Grass Valley, California

“ The soil is poor, the grass short, and no trees or shrubs are visible. The trail descends into the valley of the north fork of the Platte, through a pass known as Ash Hollow. There is but one steep or difficult place for wagons in the pass, and in the valley will be found a spring of pure cool water. At this place, there is a sort of post office, where letters are left by emigrants, with requests that they shall be taken to the States by those who pass this way. ”

“ But whatever its origin, it is now growing in such vast prairies that whole tribes of Indians used to look to it as the staple of their food. But better crops are fast displacing it, and as for the Indian, California no longer belongs to him or his bison-herds. Further east, that is to say, from the Platte Valley to the Sierra Nevada, the "bunch grass" was the great natural provision for the wild herds of the wild man, and it still ranks as one of the most valuable features of otherwise barren regions in Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. ”

“ Making your way through the mazes of the Coast Range to the summit of any of the inner peaks or passes opposite San Francisco, in the clear springtime, the grandest and most telling of all California landscapes is outspread before you. At your feet lies the great Central Valley glowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther than the eye can reach, one smooth, flowery, lake-like bed of fertile soil. ”

“ They intend soon to build a handsome house, for it is thought that this valley will be a favorite summer resort for people from the cities below.
The American Valley is one of the most beautiful in all California. It is seven miles long and three or four wide, with the Feather River wending its quiet way through it, unmolested by flumes and undisturbed by wing-dams. It is a superb farming country, everything growing in the greatest luxuriance. ”

“ Doane's Valley is one of those beauty spots which abound in the mountains of California. Its floor is a beautiful meadow, in which are innumerable springs. Surrounding this meadow is heavy timber, oaks, pines and giant cedars. Pauma Creek flows out of this meadow through a narrow gorge, which nature evidently intended should some day be closed with a dam to make of the valley a reservoir to conserve the winter waters. ”

“ The "Pueblo Valley," which is eighty or one hundred miles in length, varying from ten to twenty in breadth, is well watered by the Rio Santa Clara and numerous arroyos, and is one of the most fertile and picturesque plains in California. For pastoral charms, fertility of soil, variety of productions, and delicious voluptuousness of climate and scenery, it cannot be surpassed. This valley, if properly cultivated, would alone produce breadstuffs enough to supply millions of population. ”

“ There is some granite in this Valley; but the prevailing rock is basaltic. The Umqua Indians, are quite numerous. They are not openly hostile to the whites; but yet, it is not considered entirely safe, for a few persons to travel through their country. No settlement has yet been made in the Valley, and no person has yet visited it, except those passing through, to or from California. ”

“ Yet so simple and massive is the topography of the State in general views, that the main central portion displays only one valley, and two chains of mountains which seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height: the Coast Range on the west side, the Sierra Nevada on the east. These two ranges coming together in curves on the north and south inclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 miles wide. This is the grand Central Valley of California, the waters of which have only one outlet to the sea through the Golden Gate. ”

“ The early settlers had expended much toil on the formation of the first and most dangerous trails to the principal points, charging some small fee. It was in 1864 that Congress granted the valley to the State of California, as "the cleft or gorge in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada," under the express condition that it was to be kept for "the benefit of the people, for their use, resort, and recreation, and especially to hold them inalienable for all time." And so it always is in America, parks, gardens, all places are kept and maintained for the people. ”

“ To the east, the mountains pile themselves up into huge masses, their tips hidden frequently by clouds, and by the fogs of early morning; toward the west, they fall away into low-lying hills, allowing the sea-breeze of every warm afternoon to sweep the village over them, and through the gap of the San Luis Rey River and Valley. At all times of the year the color and light and shade in every part of the valley are most lovely, delighting the artist’s eye with a whole gamut of aerial perspective ”

“ By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Full of natural splendor and rich in human history, the majestic grasslands and stark ridges in the Carrizo Plain National Monument contain exceptional objects of scientific and historic interest. Since the mid-1800s, large portions of the grasslands that once spanned the entire four hundred mile expanse of California's nearby San Joaquin Valley and other valleys in the vicinity have been eliminated by extensive land conversion to agricultural, industrial, and urban land uses. ”

“ This is the great San Joaquin valley, the fertile center of California. Of the much spoken of irrigation of California, we see almost nothing; the land is dry and thirsty, the soil is loose, and the engine forces the dust in a cloud before us. Nothing green is seen anywhere except a few scattered trees far, far apart. ”

“ We continued up the grade until we came onto the main road left by us when we descended into Doane's Valley. We got up many more pigeons, graceful birds, which the Legislature of our State should protect before they are exterminated. We moved on through heavily timber-covered hills, up and down grade, and finally came out on the south side of the mountain overlooking the canyon, some 5000 feet deep, at the bottom of which ran the San Luis Rey River. What would have been a most beautiful scene was marred by a fog which had drifted up the canyon. ”

“ On again, down a broad, graded road, which is cut along the side of a cañon, leading eastward among beautifully-rounded hills, covered with a dense growth of wild oats to their very summits, across a narrow valley, and up over the broken hill-range of Las Trampas, and down once more into a broad, beautiful valley, filled with farm-houses and wide fields of ripening grain, which seem wonderfully like those of the prairie country of Illinois. ”

“ Sprinkled in among these mountains, and more or less inclosed by them, are valleys, large and small, of the highest beauty. But a valley in California means something more than a scoop, or depression. It means a rich land-lake, leveled between the mountains, with a sharply defined, picturesque shore, where it meets the sides and runs into the indentations of the mountains. What is called the Bay of San Francisco, is a large salt water lake in the middle of a much larger land-lake, sometimes called the San Jose valley. ”

“ The peculiar topography, the heavy snowfall, and the character of the rocks all combined to cause the Ice King to execute wonderful works in this Park and to leave behind a splendid record. From the summit of this high region one looks into Death Valley, less than one hundred miles away, which is the lowest point in the United States, a section of it being three hundred to four hundred feet below sea-level. This region includes the southern extension of the High Sierra in California, is near the Nevada line, and is about one hundred miles north of Los Angeles. ”

“ The intervening space is somewhere overspread with hills and vales, but for the most part comprises an oblong plain, the Valley of California, the northern portion being called the Sacramento Valley, and the southern the San Joaquin Valley, from the names of the streams that water the respective parts. The prospect thus presented opens toward the setting sun.
Humanity here is varied. There is already round San Francisco Bay raw material enough of divers types to develop a new race, howsoever inferior the quality might be. ”

“ These wonderful transformations are not, however, confined to the few large cities of the plains, or to those the foundations of which are laid by the sea, but are visible over the entire country, for even among the hills and mountains ranges, as well as in the broad and rich valley bottoms, can now be seen the pleasant homes and residences of the farmer, the fruit, and the vine grower. ”

“ Back of Vallejo, reached by ferry from San Francisco, lies the lovely Napa Valley, filled with fruit ranches. Its southern end is narrow, but as one drives farther north it widens out into a broad green expanse of orderly fruit farms and pleasant [Pg 19] homes, dominated by green hills on either side. Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley were the first of many enchanting valleys which we saw in California. As I look back on our long drive, it seems to me now that in California you are always either climbing a mountain slope or descending into a green valley flanked by ranges of hills. ”

“ At Riverside is found a continuous belt of settlement and cultivation twelve miles long, by two miles in average width. It will be twenty long when all complete. The population is not large, but revels in a great deal of room. The general situation is a valley of about forty miles square, at an elevation of twelve hundred feet above the sea. The access to this valley is by four several passes, one each on the north, south, east, and west, as if so many doors had been providentially left open in the encompassing mountain ranges. ”

“ The trail is followed over the hills of ashy earth, in which the mules often sink to their bellies, and over a ground destitute of any vegetation, except occasional clumps of wild sage. A ridge of mountains is then ascended by an easy inclined plain, and a view of the distant range of Sierra Nevada is obtained on reaching the summit. The intervening valley presents as barren a prospect as the country immediately preceding it. Descending into it, numerous boiling springs are found, which often serve to delude the thirsty emigrants. ”

“ No series of events in the history of southern California is more interesting, or more dramatic, than the creation of the beautiful and fertile oasis of the Imperial Valley in the arid desert-basin of the Salton Sink; the partial transformation of this cultivated valley into a great Inland Sea by the furious inpour of a runaway river; the barring out of the flood by the courage and energy of a single man, and the final development of the valley into one of the richest agricultural areas in the world. ”

“ The view from seaward, up this valley, is beautiful indeed, being surrounded by high barren mountains, which is the general appearance of the whole peninsula, and gives the impression that the whole country is without soil, and unproductive. When your eye gets a view of this beautiful, fertile, cultivated, rich, green valley, producing all the fruits and vegetables of the earth, Lower California stock rises. ”

“ The great interior valley of California will not support, without irrigation, an average of more than 15 to 20 people per square mile. Irrigate it and it will support as many as any other portion of the country—reasonably it will support 200 to the square mile. I have no doubt that the population will run up to ten or twelve millions in that one valley, and there are regions over this country from the Mississippi to the Pacific, millions of acres, that can be made to support a teeming population by the artificial application of water. ”

“ A sort of compromise between the dryness of California and the moisture of Northern Oregon and Washington,—warmer than the latter, from its more southern latitude, yet not too warm, by reason of its altitude,—the climate of this valley renders it most desirable. Midway between San Francisco Bay and the Columbia River, what with its own fruitfulness, and the productions of the Wallamet and Sacramento Valleys on either hand, within a few hours by railway carriage, the markets of the Rogue River Valley can be freshly supplied with both temperate and semi-tropical luxuries. ”

“ Their world, in fact, was bounded by Colfax on the south and Nevada City on the north.
Grass Valley received its name from the meadow in which the town, for the most part, is situated. The ground is so moist that, notwithstanding the heat, the grass was a vivid green. Apple trees growing in the grass, as in the orchards of England and in the Atlantic States, and perfectly healthy, conveyed that suggestion of the Old World which lends a peculiar charm to these towns. And Grass Valley really is a town, having seven thousand inhabitants ”

“ Wherever the valley is settled, you will see neat board fences, roomy barns, and farm-houses nestling among trees, and flanked by young orchards. You will not find a great variety of crops, for wheat and barley are the staple products of this valley; and though the farms here are in general of 640 acres or less, there are not wanting some of those immense estates for which California is famous; and a single farmer in this valley is said to have raised on his own land last year one-twentieth of the entire wheat crop of the State. ”

“ The encouragement that successful experiments of this kind would give to emigration seeking farms forms an object well worthy the attention of the Government. But all that California farmers in the grand central valley require is the preservation of the forests and the wise distribution of the glorious abundance of water from the snow stored on the west flank of the Sierra. ”