The
prosperity of the town of Stockton, (in 1848 a solitary ranch
surrounded by tule marshes), was the result of its location on the way
to the mines along the Mokelumne, the Stanislaus and the Tuolumne. It
was the natural trading center for those booming regions, and the
fortunate gentleman who had founded it sold half a million dollars
worth of building lots at Stockton before the end of 1849.
The
usual number of aimless loungers roamed through the canvas streets of
Stockton and waited at its wharves to see the launches arrive from San
Francisco. It was one of the singular phenomena of those days that,
with so much work to do, there were always so many men of infinite
leisure.
The
roads from Stockton to the mines were filled with pack-mule trains,
laden with freight. This was a much more stable business than gold
mining and some of the Americans who were running the trains boasted of
profits in the neighborhood of three thousand dollars a month. Profits
were bounded only by the obstinacy of the mules, whose distressing
habit of dying under stress of the heat, the dust and two hundred pound
loads was a great sorrow to the proprietors.
This
view of Stockton shows the town as it looked about midway through 1849;
several months before the argonauts from Panama and Mexico would have
arrived to outfit themselves for a trip up the San Joaquin.
