it to be constructed in a continuous completed line until it should meet the road of the Central Pacific company; and on the other hand it authorized the Central Pacific company, in the same manner, to locate, construct and complete its road eastward, in a continuous completed line, until it should meet and connect with the Union Pacific, provided either company should have the right, when the nature of the route on account of deep cuts and tunnels might require it for the expeditious construction of the road as a whole, to work not exceeding three hundred miles in advance of its continuous completed line.1

Soon after the passage of the last mentioned act, and apparently with the same object.of securing the speedy building of some line across the country, congress passed an act, approved July 27, 1866, for a new transcontinental road to be known as the Atlantic and Pacific. This line was to start from Springfield in Missouri and run by the way of Albuquerque in New Mexico to the head-waters of the Colorado Chiquito; thence as nearly as practicable along the parallel of thirty-five degrees north latitude to the Colorado river, and thence to the Pacific. The act was similar in many respects to the act incorporating the Union Pacific company. It incorporated the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company and, though it gave or rather loaned no bonds or credit as in the case of the Union and Central Pacific roads, it granted a right of way two hundred feet in width and the odd numbered alternate sections of public land within twenty miles on each side of the road, with a proviso that, if any of such sections had been already granted, reserved or otherwise disposed of, lieu lands in place thereof should be granted. And in the same act, it was provided that the "Southern Pacific railroad, a company organized under the laws of the state of California" and which had in fact been incorporated in 1865 to run through Santa Clara, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and other southern counties to Los Angeles and San Diego, and thence to the state line to connect with a road from the Mississippi river, should connect with the Atlantic and Pacific at such point on the state boundary line "as they should deem most suitable for a railroad.

1U S. Stats. 1865-6, 79, 80.

line to San Francisco," and should have similar grants of land to aid in its construction.1

In the year 1867, when it had become certain that the Central Pacific road across the Sierra Nevada was and would continue to be a success, a new company, organized for the purpose of building a railroad from Vallejo to Sacramento with a branch from Davisville to Marysville, became active. This was the California Pacific Railroad Company. Several companies had previously been organized to connect Marysville with San Francisco; and the new project was, so far at least as the Marysville branch was concerned, a renewal of the old enterprises. But the main object was to afford a substantially straight connection between San Francisco and Sacramento by means of steamboats to Vallejo and thence by rail to Sacramento and thus, by offering a much shorter, cheaper, quicker and more convenient transit than could be offered by the Western Pacific road, to attract all the traffic between San Francisco and Sacramento and in effect to become, instead of the Western Pacific, the main western link of the transcontinental line. It was therefore in direct opposition to the Central Pacific system; and the result was a fierce struggle to prevent its reaching Sacramento and especially to prevent its building a bridge at Sacramento. But, notwithstanding all opposition, the bridge was built; and in the early part of 1870 the California Pacific landed and took up passengers on the east side of the river. Under the circumstances, the only thing remaining to be done by the Central Pacific, which could not brook such interference with its business, was to buy out the California Pacific; and this was accordingly done in the summer of 1871-Milton S. Latham, president of the California Pacific company, selling out to Collis P. Huntington and his associates a majority of its stock for something over a million and a half of bonds with twenty years to run at six per cent per annum interest. Before the end of the year the California Pacific with all its connections and property passed into the hands and under the control of the Central Pacific company. And as a part of the same transaction the sale of the California Pacific transferred to the same Central Pacific com1 U. S. Stats. 1865-6, 292, 299.

pany, which now began to be known sometimes as the "great absorber" and sometimes as the "great monopoly," a number of other projected roads and among them the California Pacific Extension and the San Francisco and North Pacific-the first of which was afterwards built from Napa Junction on the California Pacific road to Calistoga and became a part of the Central Pacific system, and the second of which, under the management and control of Peter Donahue, was built from Tiburon in Marin county to Ukiah in Mendocino county, with one branch to Guerneville and another to Glen Ellen in Sonoma county.

While many of these struggles were still pending and the Central Pacific was thus gradually absorbing the rivals, which encouraged by its success were springing up on every side, or in other words, like old Chronos, was swallowing the offspring that threatened to dethrone it, one of the most important questions for it and for the community remained unsettled. This was the matter of a terminus on San Francisco bay. At the beginning of its career, the Central Pacific or rather Stanford, its political manager at the Californian end of the line, failed in moulding San Francisco to his purposes. On the contrary the metropolis opposed him in many ways. Though it voted for the subsidy acts and thus to an extent gave the company credit and enabled it to get a start, the subsidies were not paid without long and bitter litigation; Stanford could not induce its capitalists to invest in his enterprise or subscribe to his stock; its officials as a rule were hostile to his advances, and its newspapers, though enthusiastic for a transcontinental road, were very decidedly opposed to the management and methods of the Sacramento company. Stanford appears to have felt personally aggrieved at this treatment and seems to have wanted to strike back. His associates, though to some extent they may have shared his feelings towards San Francisco, were too busy with their own departments to prevent a bitter quarrel which did the company no good, but on the contrary injured it by leaving even more lasting and harmful enmities than had already accumulated.

On March 28, 1868, the legislature by the procurement principally of Stanford passed an act granting to the Terminal Central Pacific Railway Company, which was in substance the Cen

tral Pacific company under another name, for alleged proper depot and commercial facilities at the western terminus of the road, all the submerged and tide lands in the bay of San Francisco, commencing at a point four hundred feet northwest of the northwest point of Yerba Buena or Goat Island and running thence north twenty-two and a half degrees west one mile; thence due east three thousand nine hundred and sixty feet; thence southeast parallel to the first line to a point four hundred feet from the northeast point of the island, and thence parallel to and four hundred feet distant from the northern shore line of the island to the place of beginning, provided that the boundary line should not in any case pass the depth of twenty-four feet of water at low tide and that the tide-channel of four hundred feet next north of the island should always remain a free and open highway; and provided, further, that the land granted should not exceed for terminal purposes one hundred and fifty acres. Besides the right to reclaim, improve and use the land so granted, the company was also granted for bridge purposes a strip two hundred and fifty feet wide over the tide and submerged lands connecting the property with Oakland and the Alameda or Contra Costa shore. These grants were on condition that the bridges should have draws not less than sixty feet in the clear; that the terminal depot and station should be established on said land, which otherwise should revert to the state, and that the company should not receive any wharfage, dockage or other consideration for the loading or unloading of vessels, but that all wharfage and dockage should be subject to the laws and regulations established for San Francisco and to the jurisdiction of the state board of harbor commissioners. The submerged lands described were to be appraised by the governor and other state officers at their fair market value, but not less than three dollars per acre and were to be accepted and paid for and improvements commenced within one year from acceptance. Within two years thereafter, the company would have to expend in improvements, not including bridges, at least one hundred thousand dollars, and within four years have in full running order a first-class rail and ferry communication between San Francisco, the terminal lands described, Oakland and Vallejo; for the

fulfillment of which conditions within the time specified the company was to execute to the state a bond in the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.'

In an act of the same legislature, approved March 30, 1868, appointing a board of tide-land commissioners for the survey and disposal of the salt marsh and tide lands of the state in the city and county of San Francisco, there was granted to the Western Pacific and to the Southern Pacific railroad companies respectively, for terminal purposes, thirty acres of submerged land in Mission bay south of Channel street and outside of the old red-line water front, together with right of way two hundred feet wide over state lands necessary for each such company to reach its terminus, provided the land did not extend beyond twenty-four feet of water at low tide nor within three hundred feet of the new water front line of the city in that section to be established. There were conditions of donation and clauses for forfeiture in some respects like those of the act for the Central Pacific terminus. On March 31, 1870, the time limited for the improvements of the Central Pacific terminus was extended two years longer; and it was provided that the completion of a firstclass road to a point on the Straits of Carquinez opposite the town of Vallejo should be construed the completion of such road to Vallejo within the meaning of the act of 1878. On April 2, 1870, the time limited for the improvement of the Southern and Western Pacific termini in Mission bay was extended eighteen months; and the locations made for such termini were approved.

About the same time that the grant of submerged land north of Yerba Buena Island was made to the Terminal Central Pacific company, a corporation was organized under the name of the Oakland Water Front Company for the purpose of owning and controlling all the wharves and all the lands where wharves could be built on the Oakland water front. It was in fact a scheme for the benefit of the railroad. Its trustees were Horace W. Carpentier, Leland Stanford, John B. Felton, Edward R. Carpentier,

1 Stats. 1867-8, 473.

2 Stats. 1867-8, 718.

3 Stats. 1869-70, 624, 669.