Alton Telegraph
Alton, Illinois
February 28, 1873
San Francisco.
So much has been written and told of this far-famed city of the Occident that more may seem superfluous.
In crossing the Pacific Ocean, from Sydney,
Australia, to San Francico, the first
and the weary traveler sights, is the rugged
headland of "Pnnta de Arenra." This
cape is just 100 miles north of the entrance t
o the Golden Gate.
The "Heads" which guard the entrance t o San Francisco Bay and Harbor, are separated by a narrow channel, of half a mile in width, and the heavy artillery of Fort Alcatraz command the narrow entrance.
A heavy surf forever rolls on the bar and in rough weather ships have to "heave to" or stand "off and on" until a change in he weather occurs.
San Francisco numbers some 160,000 inhabitants of all nationalities. American English, French, Spanish and Chinese, the after number some 1,200 souls.
The city is substantially built of stone and brick for most part. The finest buildings
are the U. S. Mint and the Grand and
Occidental Hotels, besides numerous fine business blocks and a great mant palatial
private residences. This live city hag- been t
wice destroyed by fire and once entirely p
rostrated by an earthquake, since 1852, but such is its remarkable recuperative power that these calamities only seemed to
give a new impetus to its progress.
The commerce of this city ia enormous. Three hundred clipper ships, most of them English bottom, were required to move the
wheat crop of California to market the past season.
San Francisco is the most enterprising a nd wide-awake city of the United States.