White Midwesterners / Easterners
Poster for the 1912 Tournament of Roses in Pasadena, California; courtesy Steve Turner and Victoria Dailey
While the Gold Rush spurred the rapid development of Northern California, the southern part of the state was considered a remote area until 1869. That year the Southern Transcontinental Railroad established Los Angeles as its last stop on the Santa Fe line. During the next year some 120,000 people traveled the rails to Los Angeles — most of them tourists or enterprising businessmen eager to strike it rich in real estate.
The Boom Comes to L.A.
In the months and years that followed, new arrivals to Los Angeles were drawn by railroad company advertisements that promised a lush and sunny land of riches. Traveling lecturers and new magazines such as Sunset painted the same romantic picture of Southern California. Wealthy and middle-class Easterners and Midwesterners were eager to make the journey west. The arrival of thousands of new settlers caused a massive real estate boom. Just three years after the Santa Fe line was completed, over 60 new towns appeared in Southern California and the population increased from 64,000 in 1860 to 201,000 in 1890.
The next major population boom for Southern California occurred in 1906, following the San Francisco earthquake and fire. The devastation that resulted led many residents and businesses to pack up and move south.