as was California during these years; and few, even of the most prosperous, had grown as rapidly as she.
San Francisco the commercial emporium of the Pacific coast. The mining camps were soon extended so as to embrace a large portion of the territory west of the Sierras; towns like Stockton and Sacramento grew up as interior supply stations; while San Francisco, at the great harbour of California, rose at one bound to be the place of chief importance among Pacific coast seaports. Here was the emporium of all the trade of this rapidly growing population, having relations with the eastern coast, with Mexico, Central and South America, Australia, Hawaii, and in general all countries interested in the trade of the great goldproducing territory which fortune had recently tossed into the lap of the United States. Men from the eastern cities employed their capital and their business skill in building up at San Francisco great commercial establishments, whose influence has been felt throughout the later course of Pacific coast history. They did not confine themselves to California, but came northward to the Columbia River, to Puget Sound, and the smaller harbours along the northwest coast; to the interior districts of the Oregon country, wherever opportunities for profitable commerce were to be found. San Francisco's population of a few hundred in 1848 grew by 1860 to more than 56,000, in another decade it became 150,000, and by 1880 exceeded a quarter of a million.
Change in the course of Pacific coast history.
