Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/191

Rh Pacific. As it was at the head of sea navigation, and at the mouth of grain and mining regions, great things were hoped for it, relates a writer of 1850. But the pseudo-metropolis declined in glory and became the insignificant settlement of Black Diamond.

Near Suisun City, Edwin Markham spent his childhood and youth. Incidents of his school-days are described by one of his teachers, Mr. S. D. Woods, in Lights and Shadows of Life on the Pacific Coast.

The State Agricultural Farm is at Davis, the station at which the Shasta Limited and other north-bound trains turn off from the line to the east.

Sacramento, at the cross-roads of four overland mail routes, surrounded by an immensely productive acreage which adds to its wealth and population, and of especial interest because of the events in which it has had a share, is the capital of California by every right of position and history.

It is the one large city of the State with whose founding the Spanish had no concern. The Mexican Government conferred upon Sutter the possessions of which the site of the capital became a part. But there was never a settlement of Mexicans or Spaniards here.