If The City Grows Rapidly
Enough, These Gains May Be Inordinately Great.
The marvelous beauty of
Southern California and the charm of its climate have impressed
thousands of people.
Two or three times this impression has been
epidemic. At one time almost every bluff along the coast, from Los
Angeles to San Diego and beyond, was staked out in town lots. The
wonderful climate was everywhere, and everywhere men had it for sale,
not only along the coast, but throughout the orange-bearing region of
the interior. Every resident bought lots, all the lots he could hold.
The tourist took his hand in speculation. Corner lots in San Diego, Del
Mar, Azusa, Redlands, Riverside, Pasadena, anywhere brought fabulous
prices. A village was laid out in the uninhabited bed of a mountain
torrent, and men stood in the streets in Los Angeles, ranged in line,
all night long, to wait their turn in buying lots. Land, worthless and
inaccessible, barren cliffs' river-wash, sand hills, cactus deserts'
sinks of alkali, everything met with ready sale. The belief that
Southern California would be one great city was universal. The desire to
buy became a mania. "Millionaires of a day," even the shrewdest lost
their heads, and the boom ended, as such booms always end, in utter
collapse.
Mr. T. S. Van Dyke, of San Diego, has written of this episode: "The
money market tightened almost on the instant. From every quarter of the
land the drain of money outward had been enormous, and had been balanced
only by the immense amount constantly coming in.
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