Anyway, when I was talking about Southern California I was referring to the South and how the South would be had the South won its independence in 1865. The Southern Pacific financing for its construction was part of the Compromise of 1877, thus no actual construction from Texas to California till 1877. That money and the Railroad line it built, would NOT have been built had the South been an independent country in 1877. California was a strong Northern Area (With the exception of the then low populated Southern California) and it was Californian Troops that fought the Apaches in 1862 at the battle of Apache Pass when the Apaches caused problems during the Civil War. Unlike most Native American tribes the Apaches had the ability to form into actual Military units and with such tactics could count for a least a draw till the California Militia used cannon on them. This was the first recorded time the Apaches had faced Cannon and to adjust the Apaches reverted to more Guerrilla tactics then the traditional regular infantry tactics they had been noted for. That was the main use of California Troops during the Civil War, to watch the Apaches and Navajos NOT to keep other Californian loyal to the Union.
For more on the California Column and the Battle of Apache Pass see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Apache_PassAnyway, with Texas and California is two different countries (if the South won its Independence in 1865) the US Congress would NOT have provided the money for the Southern Pacific to move East in 1877 (or its Texas branch to move West in 1877). I do not see the Confederacy providing the money for it would be ending in a state at best hostile to the South.
Now, Oil, Ranching, Farming and finally the Dust Bowl had people from the South move to Southern California after the Civil War but increasing heavily after 1900. For this reason Southern California seems to have a more Southern attitude as to how socially should be. Countering this Southern past is the fact that California, till long after 1900, was dominated by former New Englanders who had come with the Gold Rush or afterward AND the fact Southern California is a semi-desert and as such need extensive Government direction as to the Water Resources to be a livable place. These two influences forced Southern California to go a third way, different then the North and South. The primary reason is water and do to the need to control the water Southern California had to adopt a more northern attitude to community efforts i.e. the only way to make Southern California livable was through extensive water programs run by Government. On the other hand with the huge number of Southerns moving into Southern California, after 1880 with the completion of the Southern Pacific route to Texas, a more hands off approach to other social issues became the norm, thus following a more southern attitude to government regulations as to such activities.
Remember that while the North in the 1800s was slowly moving away from the old Puritan traditions of banning plays and other similar types of entertainment, those bans had never taken to much hold over the South even in the 1600s and 1700s. Thus, in the US, almost all music and other entertainment is of Southern extraction NOT Northern extraction (for example both Rock and Roll and Country Western had their roots in the South). New York only became known for entertainment in the 1800s do to its connections, via trade and banking, with the South (In many ways New York City was an exceptions to the Northern rule banning such forms of entertainment but it was a clear exception to the traditional northern rule).
My point is Southern California is more of a melting pot of these two traditions then the rest of the Country. The Puritan bans on plays and musical halls were still strong at the time of the American Revolution in the North, but already weak in the South by that date. The movement to permit such entertainment increased in the 1800s both north and south, but the South started with a clear head start and dominated the entertainment industry till Southern California took it over with the advent of movies in the early 1900s (Detroit with its huge African American input took the lead for few years in the 1960s, but the African Americans musical root was New Orleans and the South NOT the Midwest where Detroit is located).
Anyway, my point was simple, the Federal Government would NOT have financed the Southern Transcontinental railroad and neither would the South in the years after 1865 (Again remembering we are discussing what would have happened had the South won its Independence). Without that Federal subsidy the railroad would NOT have been built. I do NOT mean the subsidy that any railroad would get every other land track along its route, in the area in question that subsidy was of marginal importance, what I am talking about is the actual cash grants to the railroad to build the railroad in the low populated areas between Texas and California. We tend to forget about those cash grants but those cash grants were important when building not only the Union Pacific-Central Pacific, but the Southern Pacific Line to Texas and the Northern Pacific Line between the Great lakes and Oregon (The Great Northern Pacific to Seattle was NOT subsidized but only finished in 1905 in areas where the population had already started to boom to the the previous construction of the Northern Pacific). The Federal Government paid something like ten times the amount for any mile through mountains as opposed to flat lands and at times this subsidy was more important then finishing the railroad (For example the Credit Mobilier Scandal involving the Union Pacific, when the first transcontinental railroad was started, the Central Pacific went through the Mountains and received the higher subsidy BUT also reach gold fields that became important areas of profits as the Central Pacific reached them. The Union Pacific, received the lower subsidy for going through the flat plains but had the additional problem that no one was on the line it was building, In the first years of Construction the Central Pacific made a huge amount of money, while the Union Pacific lost money and that lead to the Credit Mobilier Scandal
For more on the Credit Mobilier Scandal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit__of_America_scandalOne last Comment, while it looks like California History tends to emphasis the move east by the Southern Pacific, most books used in the East tend to ignore the fact that technically the Southern Pacific started in California and headed east, and point out the Railroad heading west from what is now Houston Texas was owned by the Southern Pacific. Thus the tendency in the East to show the railroad going West as the Southern Pacific. In effect it was both. I consider that a small technically, the only reason the east-west route was built was do to the subsidize provided by Congress to build the Railroad, something that the Federal Government would NOT have done if the South was an Independent Nation after 1865.
Now the Sante Fe would have been built for the original route went via Colorado then to New Mexico then to Southern California. Later on the Sante Fe would have second route via the Upper Texas Panhandle and I see that route either NOT being built, or if built a cause of friction between the South and the North, with the prize being who would get the Northern Panhandle of Texas. For this reason I see the South BLOCKING the second route, but the first route would have been enough to open Southern California to traffic from St Louis and the North. The key would be how much the lack of the Southern Pacific route into Texas proper would have hurt the development of Southern California? And how much the Sante Fe Route would have compensated for that loss? I see some harm, how much is only speculation, but this whole sub-thread has been speculation. The South LOST the Civil War and the Southern Pacific was able to reach Houston and the Gulf Coast, connecting Houston directly with San Diego and Los Angles (and the later two cities by a short hop to New Orleans and the rest of the South and the Nation).
The Central Pacific built the California section of the Trans-Continental Railway, it later was taken over by the Southern Pacific:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Pacific_RailroadPlease note the Wikipedia site in its first paragraph says the Central Pacific is now part of the Union Pacific, but that is only since 1996, prior to 1996 the Central Pacific had been part of the Southern Pacific since 1885:
For more on the Southern Pacific see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Pacific_Company#Successor_railroadsThe Southern Pacific Rival the Sante Fe Railroad:
The Burlington Northern and Sante Fe Railroad:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNSF_Railway
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