PITTSBURG, with about six thousand
people, is the second largest city in Contra Costa County. Its location
is a logical one for the building of a manufacturing and distributing
city, being at the point where the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers
join with the deep waters of Suisun bay, and also on the principal
railways that radiate from the bay cities to all parts of the State and
Nation, thereby having access to both river and ocean traffic.
The natural advantages of the present
site of Pittsburg first attracted attention as far back as 1847, when
the United States Army and Naval Engineers investigated it as a possible
military and naval base. Their report was in every way favorable, but
the project was never carried out.
A townsite was surveyed and christened
"New York of the Pacific." Upon the discovery of coal near Mount Diablo,
about fifty years ago, the place became known as Black Diamond. It is
believed that a large coal-field in that region still remains
undeveloped. In 1909 the present name of Pittsburg was appropriately
bestowed, the town having shown conclusively that it was to become a
great manufacturing center.
It is interesting to note that in
1850 a strong effort was made to remove the State capitol, then at San
Jose, to New York of the Pacific. The proposition was submitted to a
vote of the people, but was defeated by a small margin. General Sherman,
in his "Early Recollections of California," says: "I made a contract to
survey for Colonel J. D. Stevenson his newly projected city of New York
of the Pacific, situated at the mouth of the San Joaquin River. The
contract also embraced the making of soundings and the marking out of a
channel in Suisun Bay. We hired in San Francisco a small metalic boat
with a sail, laid in some stores, and proceeded to the United States
ship 'Ohio.' At General Smith's request we surveyed and marked the line
dividing the city of Benicia from the government reserve. We then
sounded the bay, back and forth, and staked out the best channel up
Suisun Bay. We then made the preliminary survey of the city of New York
of the Pacific, which we duly plotted."
About ten years ago Pittsburg began
its industrial growth, which will undoubtedly continue until it ranks as
one of the larger cities of California. Its previous support had been
that of the coal mines and the fishing industry. The present industrial
growth is largely the result of the industry and foresight of the late
C. A. Hooper, one of the state's most successful financiers, who some
years ago became the owners of the Rancho los Medanos, an old Spanish
grant on which the townsite is located. Mr. Hooper was a man of
extraordinary vision as to the future, and believed firmly that
Pittsburg was a city of destiny. In every way possible he fostered and
promoted the town's upbuilding. At his death, in July, 1914, he was
succeeded in the management of his enterprises and companies by W. E.
Creed, his son-in-law, a well-known lawyer of San Francisco. Mr. Creed,
since assuming the management of the estate, has demonstrated that he
too is deeply interested in Pittsburg's welfare and development, and is
devoting himself with earnestness and vigor to that end.
As a deep-water shipping point,
Pittsburg possesses advantages unsurpassed by any other city on the
Pacific coast. Ocean-going vessels, loading and unloading cargoes, are a
daily sight at her docks. Her shipping facilities will be further
enhanced by the dredging operations in Suisun Bay from Martinez to
Pittsburg, a survey having been reported upon favorably by the chief of
the Army engineers in January, 1916. With thousands of acres of level
land stretching away from the waterfront, the town has every incentive
for becoming a great manufacturing center.
Pittsburg has a pay-roll of more than
two million dollars annually, with a list of industrial enterprises that
have long since passed the experimental stage, and are in fact among the
largest and most important of their kind on the Western Coast.
The transportation facilities of
Pittsburg are unexcelled by any other city on the bay. In addition to
the splendid shipping advantages noted above, Pittsburg is served by two
main-line railroads, the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe, and the
interurban electric line of the Oakland, Antioch & Eastern Railway.
There are forty-two passenger trains daily. Several lines of river
streamers also run to and from her docks, carrying freight and
passengers.
Pittsburg takes great pride in her
public schools. She has recently completed an
eighty-five-thousand-dollar grammar school, and employs the latest
methods along every line for the mental, physical, and esthetic
advancement and uplift of the children. The pupils receive instruction
in music, athletics, folk-dancing, and military drill. Thus their
growing characters are rounded out in a manner equal to the results
attained in much larger cities. The physical welfare of the pupils is
carefully watched by a trained nurse, who daily visits the various
classes, whose average daily attendance is 850 pupils.
Turning to Pittsburg's various
industries, we find that one of the earliest established plants was that
of the Redwood Manufacturers Company, which has a capitalization of one
million dollars and operates here one of the largest woodworking plants
in the world, making into finished products redwood and pine lumber,
which is brought in by coastwise vessels from the great forests of the
northern coast. The company also carries large stocks of northern fir
and other woods. The manufacturing facilities of the Redwood
Manufacturers Company is second only to their immense stock, and its
product finds a ready market in almost every civilized community in the
world where wood products are used.
Residents of Pittsburg are justly
proud of the modern plant of the Columbia Steel Company. Many
improvements have been made since the establishment was founded, about
seven years ago, the company having recently made extensions that will
increase its capacity by fifty per cent. By its modern and efficient
methods of manufacture, the Columbia Steel Company has secured the bulk
of the steel-casting trade on the Pacific Coast, and by continually
improving its plant and keeping up a high order of skill among its
employees, of whom there are five hundred, there is no prospect of
anything but progress and advancement.
A few years ago almost all steel
castings were made in Eastern foundaries and shipped out to the coast,
thereby entailing much expense and delay to the customers. Now it is
possible to obtain quick deliveries and excellent quality at lower
prices than was ever before possible. As a consequence the whole Pacific
Coast has been benefited, and the industries using this product have
been greatly stimulated.
Again we use a superlative in
describing another of Pittsburg's interests. The Bowers Rubber Works is
the largest factory for the manufacture of rubber products west of
Chicago. Fire hose, belting, packing, automobile tires, and several
other products comprise the output of this concern. Its plant is
equipped with up-to-date machinery, and the buildings and grounds cover
a considerable acreage. The plant is a model of neatness and is located
on the water-front, giving the plant access to both water and rail
transportation. A ready market is found, not only in the principal
cities of the United States, but in many foreign countries. About 250
men are employed in the work. Bowers Rubber Works is a valuable asset to
the county, and Pittsburg in turn is proud to be its home.
The only electro-chemical plant on the
Pacific Coast is in operation at Pittsburg. There is no other plant of
this kind west of Detroit. The Great Western Electro-Chemical Company is
the name of the organization, which is capitalized at two and a half
million dollars. Caustic soda and chloride of lime, commonly known as
bleaching powder, will be manufactured at the plant. Caustic soda, or
lye, enters largely in the manufacture of soap, and is also an important
adjunct in the refining of oil and the preserving of fruit. There are
many uses for chloride of lime, but the largest demand for it arises
from the fact that it forms the base of a large number of fire
extinguishers. Salt and burnt lime are important agencies in the
manufacture of these chemical products, and as both are found in large
quantities around the bay section, the selection of Pittsburg as a site
for the plant was a fortunate one. As the name, electro-chemical,
implies, electricity is used as an aid to the mechanical manufacture of
the chemical products. Two hundred or more men are employed in this
plant.
Pittsburg has as one of its
water-front industries the plant of B. P. Lanteri, shipwright and
dredger builder. His plant is situated on the south banks of what is
known as New York Slough, about three-quarters of a mile east of the
city of Pittsburg. The location is particularly well adapted to this
plant, inasmuch as it is close to the delta country, where dredgers are
extensively operated, and also on account of its shipping facilities,
with spur tracks from two transcontinental main lines in the yard, with
deep water so that steam schooners and sea-going vessels can discharge
lumber and materials on the wharf, making a minimum cost for cartage and
handling. Here have been built six if the largest clam-shell dredgers in
the world, some of them swinging 230-foot booms, which until the present
had never been attempted. Although this firm does considerable dredger
building and repairing, it also does all kinds of boat and barge
building and designing, having designed and built some of the best
gasoline towboats in and about the bay regions, and having just
completed and launched from its ways the ferryboat "City of Seattle,"
which is to operate between Martinez and Benicia.
On account of the rare facilities
found here for distribution, Pittsburg is made the base of operations
for the largest fish concerns on the coast, and is the center of the
fishing industry of the rivers of the State. Fully a thousand men devote
their entire time to the catching of fish, and to this class of labor
half a million dollars is paid annually. The fish chiefly taken from the
Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are salmon, striped bass, shad, and
catfish. In order to give some idea of the extent of this industry, it
is only necessary to state that during the canning season three tons of
Shad-roe (fish eggs) are obtained daily by one firm from that one kind
of fish. Shad-roe is a new by-product that is being extensively
developed and for which there is a growing demand.
While the principal offices of some of
our fish concerns are located in San Francisco, the business of packing
and distributing the products is carried on at Pittsburg because of the
superior advantages found here for shipping. The fishing business is
followed largely by Italians, whose large families have supplied much of
the labor employed in other industrial lines. The business of fishing is
carried on in such a quiet way that the casual observer has no
conception of the magnitude of the industry, covering, as it does,
shipments to all parts of the world.
Among the large operators of the
fishing industry are the American Fish & Oyster Company, and the F. E.
Booth Company, the latter employing from two to three hundred men
several months in the year in their canning operations, in addition to
their packing business.
The Los Medanos Rancho, a tract of
land of approximately ten thousand acres, was originally granted by the
Mexican Government in 1835 to Jose Antonio Mesa and Jose Miquel Garcia,
or Mesa, and was finally patented October 8, 1872, by the United States
Government to their successors, Jonathan D. Stevenson and others, who
laid out upon it a site for a city, known for a long time as "New York
of the Pacific." From this circumstance it derived the name "New York
Ranch," by which it is sometimes known. Its true name, "Los Medanos," is
derived from the sand hills that sweep down to the river adjoining the
eastern boundary of the ranch; the word "Medanos" means sand-drift, or
sandhill, or what is commonly known as a "sand spit." Stevenson and his
associates disposed of the property to one of the pioneer banking
concerns of years in turn transferred it to L. L. Robinson, a California
pioneer railroad builder and mining operator, and he at his death
bequeathed the property to his sister, Mrs. Cutter, of San Francisco,
from whom the title passed to the present owners, C. A. Hooper & Co.
The tract as a whole is a rich
agricultural property, and during early years and up to the ownership of
L. L. Robinson was devoted to grazing and stock-growing. Robinson during
his lifetime divided the property into farming subdivisions containing
from three hundred to six hundred acres and leased them to farmers, some
of whom are still on the property, having found it both a pleasant and
profitable place to live.
There has grown up on the rancho, on
its water-front, two considerable towns - Antioch, on its eastern
boundary, and Pittsburg, about midway. With the rancho's central
location at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, and
at a point where the traffic from the interior of the State and country
passes to and fro from the cities around San Francisco Bay, very likely
it will not be long until its acreage will pass from agriculture to an
industrial manufacturing and distributing center and furnish homes for a
large mercantile and industrial population.
Pittsburg has about twelve miles of
paved and macadamized streets, well lighted, and every street in the
improved area is sewered and macadamized. Contrary to the general rule
of the newer towns of the Pacific Coast, Pittsburg is compactly built,
although in no way congested, thus enabling it to have every street
fully improved.
A hotel (The Los Medanos) has just
been completed on Cumberland Street between Eighth and Ninth streets,
which doubtless marks a new era in the development of the town. The
building will probably cost $60,000. It is to be one of the best hotels
on the Pacific Coast outside of the larger cities, and will be modern in
every respect. Every convenience necessary is to be had. Every room has
hot and cold water, electric lights, telephone, steam heat, and rooms
en suite with private baths. The hotel is to be luxuriously
furnished throughout.
Within the last two years there have
been erected in Pittsburg many brick business blocks, and there are now
planned several more. Also within the year there will be under way the
building of the new Catholic church, at a cost of from $25,000 to
$30,000, the site having already been secured. The Congregational people
have also planned a new building, and intend to spend an equal if not
greater amount in their improvement.
The Pittsburg Dispatch, of
Pittsburg, California, was financed and launched by A. P. Betterworth,
recently postmaster at Elk Grove, and H. C. Jackson, reporter of the
Sacramento Union, the first issue being published January 3, 1917.
For one week the experiment was tried of publishing a daily, but at the
end of that time the owners decided that the field was hardly ready for
such a publication, hence the sheet was placed on a semi-weekly basis.
The plant of the Pittsburg Dispatch is well equipped, and as
soon as the growing business of a growing town justifies the move the
publication of the daily will be resumed.