Contra Costa County, CA History

Transcribed by Sally  Kaleta

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives 
http://calarchives4u.com/

These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for 
profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations 
desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain
the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative 
of the submitter. All persons donating to this site retain the rights to their
own work.


SOURCE:  The History of Contra Costa County, California
Edited by: Frederick J. Hulaniski
Publisher: Elms Pub. Co., Berkley, CA 1917
 
 EASTERN CONTRA COSTA
CHAPTER XII
 
 
       That portion of Contra Costa County lying east of the Mount Diablo Range 
- which includes a fringe of the great delta - has long been known and referred 
to as "Eastern Contra Costa," its boundaries being well defined by the Diablo 
Range on the west and the western branch of the San Joaquin, known as Old River, 
following it to its intersection with the main river, thence to Suisan Bay.
       The history of this particular section is not of absorbing interest in 
its occupation and settlement - rather commonplace in its historical importance 
as an integral part of the state - but in the compilation of the history of 
Contra Costa County is worthy of a conspicuous place, inasmuch as it has long 
been recognized as one of the garden-spots of the State and as the early home of 
one of California's most noted pioneers.  Therefore, you who scan these pages 
will not expect a thrilling or tragic story of frontier life, nor yet a recital 
of dramatic scenes traced with the graphic pen of a Gibbon or in the elegant 
diction of a Macaulay, but rather in the plain, unvarnished tongue of one who 
came early upon the scene, will the simple story of conditions and of incidents 
and men who were the first to drift into this primitive and unpeopled land be 
told - men who had courageously braved the dangers of land and sea to reach it, 
and who came bringing their household gods, their traditions and altars, to 
assist in building a new State, and to build into its foundations the principles 
of justice and freedom.  So surely as they have done this, so surely have they 
made history, and so surely is the record worthy of transmission to posterity 
that the yet unborn may read in gratification of their pride in their ancestors 
who laid the foundations of this great commonwealth, perpetuating therein the 
rich and inestimable legacy they had received as a heritage from their American 
ancestry.
        Imagine yourself standing in the basket of a tethered balloon 3849 feet 
above the earth, with an unobstructed view of the world below.   You would gaze 
with inspirations of delight upon the picture thus presented.  Standing on the 
summit of Mount Diablo, that cone-like pinnacle that rises to the above 
elevation in the central part of Contra Costa County, a panoramic view is 
obtained that, however gifted, no artist's brush could paint or pen faithfully 
portray.  It is simply a wonderful and interesting picture of valleys "cradled 
in the hills," of farms, orchards, hamlets, towns, cities - long stretches of 
watercourses, silvery in the sunlight - great bays and far-reaching inlets, with 
sail and steam craft crawling on their surface like flies on a gigantic mirror - 
vast areas of plains - the islands of the great delta of the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin rivers; and beyond, dim in the distance, the  Sierras lift their lofty 
and luminous summits, snow-crested, into the imperial blue of unclouded skies.
       Westward the busy mart of San Francisco with its peopled streets and 
moving car-lines, its domes and steepled churches, the long lines of drifting 
smoke from furnace fires - the Golden Gate and the Farallon Islands, and, far 
beyond the shore line of the continent, the gray waste of the ocean even to the 
horizon's verge - in all directions, far as the eye can reach, tinted with light 
and shadow and rifts of color, extends this scenic picture.
      It is from this viewpoint that I invite you to look down upon the eastern 
portion of Contra Costa County.  The narrow rim of rounded and rapidly 
descending foothills that adjoin the mountains on the east, and which remind one 
of bubbles on the surface of a boiling cauldron, soon disappear, merged into a 
slightly descending plain that stretches away eastward to the great tule delta 
that from this height appears like a great splash of green on the landscape, 
separated into islands by glinting and tortuous watercourses.
      Here in a conspicuous locality on this plain, near the foothills, on the 
line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, stands the village of Brentwood.  Its 
environment is the twenty-five or thirty sections of free alluvial soil created 
by the joint action and wash of Mount Diablo and the Black Hills.  It is a neat 
country village with broad smooth streets and cement sidewalks.  It excusedly 
boasts of a beautiful hotel built of fortified concrete, in the Mission style of 
architecture, regardless of cost in construction or appointment, an ornamental 
bank building, and, owing to the central location, a high school has been 
established that is modestly hidden in the heart of the village. This is 
supplemented by a manual-training school and all the accessories that go to 
constitute it an up-to-date institution of learning, duly accredited to the 
University of California. It ha, also, a fine grammar school, two churches, 
stores, shops, and business houses incidental to a modern village, a large grain 
warehouse that handles thousands of tons of wheat and barley, the products of 
its fertile acres.
          It would be pleasant to dilate on the future of this favored section, 
to speak of the splendid system of irrigation constructed and completed, to 
picture these broad acres, that once were waving grain-fields, painted with the 
living green of alfalfa and orchard, dotted with the homes of the small farmer 
living upon and cultivating his crops in conscious security against the fickle 
seasons with their insufficient rainfalls, with every advantage of 
transportation by rail and water, with a climate free from sea fogs or chilling 
summer winds, and canopied for eight months in the year by cloudless skies, 
distant only sixty-two and a half miles from the civic center of San Francisco.
           But this is not history, and it is of the past rather than of the 
present or future that we propose to speak. The writer drifted into this section 
in the summer of 1853. At that date their was no habitation between the lower 
crossing of the San Joaquin, near where the railroad now crosses, and Marsh 
Landing, except that of Doctor John Marsh, whose home was on the edge of the 
foothills several miles from the usually traveled road that skirted the tules. A 
belt of fine old oaks that grew on the delta of Kellogg Creek was a conspicuous 
landmark, for the reason that it was the first bunch of timber found north of 
the four creeks on the west side, a distance of two hundred miles, and received 
the appellation of "The Point of Timber," a designation that still applies to 
that locality.
          A luxuriant growth of alfalfaria and wild oats covered the plains and 
foothills - too rank in many places to cut for hay; and on the wash of Sand 
Creek, when the soil had been flooded, the oats were so tall that the antelope 
and cattle made trails through and underneath them, and it was possible for a 
horseman to lap the heads of the oats together over his shoulders while sitting 
on his horse.
           Doctor Marsh asserted ownership to the whole country, claiming under 
the title of a Spanish grant. His boundaries were from a round-topped hill 
standing in the range southwest of Byron, known as Brushy Peak, to the river, 
thence following the river to Antioch, thence to the place of beginning, 
embracing some thirty-two or more leagues of land. His cattle ran wild and in 
scattered bunches over this splendid domain, unbroken even to the rodeo. Not 
until 1852 were they handled, beyond branding and ear-marking the calves, when 
he let the contract to a party to gentle them. The rodeo ground was on the tule 
front, on what is now known as the Portman ranch, near Knightsen, and when the 
job was completed one man could round up the entire  herd - and Doctor Marsh was 
out of pocket $3000. The doctor had built a story-and-a-half cottage and 
extended a narrow wharf into the river at the eastern end of the sand bluff 
above Antioch. This was known as Marsh Landing, but was occupied in 1853 by a 
Creole Frenchman by the name of Leonard. Leonard had "jumped" the place, and a 
suit was then pending against him, instituted by the Doctor, for forcible entry 
and detainer.
            The Stockton steamboats were calling there, and Leonard had made 
some arrangement for the exchange of mail. Antioch had two or three houses; 
Captain Kimball, Parson Smith, and, if I remember, J. C. McMaster, were the 
principal residents. Fowler had established a ranch over on the point and 
occupied it with his family. There was the hull of a dismantled ship lying in 
the mud at New York Landing below Antioch, now Pittsburg. City sites in the 
early days were as eagerly sought after as the glittering gold of the mines. 
Every available point was located where it was thought a trade center could be 
established and city lots were staked for sale. Thus eastern Contra Costa came 
in for its share.
            The New York of the Pacific, Antioch, and Marsh Landing were 
located, and sixty-five years thereafter the hopeful anticipations of their 
founders are in the process of realization, particularly as to the former. The 
smoke from her many furnace fires attest the wisdom of the location of Pittsburg 
as a center of industry, and the more conspicuous site of Antioch that is fast 
assuming city proportions, with the advantages of deep water at her  piers, the 
custom of the isles, and her railroad facilities, will insure her steady and 
permanent growth. 
            Possibly the dreams of Doctor Marsh would have materialized also, if 
the coal-croppings on his ranch had developed as anticipated - but alas! "the 
best laid plans of mice and men gang aft aglee."
            During the year settlers began to drop in along the tule front; John 
Dobbinspeck, with his family, took up a claim just east of Marsh Landing and 
built a little domicile out of split material hauled from the redwoods. His wife 
had brought with her several quarts of peach pits; these were planted in the 
moist tule edge and made trees suitable for transplanting the ensuing spring. 
Perkins, a Yankee sailor with a Kanaka wife, located on the front at a point 
between Oakley  and the landing. He was elected justice of the peace, and I 
remember his first case. 
          A little Irishman had contracted to dig a certain number of rods of 
fence ditch, at fifty cents a rod,* for John  Osborne, who had made a location 
in the live oaks. Osborne thought the sturdy little fellow could dig about eight 
rods a day, and thus make  fair wages; but "Johnny" turned himself loose in the 
sand and made it fly. At night he had nearly twenty rods! Osborne refused to 
pay, and Johnny sued. "Perk"  opened court in his living-room. There was a table 
and four chairs. Just before seating himself he reached into a cupboard and 
pulled out a half-gallon demijohn of whiskey. "Now, boys, let's all have a 
snootful" - and we all joined him. Then he called the case. Johnny stated his 
side - told what the agreement was and how much he made. "Perk", without further 
testimony, said, "He ought to be paid."
           "D---n it," replied Osborne, "I'm ready to pay for what he has done, 
but I won't stand for the balance of it at fifty cents a rod."
          "Be jabers, ye will, or I'll knock the face off ye," interlarded 
Johnny. 
          "Here, here!" shouted Perkins, as he jumped from his chair and threw 
off his coat; "you can't knock anybody's face off in this court. Sit down, both 
of you." And they meekly complied. "Now, see here," he continued; "you must 
compromise. Don't be a hog, Johnny. You can dig that ditch for thirty cents a 
rod, can't you? And, Osborne, you are willing to pay that, ain't you?" They 
nodded approval. "Well, let it go at that. And now let's take a drink on it." 
This they did also, and went their way, no costs assessed, pleased with "Perk's" 
manner of dispensing justice.
(*It was the custom then in constructing a fence to dig a ditch along the line 
two and a half feet deep by about the same in width and lay a thick coating of 
brush on the bank. Of course, there were no posts, lumber or wire available in 
those days, and the ditch was the only alternative.*)
         During the summer and fall other settlers dropped in. Richardson, on 
the Dellwood place, Fred Babbe, on the Seilers quarter, and Fulton Sanders, at 
the old Iron House, Drake and Dean as neighbors. Later the Dobbinspecks sold 
their place and went to Napa. Dean left his location with Drake and went up the 
creek and located, taking the peach-trees and planting them there, for Marsh's 
cattle at a later time to destroy.
         There had been attempts made to settle on other parts of the big ranch, 
but the discouragements were many. No fence laws to protect the crops from the 
cattle, the variable seasons, and the lack of building material were the 
handicaps that protected the Doctor in the peaceful possession of his ranges; 
and this continued until the commissioners reduced his claim to three instead of 
thirty leagues, and its boundaries were finally determined by the 
surveyor-general of the State. The ensuing years up to 1868 brought their annual 
influx of settlers, eager to avail themselves of the low-priced lands obtainable 
either at the double minimum price or to purchase the railroad land - the 
alternate sections - for five dollars an acre.
        Successful experiments had been made in raising wheat, and in 1868 there 
was a bountiful crop; but the ensuing year the rainfall was lighter, and in 1870 
there was less - in fact, crops were a failure, with a single exception: Matt 
Burling had a piece of land plowed ready for the seed in the spring of 1869.  
Fearful of losing his high-priced seed, he held it back until the ensuing fall;  
then he took his chances and put it in the dry fallow soil. The few inches of 
rain of the season of 1870 were sufficient to start it, and it matured a 
generous crop without further moisture. But the secret of successful 
wheat-growing in eastern Contra Costa was solved - by thus concentrating the two 
seasons' rainfall in one crop the subsequent failures were eliminated.
           The drought of 1871, following the short rainfall of 1870, was 
disastrous, particularly to those who were making their start in farming. 
Seed-wheat was selling at two and a half to three cents, hay was unobtainable, 
and the stock were dying by thousands, sheep were unsaleable at seventy-five 
cents a head, and Sherman Island straw, coarse, woody, and laden with ashes, was 
readily saleable at twenty to twenty-five dollars a ton! But on Christmas day, 
1871, the Lord opened his pluvial blessing, nor ceased until miniature cataracts 
were chasing each other down the sides of Mount Diablo, the rivers torrents, and 
the country flooded.
            This resulted in a luxuriant harvest, and from that on wheat became 
the great staple. Landings were constructed - one at Point of Timber, connecting 
by canal with Italian Slough, and is known as Babbe's Landing. Large shipments 
of wheat were made over the Marsh Landing, and Antioch became a veritable 
entrepot. The Grangers partially loaded one of their sea-going vessels there. 
The Tulare & San Pablo Railroad was completed in 1879, and stations were 
established at Antioch, Brentwood, and Byron. Warehouses were built to 
accomodate the rapidly increasing production, Dean & Company building at 
Brentwood in 1880, and also at Byron in 1882.
            The towns above named became flourishing villages, schools were 
established, and accomodations extended by the construction of beautiful 
buildings; and finally a high-school district was organized and a building 
erected in Brentwood that in its location will ever be accepted as  the 
monumental mistake of the trustees. 
            It was not without a struggle that the wheat-growers of eastern 
Contra Costa attained to this degree of prosperity. In the earlier stages of the 
industry they were not only handicapped by the dry years, but by their lack of 
credit - their inability to obtain loans from the city banks, even at exorbitant 
rates of interest - and not until the organization of the Grange and the 
establishment of their own bank could they obtain a dollar from Moneybags. 
Sometimes a friendly broker would extend the grower some accomodation, but then 
it usually carried with it the privilege of handling his crop in the fall at a 
round commission. Not only this - he was also beset by conscienceless 
wheat-buyers and market manipulators working in combination to beat him, and 
with no trifling success.  These efforts became so pronounced that the 
wheat-growers of the State were called to meet in convention in San Francisco 
for the purpose of farming a State Farmer's Union. While we were discussing the 
pros and cons of the situation, a man knocked for admission and asked to be 
heard. He was invited to the platform and introduced as Mr. Baxter. He stated 
that he was the representative of the National Grange, and that his mission was 
to establish the organization on this coast. He explained its workings and 
object so satisfactorily that we gave willing ear, and when he advised us to go 
home and organize granges, and thus work together, and harmoniously, in our 
business and social affairs, we consented, and went to work enthusiastically. 
In a short time Baxter came up and instituted the Point of Timber Grange  No. 
14, with the following officers: R. G. Dean, Master; M. A. Walton, overseer; J. 
H. Baldwin, lecturer; J. B. Henderson, steward; A. Richardson, assistant 
steward; A. Plumley, chaplain; Thomas McCabe, treasurer; J. E. W. Casey;  
secretary; Mrs. J. H. Baldwin, Ceres; Mrs. C. M. Casey, Pomona; Mrs. J. B. 
Henderson, Flora; Mrs. J. E. W. Casey, stewardess.
             The specific object of the organization of the grange was to buy 
and sell direct - sell to the consumer and buy from the manufacturer, and 
eliminate the middleman. This we were anxious to do, as we were conscious of 
being robbed, by being obliged to sell our wheat for $28 to $30 a ton, when it 
was worth from $60 to $65 in Liverpool. On investigation, we found that Isaac 
Friedlander, of San Francisco, was handling all the tonnage, chartering every 
wheat-carrier that entered the harbor, and that we could get no ships to 
transport our grain unless we outbid him. His plan was simple: engage the ship 
for about 24 shillings ($6) a ton, pay brokers $38 to $40 a ton f. o. b. ship, 
the wheat thus costing him $2.25, or not to exceed $2.30, a cental. "Now, Mr. 
Broker, you go into the country and buy the wheat as cheap as you can, and I 
will take all you can get at the above figures." The brokers districted the 
State, assigning a certain area to each, on an agreement not to compete against 
each other in buying. The growers were helpless, they could get but the one bid 
- that of their local buyer; he offered according to his whim - Monday, $1.40; 
Tuesday, $1.42 1/2; Wednesday, $1.45 - and Thursday he was "out of the market." 
Saturday he was in again with an offer of $1.42 1/2! The following week, finding 
that he was getting only the small lots that could not be held, owing to the 
necessities of the owner, he put the price to $1.471/2 and $1.50, moving the 
bulk of the crop at that figure. Later, to persistent holders, he advanced the 
price until the last lots passed into his hands at $1.60. He could have paid 
this price for the whole crop and still have made a handsome profit , as he was 
receiving from Friedlander $2.25 or $2.30, and realizing a profit of from $5.00 
to $15.00 per ton, while Friedlander himself was disposing of his cargoes afloat 
at a profit of equal amount. A revolt on the part of the wheat-growers  from 
this condition of affairs was inevitable. Is it any wonder that the 
wheat-growers and farmers flocked to the grange? it was their only avenue of 
escape from the clutch of the shipper and the broker.
          The State Grange was organized, a bank was instituted, a business 
association established, and Mr. Wolcott, a highly connected broker from New 
York, was invited by the State Grange to establish himself in San Francisco in 
the grain trade and act as an agent through whom the members would ship their 
wheat. he received the backing of the London & San Francisco Bank, which made 
the requisite advances on Grangers' cargoes, and we began to load his chartered 
ships. Of course, Friedlander and his friends resented this opposition and began 
to force up the price of tonnage. We authorized Wolcott to outbid him, and, 
standing on either side of a table in the Merchants Exchange, they bid a ship to 
80 shillings ($20) a ton freight! - and the growers loaded it, receiving their 
advance of $25 a ton - and that's all they got. To the writer's knowledge, there 
was some eastern Contra Costa wheat on board that vessel, but he had the 
satisfaction of assisting in breaking Friedlander's monopoly and in forcing him 
to compromise with his creditors on the basis of twenty cents on the dollar; 
and, owing to the fact that vessels came competing for cargo and dropped their 
rates to 16 shillings ($4) a ton, the writer was enabled to sell his wheat the 
ensuing season for $2.25 a cental in Babbe's Landing. After the Friedlander 
episode growers received better prices for their wheat, although their were 
several attempts made to corner the market, but only with disastrous results, 
wherein some of them dropped their twenty-dollar pieces like rain i a spring 
shower.
           Irrigation at this era was beginning to receive public attention, but 
the riparian laws that had grown musty on our statue-books, and the vested 
rights under them that had become as fixtures in the public mind, interfered 
with the free appropriation of water, and so much opposition was manifested that 
it required political action and reconstruction on the part of the law-making 
power of the State to remove them. Hence, taking advantage of the drift of 
public opinion when the conventions of the two political parties met, 
resolutions were adopted "favoring irrigation," thus modestly but surely opening 
the way for the introduction of a plank. "Wherein we favor the amendment to the 
riparian law and indorse a general and comprehensive system of irrigation" was 
inserted. Thus committing the party to the proposition, any plausible scheme 
that might be introduced would be sure to meet with favor and be enacted into 
law. It was under these favorable conditions that a scheme was promoted to 
construct a canal from Tulare Lake to Antioch and irrigate the whole west side 
of the San Joaquin - and herein lies the historical reference to the project as 
significant of the influence of the Point of Timber Grange in defeating it.  The 
proposition originated at Greysonville. it was honestly conceived and honorably 
intended - simply for the land-owners along the route to associate themselves, 
assess their property, build the ditch, and own it themselves.
          Antioch and Point of Timber granges were notified and invited to 
participate. They responded by each sending delegates to attend the convention 
to be held at Greysonville, Captain Kimball from Antioch, and R. G. Dean et al. 
from the point of Timber. The plan was freely discussed, estimates submitted, 
and much enthusiasm manifested when a committee was appointed to formulate a law 
under which the ditch could be constructed and which would be submitted to a 
subsequent convention for ratification. The delegates reported to their home 
granges, but Point of Timber treated the project with much indifference - 
wheat-growing had become profitable through the system of summer-fallowing, and 
irrigation was not especially favored. With Antioch it was different. It was 
proposed to make the canal navigable for the transportation of freight on 
flat-bottomed barges, and Antioch was to be the outlet. J. P. Abbot, editor of 
the Antioch Ledger, Tom Carter, a contractor, and Frank Williams, a 
saloon-keeper, were especially enthusiastic for its construction. At a 
subsequent convention the formulated law was considered, adopted, and a 
committee appointed to present it to the legislature. Its provisions were 
carefully considered and all interests guarded, and it permitted a vote of the 
districts (there being five) to adopt or reject. So we as land-owners felt safe, 
and quite regardless of its provisions returned to our plows.
             The measure was introduced as the West Side Land Owner's Irrigation 
Canal bill. From reading the legislative reports we noticed the bill was 
dragging, but that another - "The Scrivner Supplemental Bill" - had been 
introduced and was well on its way to its final passage. Chancing to meet Carter 
in San Francisco, the writer inquired: "Tom, how is the West Side scheme getting 
along?" Tom smiled as he replied: "Oh, there's nothing in that bill; but the 
other one is all right. We can make some money out of that; and, by the way, you 
are slated for one of the trustees." I was frightened, for the scheme of the 
supplemental bill flashed through my mind. Hurrying to the telegraph office I 
wired to a friend in Sacramento for a copy of the supplemental bill. It was in 
Antioch on my return, and, startled at its provisions, I hastened to call the 
grange in session to consider it. Promptly they appointed a committee to visit 
Sacramento to defeat it.
           The committee found the bill had passed the lower house and had been 
sent to the senate, and by them referred to its judiciary committee. An appeal 
was made to Senator Paul Shirley, but he would do nothing, as the "party was 
committed by its platform to assist irrigation, and this was the only bill that 
would pass." Assemblyman Charles Wood was surprised at our opposition; he 
"supposed we all favored the measure." he had procured some slight amendment and 
then voted for it.  He must be "consistent", and could do nothing to help us. 
"Get us a hearing before the judiciary committee," we pleaded; but he was 
obdurate. Finally, through Senator Shirley, the committee gave us a hearing, and 
we argued strenuously against the iniquity, but to no purpose. Our last resort 
was the ear of Governor Irwin. He would not veto the measure, but he kindly 
consented to return it with the request that it be amended to provide for a 
survey and estimate of cost, also that the law be submitted to a vote of the 
people for confirmation or rejection. That was sufficient; the bill was amended, 
the survey was made, and the estimate of cost, which exceeded $3,500,000 
submitted. The expense of the survey was put up by Williams, and the State 
authorities would not reimburse him; and when the vote was taken the law was 
voted down all along the line. This was a very narrow and fortunate escape from 
serious consequences, for had the bill become a law we would have been assessed 
out of all proportion for our share of the expense of construction, as our land 
was more valuable than that up the valley, and the probability  is that no water 
would have reached here, owing to the insufficient supply.
             Long prior to the transition from the pastoral to the agricultural 
era - long before Doctor Marsh had the opportunity to see thousands of acres of 
his big ranch a shimmering wheat-field, or to hear the drone of the 
leviathan-like threshing machine crawling over the fields, feeding into its 
insatiable maw the ripened grain, only to be thrown out in filled bags ready for 
delivery to the stations - ere he had seen this, other than in his optimistic 
dreams of the future, the Doctor had built for himself a massive stone dwelling, 
a fitting residence for the princely proprietor of his 13,316 acres. The site is 
an ideal one - in the portal of a pretty valley extending back into the hills. 
Facing the east, it possesses a commanding view of the plain, even as far as the 
eye can reach across the tule delta, fringed by century-old oaks  and skirted by 
a willow-fringed creek with a living stream of water. But ere he had an 
opportunity to occupy this palatial structure, so like in its style of 
architecture and in its manorial proportions some old English residence, the 
Doctor was murdered - assassinated by the ruthless hand of a drunken Mexican 
vaquero.
            The inherited ranch remained in the family for several years, the 
stock was gradually disposed of, and finally it was purchased by a promotor, one 
Jack Williams, backed principally by the Sanford family of New York. Williams' 
plan was to open up the coal vein that was known to exist on the ranch, build a 
railroad to Marsh Landing, where there was deep water-frontage on the river, and 
establish a shipping point and a manufacturing center. The scheme was an 
ambitious one, and practical, provided the coal mine developed. Williams 
organized the Brentwood Coal Company; he secured two sections of land adjacent 
to the landing, erected a substantial wharf extending to deep water, opened the 
coal measure with a double-compartment working shaft, supplied expensive 
hoisting machinery, built boarding - and - tenement - houses for the miners, 
employed as expensive expert engineer, and spent money lavishly. Things were 
booming for a while - but alas for the result! The coal vein was found to be 
narrow, it lay deep under the surface, was of inferior quality , and the water 
flowed into the shaft in great volume. The bubble burst.  Jack dropped out of 
sight. Sanford came out and took over the Brentwood Coal Company's effects and 
assumed the debt due to the Clay Street Bank, from which a heavy loan had been 
obtained. Taxes were unpaid, interest defaulted, and some other claims pressing, 
and finally the ranch was sold for taxes and bought in by the Clay Street Bank 
and ownership asserted. M. B. Ivory was placed in possession as superintendent 
and agent, Sanford instituted suit, and years of expensive litigation followed. 
            In the meantime, the big ranch was let to tenant farmers on the 
basis of one-third and one-quarter of the crop delivered in sack at the 
warehouse as rent, and the proceeds went into the coffers of the bank. One by 
one the litigants and lawyers died, until there was but one of the claimants 
left. To her, Miss Josephine Sanford, the property was finally awarded. The bank 
was ousted under the plea of having held the property in trust; hence it was 
compelled to give an accounting. The bank's original claim was the loan of 
$150,000, to which was added  some $50,000 more, paid to quiet title. The 
rentals had been paid to the bank for sixteen years, averaging not less than 
$30,000, aggregating $480,000. And still the bank asserted a claim of over 
$600,000 against the estate! This was finally adjusted, and a claim of $220,000 
allowed.
           Balfour, Guthrie & Company advanced this sum to Miss Sanford, and R. 
G. Dean was placed in charge of the ranch as superintendent and manager; but 
within a short period Miss Sanford passed away, and then another eleven years of 
litigation ensued. But it was eventually settled by partition, and finally the 
Los Meganos, or Marsh ranch, passed by purchase to its present owners, Balfour, 
Guthrie & Company, who have inaugurated the extensive system of concrete-lined 
canals, electric pumping-stations, and distributing ditches, covering the entire 
area of the irrigable section of the ranch, and capable of watering twenty 
thousand acres. This is the key that will unlock the Aladdin-like riches 
imprisoned in its generous soil and enable the historians to write a new and 
interesting page on the agricultural resources of eastern Contra Costa County, 
covering the wealth and variety of its products. Already the fiat of change has 
gone forth - 2000 acres of alfalfa, 1500 acres of sugar beets, and orchards of 
walnuts - and this is only a beginning for this favored section,
 
                                      Where no sea-fogs come to linger,
                                      Where no blizzards dare intrude,
                                      Where no ghastly icy finger
                                      Touches bloom, or plant, or frond.
                                      Where with water, soil and sun
                                      Kindly nature will respond
                                      In multiples for everyone.
 
              The foregoing is but an epitome of the past. There are many 
interesting details of personal experience of the first settlers - their 
discouragements, their strenuous efforts to make headway against adverse 
conditions, the inroads of the cattle by which they were surrounded, the dry and 
rainless years that sometimes come in pairs, like 1870 and 1871, the deluge of 
1862 and 1872, necessitating loans and mortgages at exorbitant rates of 
interest, usually two per cent per month and difficult to obtain at that rate, 
frequently followed by the sheriff and a change of ownership. But eventually  
the day of the mortgage and the fear of the sheriff passed, thanks to Mathias 
Burlingen, who discovered and exemplified the system of cultivation of the 
cereals by "summer fallow," or more widely known as "dry farming."
            That portion of the delta region within the limits of Contra Costa 
County is not without its history of experimental farming and reclamation that 
resulted in alternate failure and success of the various owners during its 
half-century of occupancy. The Jersey Island, the Sand Mound District, the Byron 
Tract, Clifton Court, and the margin on our northern front extending from 
Babbe's Landing to Marsh Landing, each has a distinctive record that in the 
story of their reclamation would be interesting reading; and perhaps when the 
history of the great delta - composed of many thousands of acres, once a 
pestilential and mosquito-breeding swamp, now reclaimed by massive levees, 
surrounded  by deep-channeled waterways, crossed by railroads and cemented 
highways, dotted with packing-houses and manufacturing plants, beautiful homes 
and villages, its wealth of products poured by trainloads into hungry Eastern 
markets - is written it will be perused with absorbing interest as a story of 
achievement, of failures and disappointments, of disaster by fire and flood, 
conquered and controlled by indefatigable and persistent effort, a story of 
man's mastery over the forces of nature never excelled even in the fabled  
achievements of the gods. Many abortive attempts were made at farming "the 
tules," and one, not without its amusing side, was that of a party of 
Kentuckians in the early seventies. A wealthy and enthusiastic resident of that 
State returned home after a successful money-making career on California, poured 
into willing ears the story of the wonderful richness of the tule islands. He 
had invested largely in them under the Swamp and Overflowed Land Act, which in 
its favorable conditions enabled a party to acquire title simply by reclaiming 
them. He induced a company of young men - clerks, bank employees, and 
visionaries, who had never soiled their hands at hard labor - to come out here 
and get rich by farming the tules. Their plan was to employ Chinamen to build a 
peat levee along the river-bank, burn the tules and meadow-grass, and sow wheat 
in the ashes. There was little work for them to do - principally to oversee the 
Chinamen, and this they did by sitting on the levee smoking their pipes, in 
great glee. "How is it possible, Mr. D., that you, an old resident here, allowed 
this opportunity to escape you?" they asked the writer when visiting them while 
engaged in their fortune-building enterprise. my reply was not a boost to their 
enthusiasm, and they smilingly regretted my ignorance of the conditions.
          But wheat does not mature here until July, and June is the month when 
"Old Sol" sends down his rays in melting temperatures. The snow usually lies 
deep on the Sierras at this season of the year, and melts freely, pouring its 
ever-increasing volume of water into the rivers, raising them to flooding 
heights, originally inundating the entire tule delta. That promising wheat-field 
had to run the gauntlet of the June threshets. They came in full proportion, 
floating their dried and spongelike levees away bodily, and a few days later the 
beautiful wheat-field that was to be an object lesson to illustrate to the 
California farmer not only the fertility of the peat land, but how easily it 
could be reclaimed and cultivated, was the rich feeding-ground for a million, 
more or less, of mallard ducks. The sadly disappointed Kentuckians did not stay 
to repeat their folly, but "folded their tents like the Arabs, and as silently 
stole away." The object lesson was not lost, however. It was found that a 
heavier material than peat must be used and larger and higher levees constructed 
than was possible to build by hand labor. Hence the clam-shell dredge, with its 
hundred-foot boom, was brought into requisition and the problem of permanent 
reclamation of the delta was solved. 
             In the early fifties the great tule swamp was a terra incognita, 
exposed only along the watercourses and the front, where it joined the upland. 
The rank growth of tules, higher in places than horse and rider, and its 
floating meadows were a barrier to its occupancy for any practical purpose. Sand 
mounds, many acres in extent, above the highest water levels, were the home and 
breeding ground for a band of elk, found and exterminated by market hunters. 
They pursued a profitable industry in trapping otter and beaver, to a final 
extermination of these also.
          There is another section of the eastern slope that has not been 
especially referred to, but which is worthy of mention, as its  historical 
antecedents date back aeons of time, perhaps to that period when the pillared 
ruins of Karnac lay unchiseled in their quarries and the Pyramids were an 
undeveloped dream in the minds of the Pharaohs. Reference is made to the sand 
belt commonly known as the "Sand and Live Oak District." The writer has a theory 
that this district was once a great sand bar covering many sections. Its western 
apex near Antioch and its eastern near Brentwood, created by the rotary action 
of water that covered it to a great depth - in fact, an island lake whose waters 
washed the foothills of the parallel ranges, and extended for three hundred 
miles in a northerly and southerly direction. That there was a rotary current in 
this lake, caused by the prevailing trade winds that sweep southward along the 
eastern foothills of the Mount Diablo range, creating a current strongly 
accelerated by the inflow of a thousand streams, from the Sierra watershed, 
extending from Mount Whitney to Mount Shasta, thus forcing a current to flow 
northward on the east side and southward on the west side. These currents 
running in opposite directions on each side by the lake received an increasing 
momentum from the Sacramento and its tributaries, and in its ceaseless rotary 
action created a great central eddy that deposited its sand and silt and built 
up a huge middle ground, or sand-bar, which the receding water left bare after 
cutting its way through the barrier of hills at Port Costa, admitting the ocean 
tides that in their ebb and flow ultimately wore deep the waterway of the 
Straits Of Carquinez.
           We allege that the sand plains of Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Madera, and 
Fresno counties, are evidence of the existence of the great body of fresh water 
whose waves rolled over them in slowly shoaling depth as the lake gradually 
receded, spreading the sandy deposits of the streams that were carried far out 
into the lake, leaving it to be smoothed into level areas miles and miles in 
extent by the action of the water. Of course, this valley occupied by the lake 
was created by the upheavel of the Diablo Range long subsequent to the upheavel 
of the Sierras, as evidenced by the system of dead rivers that came down from 
the northwest, cross-cutting the Sierras, the broken and distorted channels of 
which the miner's pick developed, and sections of which are found thousands of 
feet above the present sea-level. It was the water-torn, smooth gold found in 
the ravines and gulches, and covered deep in the gravel beds of the hydraulic 
claims that was spilled from the old channels of these torrential streams when 
they were broken up and destroyed by the later upheavel. The great sand bar in 
Contra Costa County was finally left exposed  but the gradually receding lake, 
its smooth and drifting surface to be eroded by summer winds into mounds and 
depressions until kindly Nature stopped the process by covering it with a dense 
growth of unyielding chamisal brush and a fringe of live-oaks. In this condition 
it was found by the early settlers - the hiding-place of wild animals.
             In 1854 Fred Babbe and a party killed a grizzly bear in the 
chamisal and secured one of its cubs, which the writer saw chained to the 
tent-stake of Fulton Sanders; and he himself surprised a couple of half-grown 
California lions near the edge of the brush, and, being on horseback, drove them 
into a tree. Having no rifle, he spread his saddle-blanket under the tree, 
supposing that would hold them, but on his return with his gone they were gone; 
the mother lion, probably being near by, had called them down. And even at this 
date there was a band of thirty or forty head of cattle, wilder than deer, that 
found refuge in the brush, venturing out only at night for food and water, 
returning to their shelter with the first break of dawn. It was exciting sport 
for a couple of horsemen to conceal themselves in the edge of the brush near the 
O'Brien place and await the cattle coming in, and, when sufficiently close, rush 
out and lasso or shoot down a fat two-or-three year old.
            Sixty-two years have wrought a wonderful change in the old sand-bar. 
There is little evidence remaining of former primitive conditions. In the spring 
it is an immense bouquet of particolored bloom of fruit trees and almonds. It is 
seamed with thoroughfares. A transcontinental railroad furnishes transportation 
for its many carloads of products, and its industries support the flourishing 
village of Oakley - one of the most pretentious of all the growing trade centers 
of Contra Costa County.