From its earliest days, the City of Sacramento set a quick pace for commerce and trade. Navigable rivers served as highways in the mid-19th century, with ships or boats moving most supplies. Goods destined for California's rough and tumble interior were off-loaded along the Sacramento River just below its confluence with the American River. Here traders and merchants vied with one another to profit from the opportunities offered by California's Gold Rush.
Sacramento became both a destination and a point of embarkation for thousands of immigrants eager to find their fortune. It quickly assumed a dominant position in California second only in size and importance to San Francisco.
Sailing vessels crowded Sacramento's riverbanks, creating what early writer and entrepreneur Bayard Taylor called a "forest of masts" along the embarcadero. On September 1, 1849, eight barks, eleven brigs and seven schooners were anchored here. By May 1850, that number had mushroomed to 52 ships, barks and brigs; 16 regular steamers; and 33 store-ships. Deserted and dismasted ships served as stores, boarding houses, floating wharves, or hospitals.
According to Taylor, "Boughs and spars were mingled together in striking contrast; the cables were fastened to the trunks and sinewy roots of the trees; sign-boards and figure-heads were set up on shore, facing the levee, and galleys and deck-cabins were turned out "to grass," leased as shops, or occupied as dwellings. He considered Sacramento more novel and picturesque than any other town in the country.
"There was one peculiarity about the city, then containing about ten thousand souls [in 1850], that could not fail to strike a stranger immediately" exclaimed William Kelly "—nearly the total absence of women and children." Historian Hubert Howe Bancroft noted Sacramento had grown from about 2,000 people in October 1849 to double that number in December and to nearly 10,000 the following winter. One of the few resident 49er women, Luzena Wilson, recalled Sacramento’s fluctuating population:
Today there might be ten thousand people in the town, and tomorrow four thousand of them might be on their way to the gold fields. The immigrants came pouring in every day from the plains, and the schooners from San Francisco brought a living freight, eager to be away to the mountains.
Sacramento served as “the depot” to the middle mining regions. Roads radiated out from here across the plains to foothill and mountain settlements. Teams of oxen, as well as mules and horses thronged the levees and streets. Five hundred mules would often pass through in a day heavily packed with picks, shovels, camp kettles, gumboots, and other provisions needed in the mines. During the dry months, Frank Marryat remarked, "The great traffic to and from the mines grinds three or four inches of the top soil into a red powder that distributes itself everywhere. It is the dirtiest dust I ever saw, and is never visited by a shower until the rainy season sets in, and suddenly converts it into mud."
Stephen Massett, an auctioneer, actor and writer of the period, recalled, "In those days everybody was crazy—money came and went—went and came—you knew not how and cared not where—from morning till night it was one scene of excitement and frenzy."
Gold seeker William Swain remarked in his letters:
The streets are not graded, nor is anything done to clear them out, except cutting down some of the scattering trees which five or six months ago were the sole occupants of the ground. The whole town plot is covered with boxes and barrels, empty or filled with all kinds of goods, in passable, indifferent, or bad order, or totally ruined; and wagons, lumber, glass bottles, machinery, and plunder of all sorts, heaped and scattered and tumbled about in the most admired confusion. Store owners added to the chaos of the city by leaving their goods stacked on the sidewalks and nearby streets. William Kelly was amazed to see that "Quantities of even light portable goods are piled out under the verandahs, where they remain night and day (strange as it may appear in this mixed community) with perfect security: such was the apprehension of summary punishment that followed detected theft.
J.D. Borthwick was impressed by the enormous heaps of empty bottles that "piled up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, [and which] suggested a consumption of liquor which was truly awful. Empty bottles were as plentiful as bricks—and a large city might have been built with them."
Improvements in the form of an adopted street grade and wooden sidewalks gave Sacramento a permanent, more "civilized" appearance. In November 1850, the Common Council of Sacramento passed an ordinance requiring every property owner and occupant along J Street between Front and Eighth Streets and on Front Street between I and N Streets to construct a sidewalk. Samuel Upham noted:
J Street is... making rapid strides in improvements of various kinds. Through its whole length may be seen the most gratifying evidence of the energy and enterprise of its merchants. Besides the general improvements going on, in putting up new fronts, awnings and sidewalks, twelve new buildings are being constructed.
As Sacramento evolved and developed, its streets continued to produce scenes of excitement and frenzy for its residents and visitors for years to come.
Courtesy of the Historic Old Sacramento Foundation, August 2008.
©2008 Old Sacramento Business Association (OSBA). All Rights Reserved.
| |