2-889-272 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sacramento - General View, 1850. Engraving from a daguerreotype, showing '...the town of Sacramento, now in course of construction...The mineral yellow-fever, say the Americans, has struck all the world; the irresistible love of Sacramento gold has attracted a host of frail structures, and a vast ceinture of tents. The town is built upon a hill, the houses reaching nearly to its summit: here are immense encampments in the environs, and the tent is here the advanced guard in the great work of civilisation, marking the future progress of the city, outstripping the carpenter and the mason, and indicating the best points for their first steps and earliest efforts. You land without difficulty upon a temporary pier, at the foot of the old Spanish fort. There is no custom-house officer to search your pockets, or, sword in hand, to examine your luggage'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.