1874 San Diego City Directory
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COMMERCE.
have proved that San Diego's soil is unsurpassed in fertility and adaptability to northern and semi-tropical productions.
All the travel via Fort Yuma from Arizona and New Mexico passes through National City.
It is confidently believed that in a few years hence one great city will extend for miles along the bay, including what is now National City and San Diego. From the entrance to the head of the bay there is presented unquestionably the finest site on which a city was ever built. For the whole distance of thirteen miles the rise is so gradual that the most perfect grade and drainage can be secured with trifling cost.
COMMERCE.
As regards facilities for commerce, San Diego stands pre-eminent among the shipping points of the world, and must eventually take a position which will entitle it to the earnest attention of shippers of all countries. Lying as it does at the gateway of nations, and having already attracted the notice of commercial men, it is impossible that it can ever retrograde or be again neglected.
Hon. R. C. McCormick, of Arizona, than whom no one is better qualified for passing an opinion, in an able speech in the House of Representatives in 1871, said:
"San Diego, fixed by the bill (Texas & Pacific Railway) as the western terminus of the road, is situated upon a bay second only in size to San Francisco, and several hundred miles more directly in the track of vessels from China, Japan, and the Sandwich Islands, with a harbor, the grandeur, beauty, and excellence of which it would be difficult to exaggerate. The Texas & Pacific Railway is the shortest route over American soil, connecting the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the valley of the Mississippi with the Pacific."
In proof of this statement, we submit the following figures on the same authority:
New York to San Francisco, central route ... 3,283 miles. New York to San Francisco, southern route ... 3,359 " Difference in favor of central route ... 76 "
