Page:Mexico, California and Arizona - 1900.djvu/468

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OLD MEXICO AND HER LOST PROVINCES.

XXIX.

TO SAN DIEGO, AND THE MEXICAN FRONTIER.

I.

THESE and kindred scenes are to be met with in fifty, I know not how many more, localities of a similar sort. San Fernando, Florence, Compton, Downey City, Westminster, Orange, Tustin City, Centralia, Pomona, and Artesia may be mentioned as leading examples. The "colony" government is of a simple sort, and consists of a justice of the peace, constable, water overseer, and school trustees. Anaheim, settled by Germans, was one of the first established colonies, and has become a town of importance. Santa Ana had a special bustle at present, as the terminus, for the time being, of the railroad in process of building from Los Angeles to San Diego.

Perhaps, however, the greatest general air of distinction is worn by Riverside. This colony seems to have been sought to an exceptional degree by persons in good circumstances. It is fifty-seven miles lower down than Los Angeles, and reached by a drive of seven miles southward from the Southern Pacific Railroad at Colton. Four miles north of Colton, on the other hand, takes you to San Bernardino, an important place of six thousand people, originally settled by Mormons. The regular Mormons withdrew to Utah by order of Brigham Young on the threat of the coercive war there in 1857, and only