Page 45 - California Diving and Surfing

he seat of government for California mountains. Once completed, hundreds of feats like the California and Los Angeles
thousands of U.S. citizens came west, where Aqueducts; the Oroville and Shasta Dams;
T under Spanish and later Mexican rule
was located at Monterey from 1777 until new Californians were discovering that land and the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges were

1845. Pio Pico, last Mexican governor of in the state, if irrigated during the dry sum- built across the state. The state government

Alta California, moved the capital to Los An- mer months, was extremely well suited to also adopted the California Master Plan

geles in 1845. The United States consulate fruit cultivation and agriculture in general. for Higher Education in 1960 to develop a

was also located in Monterey, under consul Vast expanses of wheat, other cereal crops, highly efficient system of public education.

Thomas O. Larkin. In 1849, the Constitu- vegetable crops, cotton, and nut and fruit C alifornia’s interconnected water system
tional Convention was first held in Monte- trees were grown (including oranges in is the world’s largest, managing over
rey. Among the tasks was a decision on a Southern California), and the foundation

location for the new state capital. was laid for the state’s prodigious agricul- 40,000,000 acre feet of water per year,

T he capital has been located in Sacra- tural production in the Central Valley and centered on six main systems of aqueducts
mento since 1854 with only a short elsewhere. and infrastructure projects. Water use and
break in 1861 when legislative sessions conservation in California is a politically
M igration to California accelerated divisive issue, as state experiences periodic
during the early 20th century with
were held in San Francisco due to flooding the completion of major transcontinental droughts and has to balance the demands

in Sacramento. highways like the Lincoln Highway and of its large agricultural and urban sectors,

I nitially, travel between California and Route 66. In the period from 1900 to 1965, especially in the arid southern portion of
the rest of the continental U.S. was time the population grew from fewer than one the state. The state’s widespread redistribu-
million to become the most populous tion of water also invites the frequent scorn

consuming and dangerous. A more direct state in the Union. The 1906 San Francisco of environmentalists.

connection came in 1869 with the comple- earthquake and 1928 St. Francis Dam flood

tion of the First Transcontinental Railroad remain the deadliest in U.S history. To meet

through Donner Pass in the Sierra Nevada the population’s needs, major engineering