Frederick J. Hulaniski - The History of Contra Costa County, California

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The History of Contra Costa County, California

FREDERICK J. HULANISKI

The History of Contra Costa County, California, F. J. Hulaniski

Jazzybee Verlag Jrgen Beck

86450 Altenmnster, Loschberg 9

Deutschland

ISBN: 9783849653255

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

admin@jazzybee-verlag.de

CONTENTS:

PREFACE

In presenting this new history of Contra Costa County to the public, we do so in the earnest hope that it will prove to be the most complete compilation of local chronicles that has up to this time been offered to our citizens. The authenticity of the facts contained in the various articles is as absolute as the utmost care could make it. The data have been procured from the best-known authorities, and the biographical sketches, when completed, were subjected to the most searching examination for verification and correction. That no errors will be discovered in this production is too much to hope for; but we do most certainly trust that if any misstatements there be, either in number or by their nature, they will not be found sufficiently important to detract from that character for reliability which it has been our constant aim and endeavor to impart to this history.

In this new work the design has been to make clear the development of ideas and institutions from epoch to epoch. The social and economic conditions of the people have been preserved in the narrative, and much attention has been paid to describing the civil characteristics of the several towns and cities, both in the conduct of their local affairs and in the relation to each other and the county at large. It has been our object in this work to hew straight to the line, simply satisfied to furnish such information as we were able to gather concerning important matters or interesting events, and where the desired materials were lacking we have not attempted to supply the deficiency by filling in the vacant niches with products of the imagination. We have not striven for effect; our object is merely to give an authentic account of facts recent and remote, disposed in a proper and orderly manner, so as to enable our readers to clearly understand the history of their community from its origin down to the present day.

This work is a collection of data by a staff of contributors consisting of the most accurate and capable writers in their respective fields in the county, who here crystallize and preserve the material they have gathered from many sources.

Never, so far as I am aware, has any local history in any county been prepared as this has been. Each writer is in a position to speak with absolute authority upon the subject of which he treats, and it was the intention of the editor that each should present in the most attractive and concise form such material relative to the matter of which he writes as had not appeared in any previous publication. How far that hope has been realized the critical reader may judge. It has also been the aim of the editor to limit the sketches to a statement of such facts as will be of interest to the readers of today and -of importance to those of the years to come.

In sending forth this volume we trust that, in addition to its value as a depository of accurate information and useful knowledge.it will prove an effective instrument in creating a more lively public sentiment regarding historical subjects, and that it will especially foster an interest in the annals of our own county. If my collaborators and myself have helped to perpetuate the memory of the heroism, the fortitude, the suffering, and the achievement of the men and women who placed Contra Costa County, California, in the foremost rank of the counties of this State, we shall be content.

F. J. Hulaniski, Editor.

INTRODUCTORY BY THE EDITOR

I came to California the first time many years ago, before the transcontinental railroads had laid their span across the Great American Desert, coming from New York to San Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama. There is as great a difference between the California of today and the California of the days of ox-teams and "prairie schooners" as there is between the aforenamed desert and the Garden of Eden as allegorically described.

Contra Costa County was at that time composed in the main of several large cattle ranches, owned by Spaniards, Mexicans, and Portuguese, with here and there a tiny country crossroads village. It shipped a little wheat and barley to San Francisco in a primitive way, by small sailboats; but agriculture was secondary to the live-stock interests. A cattle ranch in the olden days consisted generally of what might be considered now a fair-sized township, or even a county. There were miles upon miles of as good and fair land as ever lay out of doors then only a barren waste.

People came clear around the Horn in sailing-ships, taking months for the journey, or took a short cut across the Isthmus, as I did, to get here quicklyin about two months. It was at the end of the earth "No Man's Land," the jumping-off place of creation. Only those who were seeking adventure, or those who joined the gold rush of 1849 and came via ox-team, or those whose health and longevity might be promoted by an exile from civilization and a change of name as well as environment and climate, ventured to where the sun went to bed in effulgent splendor in or apparently near the Golden Gate. I was not actuated, I desire to add by way of parenthesis, by the latter reason.

My second journey to the then famous though still more or less mysterious land of the setting sun, the yellow poppy, the luscious fruits and myriad flowers was six years ago, in search of health, climate, and sea-level, and I found them all here in Contra Costa County, where anybody may find them, with long life, happiness, and comparative riches thrown in for good measure.

Because it was so far west of the center of the country's population, for half a century or more California and Contra Costa County lay basking in sunshine and soft sea-breezes, almost unknown, comparatively speaking, to the outside world. Nearly all the immigrants from over the Atlantic poured through Castle Garden into New York, and from there a few of them gradually drifted westward; but the West of former days was in Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. Beyond that was a trackless waste ranged by buffalo and peopled by Indians, across which the pony express dashed its perilous way.

When it is considered that two thousand miles of barren mountains, plains, and deserts lay between California and the States east of the Mississippi, not even a railroad crossing them until the rest of the country began to get thickly populated, there should be little wonder that this region was slow in gaining settlers. All that vast domain had to be populated before the restless tide of immigration reached the Pacific Coast. Years passed, new generations grew up, and still this great region, as large as an empire in itself, was sparsely inhabited, its matchless climate and wonderful resources neglected save by the natives and practically unknown to mankind. The rush of the gold-seekers in 1849 started the tide in this direction; then came the railroads, then the people, slowly but surely, when the history of this peerless climate and these heretofore unheard-of natural resources began to leak out to a small extent in the outside world.

Nevertheless, the flow of immigration for a time came at a slow pace.

In recent years, however, a great change has taken place, the result of conditions in the crowded East and the rapid settling of the Middle West. A telegram is now delivered in an hour; a letter in three or four days, instead of a month or longer. New York and San Francisco business men visit one another personally every day in the year and think no more of it than the former did in going out west to Chicago.

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