ave grown in wealth and population so much faster than St. Louis, or
New Orleans, or San Francisco. It is not enough to point to her position
on the lakes, the wide extent of contributory industries, and the
convergence of railways; other cities have at their command as great
natural advantages with like limitless opportunity. As to location, city
sites are seldom chosen by convention, or the fittest spots favored.
Chicagoans assert that a worse place than theirs for a city cannot be
found on the shores of Lake Michigan. New York would be better up
the Hudson, London in Bristol channel, and San Francisco at Carquinez
strait. Indeed, it was by a Yankee trick that the sand-blown peninsula
secured the principal city of the Pacific.

It happened in this way. General Vallejo, Mexican comandante residing at
Sonoma, upon the arrival of the new American authorities said to
them: "Let it bear the name of my wife, Francesca, and let it be the
commercial and political metropolis of your Pacific possessions, and I
will give you the finest site in the world for a city, with state-house
and residences built and ready for your free occupation." And so it was
agreed, and the general made ready for the coming of the legislature.

Meanwhile, to the American alcalde, who had established his rule at
Yerba Buena, a trading hamlet in the cove opposite the island of that
name and nucleus of the present San Francisco, came Folsom, United
States army captain and quartermaster, to whom had been given certain
lots of land in Yerba Buena, and said: "Why not call the town San
Francisco, and bring hither ships which clear from various ports for
San Francisco bay?" And so it was done; the fine plans of the Mexican
general fell to the ground, and the name Benicia was given to what had
been Francesca. A year or two later, with five hundred ships of the
gold-seekers anchored off the cove, not all the men and money in the
country could have moved the town from its ill-chosen location.

Opportunity is much the same in various times and places, whether
fortuitous or forced. More men make opportunity than are made by
it, particularly among those who achieve great success. Land being
unavailable, Venice the beautiful was built upon the water, while the
Hollanders manage to live along the centuries below sea level.

The builders of Chicago possessed varied abilities of a high order, not
least among which was the faculty of working together. They realized
a