but it will be found a very expensive mode of transportation compared with the floating process. These are all crude ideas of mine you will say perhaps, but they have taken firm possession of my mind and will hardly be eradicated....
Affectionate friend, H. K. Thatcher.
It is interesting to note that the prediction in this letter that the country about Los Angeles would become the greatest producing country in the world has been fulfilled so far as the United States is concerned, for in the 1920 Census it is ranked first in agricultural production. The present development of San Pedro Harbor, now generally called Los Angeles Harbor, reads like a fairy story.
Admiral Thatcher was the grandson of Gen. Henry Knox, Washington’s first Secretary of War. The period of his command of the Pacific Squadron was from 1866 to 1868. Before the time of the writing of the letter quoted work was begun and a considerable break-water built, following in general the lines he had suggested.
