In 1885, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad linked Los Angeles directly with Kansas City, precipitating a fare war with the Southern Pacific. Within a year, the cost of passage from Chicago had dropped from $100 to $25. During brief periods of mad competition, you could cross two-thirds of the continent for a dollar. If you were asthmatic, tubercular, arthritic, restless, ambitious, or lazy—categories that pretty well accounted for Los Angeles’ first flood of arrivals—the fares were too cheap to pass up. Out came Dakota farmers who despaired at the meager profits they made growing
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California is a dream.
