American History

California is considered as the third largest U.S. State in terms of land area and the most populous among the U.S. states. Californias economy is considered one of the largest in the country with a highest gross state product of about 1.812 trillion. This economic growth was among the states major growth since the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848.

Population Growth
The rapid population growth of California began after the gold was discovered by James W. Marshall on January 24, 1948 at Coloma, California. Before this event, the non-native population of California was 15,000. When the news started to spread, it is estimated that around 300,000 people both coming from the United States and other countries arrived in California. Half of these 300,000 was considered to travel by sea and the other half by land.

San Francisco became one of the places in California that boomed economically. Before the start of the Gold Rush, San Francisco was only a tiny settlement area. But it improved its status after series of merchants and new people arrived. In 1850, San Franciscos population exploded to 25,000 full-time residents from only 1,000 in 1848.

In 1849, large number of immigrants consists of gold-seekers and merchants have arrived in California. Americans were the largest group of forty-niners (derived from year 1849) who arrived in California. Some Australians and New Zealanders picked up the news and decided to also sail to California. Other goldseekers and merchants from Asia (primarily Chinese) also arrived in 1849. At the end of 1849, merchants and gold-seekers from Europe, consists of French, Germans, Britons and Italians, have arrived in California. Smaller groups of gold-seekers and merchants (Filipinos, Basques and Turks) have arrived.

Not only men gold-seekers and merchants have grown in California. Many women were also involved in the development of the state. Some women became entrepreneurs while others choose to become prostitutes. Other consists of married women who settled together with their husbands and single and widowed women who tried their luck on the given opportunities of the Gold Rush.
The forty-niners enjoyed the benefits of having the gold for free because there were no laws formed in mining. During that time, there were no private properties, taxes and licensing fees to be paid in the goldfields. The federal laws on land owning that existed during that time were the Preemption Act of 1841 and the Homestead Act. The Preemption Act of 1841 permitted the unlawful tenants to improve the land and then buy the land from the government after fourteen months while the Homestead Act allowed an applicant to have 160 acres of land given that heshe will improve the land.

Gold Rush Effect
The Gold Rush made California the center of economic growth in the US and the destination of many people all over the world. This Gold Rush brought the improvements in California which include the transformation of the place into a state. Improvements on roads, infrastructures (schools and churches) and civic organizations were made. On September 9, 1850, California became the 31st state of the United States. The population growth in San Francisco increased up to 150,000.

Oil Business Development
Another major growth in the State of California is its oil business. Californias oil business started on 1865 when the Union Matolle Company operated the first productive well situated in Californias Central Valley. The company supplied the market in San Francisco, which was then the largest in California in terms of population.

In Southern California, oil was first drilled in 1892 by Edward Doheny and Charles Canfield. They both discovered the Los Angeles Field after they drilled 140 meters deep. The discovery led to 80 wells in 1894 and increased to 500 wells in 1897.

In 1900, Emma Summers, one of the most successful oil investors, made a control on half of the production of the original Los Angeles Field. She became known as the Californias Petroleum Queen. The oil boom in Southern California, primarily on Los Angeles made the population doubled between 1890 and 1900 and tripled 10 years after 1900. Improvements on wells were also done in 1930s and 1940s. Among these improvements was making the wells soundproofed with vinyl-coated glass cloth with fiberglass filling. This was done to decrease the noise from the drilling well which conflicts the exploding population of Los Angeles. In 1900, an estimated four million barrels of oil were produced. The oil discoveries continued to grow. Three major oil fields were discovered in California (Huntington Beach, Santa Fe Springs and the Signa Hill).

The Signa Hill was the largest of the 3 major oil fields discovered after Los Angeles Field discovery. On June 25, 1921, the Signa Hill oil field produced more than 1,000 barrels per day. This eventually produced 700,000 barrels of oil.

The discovery brought California as the leading state on the production of oil. Californias oil production was also the source of one-quarter of the worlds overall oil production output. In 1923, the production of the American crude oil has surpassed the domestic demand.

Californias Freeway System
The freeway system of California was also one of the major improvements of Californias growth. Its extensive and complex freeway network that connects the urban centers with the suburbs and exurbs was extremely the best in the United States.  Before this freeway system was constructed, increased usage of automobiles was rampant due to the automobiles cheap price. This brought the traffic congestion on the road system of California.

In 1930s, among the major concerns in Los Angeles Metropolitan Area was traffic congestion. This concern made the Automobile Club of Southern California create a plan of elevated freeway-type motorway system. The Los Angeles city engineers also created a road system plan which has a light railway tracks situated on the center of each freeway. All of these plans were not constructed.

The Los Angeles government believed that a freeway system is needed to solve the transportation problem. The Los Angeles freeway system planned to connect the surrounding cities of Whittier, South Gate, Pasadena and Long Beach altogether with Los Angeles. The construction of the freeway system followed the original freeway plan in1930s but without the light rail tracks on the middle of each freeway. The construction of the freeway had begun in the early 1950s.

Californias Railroad Transit
The Panama Railway was the very first inter-oceanic railroad that made a major effect on the growth of California. It reduced the time of travel from Panama from one week to only a day with extreme comfort. This made the railroad one of the trusted mode of transportation of people and cargo (gold) from California to the East Coast.

The First Transcontinental Railroad was completed on May 10, 1869 after connecting the Central Pacific tracks and the Union Pacific Railroads. This made the Western part of the US improved from a lawless, agrarian government to an urbanized and industrialized region in the country. Many job opportunities were given to the people due to the improvements of the transportation system of the state. The US tracks improved to about 113,000 kilometers.

The railroads that were built made many improvements in California. Many towns and settlements were established and it created market for the goods coming from the East Coast. Through the construction of the railroads, the travel-time of the people was reduced and this produced positive effects on the overall growth of the state.

J.D. Spreckels, one of Californias first railroad entrepreneurs, was the owner of the successful San Diego Electric Railway built in 1892. As he stated, Before you can hope to get people to live anywhereyou must first of all show them that they can get there quickly, comfortably and, above all, cheaply. This railway helped improved San Diegos economy and urbanized the regions way of living.

Californias Water System
Californias rapid population growth in the middle of the 19th century particularly Los Angeles population growth made problems with the water distribution system of the region. The distribution system was only designed for supplying agricultural lands and not in distributing water to residential areas.

The first water distribution facility that ran in Los Angeles was the system of underground water mains of William G. Dryden in 1857 which supplied only few homes.  But this system was destroyed by heavy rains on December 1961. This water distribution system was followed by some unsuccessful distribution system. Due to this, the city council of Los Angeles allowed the group of John S. Griffen, Solomon Lazard and Prudent Beaudry to extract water from the Los Angeles River. The three created the Los Angeles City Water Company which eventually violated the extraction limit from the Los Angeles River.

With the violation made by the company, the government headed by Fred Eaton battled to end the private control of the water distribution system of Los Angeles. But his leadership ended when he was elected as city engineer. He was replaced by William Mulholland as the superintending engineer of the city-owned water distribution company. Mulholland surprised the city government and the water company after saying that the requested records and water system map have never existed and he claimed that he memorized all the necessary information needed in the water system. He was then admitted to work after he successfully demonstrated all the information in the water distribution system.