Part 149

It is the chief town and ecclesiastical capital of the State of Utah, and is situated on the river Jordan, eleven miles from Great Salt Lake. It is built at the base of the Wasatch Mountains, four thousand three hundred and thirty-four feet above sea-level. The valley is world-famed for its beauty, resources, climate, and health-giving properties. By rail it is thirty-six miles south of Ogden, on the Union Pacific Railroad; eight hundred and thirty-three miles from San Francisco, and one thousand and thirty-one miles from Omaha.

The city is regularly laid out and the streets are wide and shaded with trees. Each house in the residence quarters stands in its own garden.

Temple Block, “the sacred square of the Mormons,” covering ten acres, is the center of the city. Here are the Great Temple, and the Tabernacle, the latter one hundred and fifty by two hundred and fifty feet, with a self-supporting roof shaped like a tortoise shell, supported by forty-four sandstone pillars, and having a seating capacity of eight thousand, accommodations for twelve thousand, and one of the finest pipe organs in America.

A little to the east of the Tabernacle is the Temple, a large and handsome building of granite, erected at a cost of over four million dollars. At each end are three pointed towers, the loftiest of which, in the center of the east or principal facade, is two hundred and ten feet high and is surmounted by a colossal gilded figure (twelve and one-half feet high) of the Angel Moroni, by C. E. Dallin. The interior is elaborately fitted up and artistically adorned.

The Assembly Hall, to the south of the Tabernacle, is a granite building with accommodation for three thousand people, intended for divine service.

At the corner of North Temple and Main Streets stands the Latter-Day Saints University. At the southeast corner of Temple Square is the Pioneer Monument, surmounted by a copper statue of Brigham Young, which was unveiled in 1897.

On South Temple Street towards the east is the Deseret News Block, a large brown-stone building where the oldest newspaper to the west of the Missouri is published. To the left are the Tithing Office and Tithing Storehouse where the Mormons pay their tithes in kind. A little farther on, also to the left, are the Lion House, one of the residences of Brigham Young; the office of the president of the Mormon Church; and the Beehive House, another of Brigham Young’s houses. On the opposite side of the street are the huge shoe-factory and warehouse of Zion’s Coöperative Mercantile Institution; the office of the Juvenile Instructor; the office of the Historian of the Mormon Church; and the Gardo House, or Amelia Palace, opposite the Beehive House.

A little farther to the northeast, through the Eagle Gate, is Brigham Young’s grave, surrounded by an ornamental iron railing.

The imposing City and County Building is in Washington Square, and the Federal Building is in Main Street, between Third and Fourth South Streets. A new Capitol is in contemplation in Capitol grounds, near Prospect Hill. Among the educational establishments are the Utah State University, to the east of the city, near Fort Douglas, and the High School, in Union Square. The Roman Catholic Cathedral and several other religious edifices also are represented, including Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Methodist churches. St. Mark’s Cathedral is a handsome building. Other noteworthy edifices are those of the museum, the Mining Institute, St. Mary’s Hospital, the University of Utah, and the theaters and opera house.

The city is more important as a trading center than for manufactures. The leading industries are beet-sugar refining, smelting, salt making, and the manufacture of boots and shoes, glass, woolens, paper, cutlery, pottery, etc. A large business is done in bullion and mining stocks. The city has a large jobbing trade, being the distributing center for an immense mining agricultural and stock raising region in Utah, West Wyoming, South Idaho, and East Nevada.

Salt Lake City was founded in 1847 by Brigham Young and incorporated in 1851. Until 1870 it was almost wholly a Mormon city.

=San Antonio= (_săn ăn-to´nĭ-ō_), =Texas=. [Named for the Roman Catholic mission, San Antonio de Valero, otherwise the Alamo.]

After Dallas it is the largest city in the state, and is located on the San Antonio River, two hundred and ten miles by railroad west of Houston, one hundred and eighty-eight miles west of Galveston, on both banks of the San Antonio Creek, at the mouth of San Pedro River. Built on a level plateau, with an elevation of six hundred and sixty feet above the sea, it includes the old Mexican town of San Fernando, west of San Pedro Creek, inhabited chiefly by Americans and largely rebuilt since 1860. The San Antonio River winds for thirteen miles through the city, and San Pedro Creek for ten miles. These are spanned by numerous little bridges. It is one of the most interesting in the United States.

The first object of interest in San Antonio is the Church of the Mission del Alamo, situated in the Alamo Plaza, in the quarter to the east of the San Antonio River. The church, which seems to have derived its name from being built in a grove of alamo or cottonwood trees, is a low and strong structure of adobe, with very thick walls. It was built in 1744, but has lost many of its original features. It is now preserved as a national monument for its historical interests.

At the north end of the Alamo Plaza, in Houston Street, is the handsome Federal Building. On the west side of the plaza is the building containing the San Antonio Club and the Grand Opera House.

Houston Street towards the west crosses the San Antonio and reaches Soledad Street, which leads to the left to the Main Plaza (Plaza de Las Yslas), pleasantly laid out with gardens. On its south side rises the imposing Court House and on its west side stands the Cathedral of San Fernando, dating in its present form mainly from 1868 to 1873, but incorporating parts of the earlier building, where Santa Ana had his headquarters in 1836. To the west of the Cathedral is the Military Plaza (Plaza de Armas), with the City Hall.

The Military Post (Fort Sam Houston), on Government Hill, one mile to the north of the city, costing over two million dollars, is one of the largest in the United States and deserves a visit. The tower (eighty-eight feet high), in the center of the quadrangle, commands a splendid view of the city and its environs.

The old Spanish Missions near the city most often visited are the First and Second Missions, but, the Third and Fourth Missions have much interest also.

The Mission of the Conception, or First Mission, lies about two and a quarter miles to the south of the city (reached via Garden Street), dates from 1731 to 1752, and is well preserved. The church has two towers and a central dome. The Mission San Jose de Aguayo, or Second Mission, four miles to the south of the city, dates from 1720 to 1731 and is the most beautiful of all.

Among the educational institutions are St. Louis College (Roman Catholic), St. Mary’s Hall, St. Mary’s College, Wolfe Memorial School, and the Ursuline Convent and School.

San Antonio is the natural trading center for an immense area, its jobbing houses have an extensive trade in Mexico as well as in Texas. The industrial establishments are machine shops, foundries, breweries, flour mills, binderies, cotton presses, ice plants, tanneries, marble works, cement works, and manufactories of brooms, carriages and wagons, candy, soda and mineral waters, mattresses, bricks and tiles. It is a leading cattle, horse, and mule market, ships large quantities of cotton, wool, and hides; and is the financial center of the largest stock raising interests of the Southwest. The surrounding district, irrigated by water, obtained from deep artesian wells, is extensively engaged in truck farming for Northern markets.

Although the Spaniards built a fort at San Antonio in 1689, its real settlement began in 1714. In 1718 the Franciscan mission of San Antonio de Valero was founded, and, about 1722, on another site was built the Alamo, the “cradle of Texans’ liberty,” in which in 1836 a garrison of about one hundred and eighty men, among them Davy Crockett and James Bowie, for eleven days resisted General Santa Ana’s Mexican army, numbering thousands of men. Eight battles for independence were fought in or near San Antonio between 1776 and 1836, successively under Spanish, French, Mexican, and Texan flags. It received a city charter in 1873.

=San Francisco, Cal.= [The “City of the Golden Gate”; said by some to have been named for the old Spanish mission of San Francisco de Assisi, by others to have been named for the founder of the order to which Father Junipero, the discoverer of the bay, belonged.]

It is grandly situated at the north end of a peninsula thirty miles long, separating the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay, two thousand four hundred and thirty-four miles west of St. Louis, and three thousand four hundred and fifty-two miles from New York. The city lies mainly on the shore of the bay and on the steep hills rising from it, but is gradually extending across the peninsula (here six miles wide) to the ocean. On the north it is bounded by the famous Golden Gate, the narrow entrance (one mile across and about five miles long) to San Francisco Bay. The commercial part of the town is fairly level and lies along the bay. The chief business thoroughfare is Market Street, three and one-half miles long, with which the streets from the north and west hills intersect. This feature gives the city a striking skyline.

San Francisco Bay, a noble sheet of water, gives San Francisco one of the finest harbors in the world and affords numerous charming excursions. It gives the city much of its commercial importance, also, and extends from Fort Point past the city in a southerly direction for about fifty miles, varying in width from six to twelve miles. Northward this bay connects by a strait with San Pablo Bay, ten miles in length, having at its northerly end Mare Island and the United States Navy Yard.

Across the bay are Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley.

In 1906 a large part of the city was destroyed by earthquake and fire, the estimated loss reaching over three hundred million dollars. The business district has since been largely rebuilt, and many costly buildings of marble, granite, and terra cotta, and iron and steel-framed “skyscrapers” have been constructed. Before the earthquake of 1906 the most conspicuous public buildings were the City Hall, erected at a cost of six million dollars, and which occupied twenty-five years in building; the Post Office, completed at a total cost of five million dollars; the Hall of Justice, the Custom House, a Mint and a Sub-treasury; the building of the Society of California Pioneers, and stock and merchants’ exchanges; and the Ferry Building containing a display of the mineral resources of California.

Market Street, the chief business thoroughfare, extends to the southwest from the Union Ferry Depot, a handsome structure, with a tower two hundred and fifty feet high, to a point near the twin Mission Peaks, a distance of about three and one-half miles.

Following Market Street towards the southwest, at the intersection with Battery Street is the Labor Monument, a vigorous bronze group dedicated to the memory of Peter Donahue of the Union Iron Works. At the southwest corner of Market and Montgomery Streets stands the Palace Hotel, opposite which is the Union Trust Building, the first of the buildings whose steel and concrete frame withstood the fire. Close by, at the corner of Montgomery and Post Streets, are the Crocker Building, another survivor, and the new stone structure of the First National Bank.

At the corners of Kearney and Third Streets rise the Chronicle Building and the tall Spreckels or Call Building, the top of either of which affords a good bird’s-eye view of the city.

Market Street, towards the southwest from the Chronicle Building, contains many large office buildings, including the tall Humboldt Savings Building. At the corner of Fourth Street is the Pacific Building, a huge structure of re-enforced concrete, with a facade of green and brown tiles. In the same block is the Emporium, which has been rehabilitated since the disaster of 1906. On the right, at the corner of Powell Street, is the large Flood Building, another survivor of the fire. It is chiefly occupied by railway offices.

Powell Street leads to Union Square, with the St. Francis Hotel and a Naval Monument commemorating the exploits of the United States fleet in the Philippines during the war with Spain (1898).

At the junction of Market Street with Mason Street is a monument commemorating the admission of California to the Union (1850). To the left, at the corner of Seventh Street, we catch a glimpse of the long frontage of the Post Office with its fine granite carvings. Just beyond this corner, in a small triangular park, is the large Californian Monument, presented to the city by James Lick. The stately monument erected in honor of the achievements of the navy in the Spanish-American war remains uninjured.

The district containing the United States Appraisers Stores and the large new Custom House was spared by the great fire.

The United States Branch Mint, in Fifth Street, at the corner of Mission Street, contains interesting machinery and a collection of coins and relics. The effect of the fire may be clearly seen on the granite at the north end of the building.

Montgomery Street and the southern part of Sansome Street, form the center of the banking district. On the former is the Union Trust Building, and a series of large office buildings, of which the most important are the Mills Building, corner of Montgomery and Bush Streets; the Merchants Exchange, California Street, near Montgomery Street; Kohl Building, corner Montgomery and California Streets; Italian-American Bank, a one-story building with Doric columns, corner Montgomery and Sacramento Streets; and the Bank of Italy, corner Montgomery and Clay Streets. At the northeast corner of Sansome and California Streets rises the tall Alaska Commercial Building, with the handsome Bank of California opposite.

Nob Hill was the name given about 1870 to that section of California Street, between Powell Street and Leavenworth Street, containing many of the largest private residences in San Francisco. Most of these were of wood, and no expense was spared to make them luxurious dwellings, but with unfortunate architectural results. Few relics of these are now extant. The hill is crowned by the huge Fairmont Hotel, opposite which is the Hopkins Institute of Art.

The present fashionable residential quarter is on Pacific Heights, including the western parts of Jackson Street, Washington Street, Pacific Avenue, and Central Avenue.

The educational institutions of San Francisco, include the Academy of Sciences, endowed by James Lick; the Hopkins Art Academy, situated on Nob Hill; Memorial Museum, in Golden Gate Park; Mechanics’ Institute, which contains property valued at two million dollars, and a library of seventy thousand volumes. Other fine libraries are the Sutro library of two hundred thousand volumes, the public library of one hundred thousand volumes, while the California Historical Society, San Francisco Medical Society, the San Francisco Law Library; the French and Mercantile libraries all have collections of more than thirty thousand volumes. The California School of Mechanical Arts, Cooper Medical College, Cogswell Polytechnic School, College of Notre Dame, Sacred Heart Academy, Irving Institute, the medical and law faculties of the University of California, are also located here.

The city was always conspicuous for its fine churches. The most prominent of these were the Roman Catholic Cathedral, the Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius, and the Mission Dolores, a survival of Spanish occupation.

The largest of the city parks is Golden Gate Park, covering more than one thousand acres and redeemed from a waste of sand-dunes, now one of the most beautiful in the country. It extends from Stanryan Street to the Pacific Ocean, a distance of three miles. Its fine trees and shrubbery, semi-tropical plants and flowers, artificial lakes and Japanese tea gardens combine to make it a veritable wonderland. Through the park a broad, smooth, and well-kept speedway runs out to the ocean beach, and the famous old Cliff House, the Sutro Heights, on the hills of the west or ocean side, from which is a magnificent view of the Seal Rocks and Pacific Ocean.

To the north of the park, beyond the intervening Richmond district, lies the Presidio, the United States military reservation. Here are the harbor fortifications with their big and powerful rapid fire machine guns, the officers’ quarters with picturesque gardens and hedgerows, and the hospital and barracks for the soldiers, while down at the water’s edge is old Fort Mason, a circular brick structure now used as a storehouse.

The population is very heterogeneous, every European nationality being represented here, to say nothing of the Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Negroes (relatively few), Filipinos, Hawaiians, and other non-European races.

The Chinese Quarter, rebuilt since the fire, is still one of the most interesting and characteristic features of San Francisco. It lies, roughly defined, between Stockton, Sacramento, Kearney, and Pacific Streets, and now consists mainly of large modern store buildings in a modified Oriental style, and of tall tenements, swarming with Chinese occupants. Chinatown contains about ten thousand inhabitants.

To the north of Chinatown, spreading about the base of Telegraph Hill, is the so-named Latin Quarter, peopled by Italians, Greeks and Mexicans. Their houses, shops, and restaurants are most characteristic. The Japanese Quarter is bounded by Van Ness, Fillmore, Geary, and Pine Streets.

In the pretty park that separates busy Kearney Street from Chinatown, the beautiful golden galleon monument to Robert Louis Stevenson still stands.

San Francisco as the western terminus of the great continental railroads and of many short lines, has important steamship communication with the ports of the world. The bay is accessible to the largest vessels. It is one of the most important grain ports in the United States; and gold and silver, wine, fruit, and wool are exported. There are large sugar refineries, foundries, shipyards, cordage works, wood factories, woolen mills, and many others.

A Spanish post and mission station were established on the site of San Francisco in 1776. The mission was secularized in 1834, and a town was laid out in 1835. A United States man-of-war took possession of it in 1846, and it became an important place in 1849 on account of the discovery of gold (1848). It was devastated by fires, 1849-1851. In 1850 it was incorporated as a city. The original name of the place was Yerba Buena (Spanish, “good herb”). It was changed to San Francisco in 1847. In 1869 railway connection was established with the eastern United States. In 1877 Denis Kearney began a violent agitation against the competition of Chinese labor. This was known as the “sand lots” movement, from the name of the place where the meetings were held. On April 18, 1906, the city was visited with a severe shock of earthquake, and the resultant fires destroyed much of the business section and one-third of the residence portion of the city.

Berkeley, across the Bay from San Francisco, is the seat of the Colleges of Letters and Science of the University of California. The University, founded in 1868, has played a very important part in the educational development of California and of the Pacific Slope. Its other departments are at San Francisco and the Lick Observatory, with the great telescope, is at Mt. Hamilton.

A number of the buildings at Berkeley are handsome, and the picturesque grounds, two hundred and fifty acres in extent, command a splendid view of the Golden Gate and San Francisco. The very interesting open-air Greek Theater, built in 1903 on the general type of the theater at Epidaurus, accommodates twelve thousand spectators and is used for university meetings, commencement exercises, and concerts. The museums, the library, and the laboratories are admirably adapted to their uses.

At Palo Alto, thirty-four miles south of San Francisco, one mile from the station is the Leland Stanford, Jr. University, founded by Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford in memory of their only son and endowed by them with upwards of thirty million dollars. The buildings were mainly designed by H. H. Richardson, who took the motif of their architecture from the cloisters of the San Antonio Mission. The material is buff, rough-faced sandstone, surmounted by red-tiled roofs, producing brilliant effects of color in conjunction with the live oak, white oak, and eucalyptus trees outside, and tropical plants in the quadrangle, and the blue sky overhead. In the earthquake of 1906 the buildings suffered severely, the damage done being estimated at nearly two million dollars. Much, however, has been restored or rebuilt. The buildings include a low quadrangle, enclosing a court five hundred and eighty-six feet long and two hundred and forty-six feet wide, with a beautiful colonnade on the inner side; an outer, two-storied quadrangle, with cloisters on the outside; a Chapel; various dormitories; an Art Museum; a mechanical department; and a village of professors’ houses.

=Seattle= (_sē-ăt´t´l_), =Wash.= [Named for the chief of the Duwamish tribe of Indians, _See-aa-thl_.]

It is finely situated on Elliot Bay, an arm of Puget Sound, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight miles from St. Paul. It occupies a series of terraces rising from the shore of the Sound, with steep hills rising from the water, the heights commanding superb views of the snow-crowned Olympic Mountains and the Cascades, including Mounts Rainier and Baker.

The residence streets run up the slope of a hill, with the business portion built on the level ground at the foot, stretching along the excellent harbor, with its many wharves.

Among the finest edifices are the Roman Catholic Cathedral, the Union or King Street Passenger Station, with Carnegie Library, the American Bank, and the Alaska, Lowman, White, Central, and Empire Buildings.

Its notable buildings include, also, the County Court House, County Almshouse, Opera House, High School, and Hospital. The city is beautified with monuments and statues, unique among which is the Totem Pole, in Pioneer Square, near the Union Station, which was brought from Alaska and is one of the best examples of its kind. There is a good statue of Wm. H. Seward, by Richard Brooks, and in the campus of the University of Washington is a colossal statue of Washington, by Lorado Taft.