand (34) 7y//i INTERIOR. 35 acres of fine rich land. The valley land proper is well suited to the raisin grape, and Cajon raisins ha\'e within four years won an almost national reputation, and shown what the county can do. Around the main valley and its branches are thousands of acres of slope and small mesa, which are as fine orange and lemon lands as can be found, and unexcelled for residence property. El Cajon has a population of nearly three hundred and is rapidly growing. Having seen El Cajon, the average tourist thinks he has seen the whole county; for the girdle of high, rugged hills by which it is embraced gives little indication of anything around or beyond it, yet valleys of various sizes lie just o\'er the hills on all sides, with small mesas or slopes leading up to the higher hills. Six miles up a winding mountain road brings us to another broad valley of some fifteen thousand acres of fine plain and slope, twelve hundred feet above El Cajon, which averages only four hundred feet above the sea. This is the Santa Maria, an old Spanish grant. Here again the land breaks on the sides into hills, some quite smooth and rolling, others high, sharp, and heavily studded with bowlders. You notice that the roads show plenty of travel, but you see few people or houses, or cultivated farms; a feature you may note all over the county. This is because the large grants are as yet quite unset- tled, many of them being still closed to settlement, while most of those that are open have been upon the market but a few months. The land is, however, being fast taken up, as you see here and as you saw in El Cajon, but the great majority of the settlers are on Government land around these large grants. As remarked before, these dark chaparral - clad hills or bowjder-studded ridges that seem to bound all that is tillable, are full of pockets, little valleys and parks in every direction, and in the girdle of hills around this one valley are stowed away over fifty farms whose presence one would never suspect, while just over the ridge on the right are about four thousand acres of fine j)low land, between us and the tall mountain of granite that seems so near, — the rancho San Vicente. Here you begin to see more timber than pn the lower le\-els. The hills and slopes around this valley once abounded with great live oaks, but fire and the ax have swept away the most of them. But you can see a great change in the general appearance of the country. In almost everyone of the larger ravines, and on the larger hill-sides, you may now find living springs, which you could not do along the coast. Everythino- indicates a land of much more rain than you have yet seen. And such is the fact, this valley being upon the second rain-belt of the countv, where the winter rains are always ample for full crops. The new town Ramona lies near its eastern edge, in a fine location. Leaving the Santa Maria by the Julian road, you pass through a series of smaller valleys, constantly rising one above another. Here 36 CITY AND COUNrV OF SAN DIEdO. you find running' water in all the littk- brooks, timber increasing, and farms more like Eastern farms than you have yet seen; in short, ev.i- dcnces of more rain e\en than in Santa Maria. Soon the road runs into a kirger valley of about two thousand acres including sloi)es and all. This is known as Ballena, and is the center of quite a settlement of some si.x thousand acres, of which, as before, the surrounding hills show no sign. It is twenty-h\'e hundred feet above the sea, and about one thousand feet above the Santa Maria. Still up we go, passing again through small valleys, and among hills in whose hidden pockets whole farms may be stowed away, until at an elevation of three thousand feet we come into the valley of the Rancho Santa Ysabel. This is the cen- tral valley of the rancho, containing, wnth its branches and slopes, some four thousand acres of fine land, but used with the adjoining hills only for stock range, dairy, and cheese-making. Here are still more evi- dences of a heavy rainfall. Springs are on almost every hill-side, little streams in e\'ery ravine, while nearly across the center runs a creek that in the driest time of the year runs a large stream of the purest water. All these surrounding hills, like the main valley, are splendid stock range, affording abundance of feed. In fact, the \'ery best feed is in those bad years when the winter rains along the coast have been little but light storms of drizzling mist. Yet scarce anything would appear less fit for general farming. It will be worth your while, however, to spend a whole day on that range of high rolling hills on the northwest dotted with live oak timber, and yellow with ripe wild oats and grass. Up a long grade the road winds, until some five hundred feet above the main valley you reach a broad tract of several miles in width, rolling and tumbling in great swells of alternate hill and valley from thirty-five hundred to forty-five hundred feet above the sea. Part of this belongs to the Rancho Santa Ysabel, and is still held in stock range, but beyond the rancho line on the Government land you will find some thirty farms. This tract is called Mesa Grande, and contains some six thousand acres of splendid j^knv land. Here too you find plenty of springs and run- ning brooks. The farms are still more like Eastern farms than those of Ballena, a scarcity of rain is unknown, all crops and fruits are a cer- tainty, and the farmers have no anxiety except the fear of too much rain. The whole now looks like an eastern country with no resemblance whatever to the land thirty miles west, and three thousand feet below us; the country from which nearly all impressions of San Diego County are taken. A glance at the distant sea shows that we are well up in the world, but almost as high again in the east loom rolling slopes, covered with grass and timber like those of Mesa Grande, and topped by dark, pine- clad hills. You ha\'e already seen enough of what hills may contain to warn you against assuming, that you have reached the limits of settle- ment. Those hills too are worth inspection. 'Jill-: IX'l'liRlOR. 37 Crossing again the main valley of Santa Ysabel we take the road to Julian, and again our way leads upward. Through a few miles